the history of the news business. the place was packed, right? everybody was having a great time, and considering the subject is no good, because the subject is about our country, and our country is in trouble. between the debt, between the joblessness and -- and let me tell you. with the phony 5% numbers that you hear about unemployment. it's a phony number. it's a phony number. it's a number that when somebody looks for a job, and i don't want to have you raise your hand because you may be embarrassed, i'd be a little embarrassed, somebody looks for a job and they give up, and they are great people. they are up believable. they have worked all their lives and they can't find a job, right, and they give up. now they are considered statistically employed so we show this phony number and on that i don't blame obama so much because this was frankly to make presidents look good and politicians look good which is not an easy thing to do, okay? because they want to show oh, how wonderful the economy. just as i was getting off the plane today we announced trade

deficit numbers for the month which were like almost record-setting. we have trade deficits that are worse than ever before. all i've done for years is talk about trade deficit -- i used to talk about japan. now i talk more about china, but it's still japan. it's everybody. it's everybody. we don't make good deals with anybody. but last night i was talking about trade because i love it. it's my favorite subject. that and strengthening our military and taking care of our vets. they are my favorite subject. they are my favorite subjects. will other than my children or grandchildren. could i talk about my grandchildren. he was 39 minutes in the back of a plane talking about his grandkids. ladies and gentlemen, the president is going to talk about his grandchildren. well, i have two. he has two. i have eight. he has two, but he talked about -- how long are you going to talk about it? i'll bet they are beautiful. two beautiful children. he says they are beautiful.

they are really smart. they are really good. i love them so much. they are unbelievable. you know, one is brand new, beautiful little baby. okay. after about a minute, what can you talk about? oh, you can say here's a picture, look, look. okay. so that's one minute out of the 39-minute time, right? then we talk about golf, right? so you say jack nicklaus, who endorsed me. i love jack. i love jack. he's the greatest. jack. did you know jack endorsed me? do you know how young jack was when he won the ohio state championship, jack nicklaus? he's the greatest guy and he's a friend of mine, and he endorsed me. i didn't ask for the endorsement. i don't want to the do that. file like sort of guilty when i ask people for endorsements. i said, thanks, well, you're going to do a good job and shake things up. when you talk about winners

were, is jack a winner, right? >> did you see the u.s. open was on the other day, and i think jack nicklaus was in the top -- the top 1089 like -- i think it was 18 times. he was in the top -- i've never seen anything like it. his record is unbelievable. he won it four times. top 10 18 times. this guy is a winner. when i get an endorsement from nicklaus, bobby knight, bobby knight. bobby will be speaking at the convention. so many people. such a great convention planned. i have to go back. last night i made a great speech, standing ovation and everyone is crazy. nobody talks about the crowd. every time i go home my wife says how was the crowd? they never showed the crowd. i tell you. they only show when we have protesters. i love my protesters. don't we have any damn protesters today, because when we have protesters -- you think you have one?

he's -- he's -- friend or foe. he's friend. okay. but i love my protesters because the cameras spin around at angles you wouldn't believe. they do somersaults around. they look like a sausage because i went -- my first two speeches i had no protesters, and every time i went home, big crowds, and every time i went home did you see the size of the crowd? no, i didn't. you can hear the size. last night you could hear the size. many, many more than the president and hillary got so people would say, well, i hear it. they hear that sort of humming sort of, you know, that's not like from 12 people, but we have this -- so what happens is last night we have a great evening in north carolina. we're going to win north carolina. we're going to win ohio. we're doing great here. by the way, the section i just left last week, wonderful congressman and his wife and i

said to him i won't -- i don't want to embarrass anybody, but i said did you endorse me? he said even i don't like you, i would endorse you. you know why, mr. trump, you have a 29-point lead in this section. you're right. you have to endorse me. we're going to take care of our miners, and we're going to take care of our steel workers. hillary is not. she's going to put you out of business because if she ever won she would sign tpp which will make nafta which was signed by her husband which is the worst, in my opinion, the worst trade deal in the history of this country and it's not even close, signed by bill clinton, and he didn't suffer from it. it was everybody that followed him that suffered from it. where your jobs are moving. i look at your jobs where they are moving down to mexico, right? they are moving to mexico. one after another they are moving to mexico. china is coming and dumping the steel and making it impossible for your steel plants. they are devaluing their currencies. we do nothing about it. folks, i'm going do so much

about it. it's going to be so easy. it's going to be so easy. it's going to be so easy. so last night we had this and then i wake up and i hear number one i love saddam hussein. i hate saddam hussein, but i love saddam hussein according to the press because they are dishonest as hell. they heard what i said, and number two, and they said it very, very strongly. they said he should have spoken about hillary clinton longer. now, i wrote out like four pages that i wrote out, and i read it. point by point by point, and after a long time, i don't know, many, many minutes, i got thousands of people and this really stupid guy, chuck todd, i won't use his name. i refuse to use his name. i refuse to call him sleepy eyes. i'm not going to call him sleepy eyes anymore. he's talking about he had an opportunity to hit hillary clinton. did you see what i did to her

last night? i just -- am i correct? i mean, it got to a point -- it got -- i was hitting her so hard, and the problem is i'm a professional, and i'm hitting her so hard, and i know it doesn't mean anything because the system is rigged, and it's fixed and it's broken. so i'm doing it and i'm doing it because i feel i have to do it, and it's sort of boring to do it to be honest with you, and i wanted to get on to the military and the vets. i wanted to get on to these other subjects. i wanted to get on to terror, okay, because we are going to experience things that you won't even believe, folks. watch the predictions. lots of predictions, right! and i wanted to get on to terror and one of the reasons the women are liking me a lot lately -- [ applause ] thank you, thank you, thank you. because they feel i'm going to keep our country safe. i'm going to keep our country safe.

and they love ivanka and they love milanelania and ivanka ande will be speaking at the convention, and by the way -- so i get hit this morning. he had the opportunity to go -- everyone said i made a great speech. to tell you how bad my speech was last night. cnn covered it from point to point without a commercial. fox covered it practically from beginning to end. others covered it -- that's how bad my speech was yesterday. that's how bad. you know, if it were bad, folks, these guys -- they don't care about polls. they don't care about anything. they only care about what one thing. what's the one thing? ratings, ratings. so i made a speech last night that some. folks gave an "a" to and some of them give an a-plus to, but when

i saw nbc, sleepy eyes chuck todd this morning say he had a chance to really go after hillary clinton. oh, what i did to her. but after a while we have to talk about other things, okay. so here's the story. we're going to make america great again. we're going to make america great. we're going to take our country back, for everybody. not for us. not for this room. not for this room. not for the overflow room. not for the people outside. we're going to take our country back for everyone. we're going to take it back for african-american youth who have a 59% unemployment rate, by the way, 59%. we're going to take it back for african-american youth who have a 59% unemployment rate and have no chance. they have no chance in our society. you know who i just spoke to,

big don king. big don king. just spoke to him. don, i would love you to speak at the convention, because you know what. you beat the system. and he's a friend of mine. big don, biggest boxing promoter of all time. in fact, somebody said and mike tyson endorsed me as you know and don king endorsed me. you know what don king does. he owns a newspaper. he endorsed donald trump for president, bernie sanders for vice president, and how do you like that, he put a big ad in the paper, his paper. he wants bernie sanders for vice president. i said that's a new one. big don king. >> i like that, too. we like newt, and i'll tell you what.

newt has been my friend for a long time. i'm not saying anything and i'm not telling newt anything, one form or another newt gingrich will be involved with our government, okay? he's smart. he's tough. he gets it. and he says i'm the biggest thing he's ever seen in the history of politics. now, newt's going to be involved if i can get approval from his wife. that may be tough, but that's okay. and, you know, i have somebody else very special here. so i have wonderful children and and i'm lucky they were smart. they were born smart. they were born smart, and god was good and they went to great schools and they did well and they are in business and they do well and they feel so strongly

about what i'm doing. they don't even like it in terms of doing it themselves. they love what they are doing. my one boy is here. eric trump, eric. and i'm very proud of eric. he's done a great job in the real estate business and knew i threw him into this political business and he's doing a good damn job and he loves the real estate. let me tell you a little story. i love this crowd. isn't it nice when you don't read from a speech? ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being here or hillary with the teleprompters every single time. and whether you go north and south or east and west donald trump is a bad person. donald trump made a lot of money in atlantic city and she hurt the little people. calls it the little people. didn't. made a lot of money and government, what they did, i'll

tell you, did you see that sham? i left seven years ago. but she goes and after a little while, ever notice after 12 minutes people start leaving. we can't do that. the nice part is let me tell you. i go to scotland and i know i'm going to get killed if i go to scotland an i went there to make sure that my boy, i bought turnberry four or five years ago and doing a massive renovation just like we're opening the old post office in october. we're a year ahead of schedule. i could open it sooner but i wanted to get it as close to the election. i was going to open in auction, i'm delaying it, the hotel is going to open sooner. but i want to say we're more than a year ahead of schedule and we're under budget and the product is even better than i said it was going to be, right?

maybe i'll open it on november 7th, the day before the big day, and we're going to have and the press will be there. they will be there by the hundreds, but they don't say we're under budget. they won't say we're ahead of schedule. people know, but what happened is we have children. we have children and i want to support my children and i want to support my children. so i put eric trump, ivanka has been great and don has been great, and tiffany is just starting now, she's just graduating from college. baron has great potential but he's 10, you know. but he has great potential and i put my children as they grow a little bit older in charge of different jobs and i put eric in charge of the great turnberry resort in scotland, the home of the british open which now they call the open championship, and eric spent the last year going back and forth. he'd spend two days over there and go back and fight with contractors and he got great

contractors and they did an unbelievable job and i've been hearing about it and if i go over there these dishonest horrible human beings trump went over to play golf in the middle of a campaign. i can't do that, but i have to support my children, right? so i said, you know what. i want to fly over and i'm going to fly back and i want to support my son. so what happened -- but just to show you -- no, no. just to show you how dishonest hillary clinton is and the press, so i go out and we have the bagpipes, we have everything. we have a ribbon cutting on the ninth tee, on the beautiful ninth tee overlooking the ocean, and -- and the beautiful lighthouse. one of the greatest courses anywhere in the world. we rebuilt the course and everything. we rebuilt the hotel. it's great, and -- and that was the day that europe had the big turn where the uk left, right? they left. and i said, not brag being, but

i have a pulse. we need somebody with touch. we have horrible people. they have no touch. no brain. no nothing. so obama says if that happens they will go to the back of the line. i would say that -- i think obama might have been the reason that they broke away, okay? he said that the uk is going to the back of the line. not a nice statement. not a nice statement. can you imagine if i said that. the back. line. oh, would i be killed for that statement. going to the back of the line. bottom line, they asked me a lot of times. i think they are going to break away. i think they want their independence. i think they are going to break away. i think countries are being forced against their will to take these people and they don't want them and instead of building these wonderful places where they can ultimately go back to their homeland where they want to be anyway, they are just being forced so germany is a disaster right now. sweden, parts of sweden.

i mean, things are really bad, so i said i think they are going to -- by the way, the odds were 20% that i would be right. 20, because they said it's not going to happen. they are going to abrief and that's going to be the end of that. i was right. they broke away. they broke away. i was right. and then the next day oh, they said trump was right, the same thing could happen in the united states. let me tell you. we're going to right a second time and we're tired of incompetent people and hillary clinton, i said bad judgment. she's incompetent, okay? she's incompetent. the only good thing she's ever done is get out of trouble when anybody else would have been in jail by now. that's the only thing that i've ever seen her do that was a great job. i've got to give her credit. i got to give her credit. i've got to give bill clinton credit for going to that plane and saying for 39 minutes he talked about his grandchildren

and he talked about golf. there's no way you can do that. i told you. two minutes for the grandchildren, two minutes for golf. we've got 35 or 36 minutes left. what are we going to talk about? let's talk about hillary. and hillary then talks about i think i'd reappoint the attorney general and you're waiting for a decision by the attorney general and you're saying you're going to give her a job. you're not allowed to do that. that's bribery, folks, and then the attorney general comes out as newt said, but the attorney general comes out and the attorney general says no charges. that's bribery, wouldn't you say that's bribery? she said she's going to reappoint the attorney general and the attorney general is waiting to make a determination as to whether or not she's guilty and boy was that a fast

determination, wow. could have at least waited a little bit longer. don't just come out with one or two sentences. talk about it a little bit. so, look, again, again, trouble. here's what happens. so i go to scotland, beautiful. the weather was beautiful and the waves are crashing up on the rocks. we're opening the course and getting ready to cut a rib bonn. we have so many press. we had over 400, the legendary, how many, 400. 450. it was unbelievable because they are all there for brexit and they were all there to see what was going to happen. will the uk break away and now that's about six hours old so they are bored and they want the next story and the next story is trump so i go there and all of a sudden i start hearing what's trump doing in scotland? well, he's playing golf. so i have a news conference. even newt said that was a great news conference. even i did a good job. when newt says i did a good job. he's a very critical guy.

he sometimes says i don't like what he's saying and so let me just tell you. any questions. any questions? and the place goes crazy, the cameras. i'm telling you, we had as big a group of media as you've ever seen. they all drove up, you know, from london, different places. everybody just converged on turnberry and i'm taking questions, and one of the questions was mr. trump if the pound goes down how will turnberry do? so i say i didn't bring this up. i said, look, here's what happens. if the pound goes down, turnberry will do very well because a lot of people are going to travel to the uk, they will come to scotland. turnberry is going to do very well if the pound goes down, period, next day it's in an ad by crooked hillary clinton and i'm all over the place and they show the question. here's the thing. did you hear donald trump? all he talked about was his

resort and they show me. they don't show the question. if the pound goes down, turnberry's going to do very well. okay. then they gave me a golf club. i said i don't want to touch it. i don't want to touch golf. i don't -- i'm leaving. i inspected the hotel. i inspected the course. i said eric trump, you did a great job. i'm getting the hell out of here now because i want to be back campaigning. i'm going to get out. congratulates, my boy, i love you. come up, eric, come up, eric. i love you, my boy. i love you. i said -- that's my 6'6" boy but he's always going to be my boy, right? so i said, eric, i'm out of here. i'm going, i'm leaving, i've got to go, but they said, mr. trump, would you like to hit the first ball? no, i don't want to touch a club because i know if i touch a club these horrible, horrible human

beings plus the hillary clinton 1,000-people staff that she has, right, will come up with a clip of me holding a golf club so i don't want to touch it. we cut the ribbon, i inspected the property and i'm very proud of the job he did, unbelievable job, and i went around and i got out of there, i was in scotland one night. that's not easy. it's a long trip, right? i was there one night and i was out of there. so here's what happens. the next day the news comes on. donald trump who went to scotland in the middle. campaign to play golf, but here's what's worse, they took my statement on the pound, if the pound goes down, turnberry's going to do great. they don't know i'm answering a question, so everyone thinks i'm brag and i want the pound to go down, but here's the worst. so that crooked, crooked, disgusting group that works for hillary clinton, now, remember, i never touched a club.

i never -- they show me hitting a ball. donald trump playing golf in scotland during the, you know, troubles and everything else of the world and they put it in an ad, but the picture was from two years before at a different course! the only good thing -- no, it's try, and they said playing golf at turnberry. two good things happened out of it. number one, the head of turnberry said, sir, did you take an ad because we're being swamped with business, really? that's good, right, that's good, and the other thing is the swing looked good. they didn't put one of my bad swings. i have them. the swing looks very good. hillary, thank you very much. how dishonest is the that, so they show me playing golf at turnberry and i didn't play golf. the picture was two years old or more. in fact, it was more! you know how i can tell it was

more. i was even thinner. i said, man, i like that -- i never -- i love the swing and i looked thin, well, relatively thin. i just want to say that this young guy, my daughter, my other son don, my wife who puts up with a lot with all of that going on. i mean, this is big stuff. this is big stuff. but my family has been so -- my sister who is incredible, my sister who is a federal judge, court of appeals. my other system, elizabeth. my brother robert who is a great guy. i have one brother who passed away, but i have great children. tiffany has been so amazing. my kids, my family have been so unbelievable, and this is not easy for them. they go out. mostly people love it, but some people don't. you know, the one thing that's interesting, and i told this to eric on the plane, my wife said, you know, when you go out, you

never -- everybody loved you. now most people love you, but there's people that don't. you never had those people before. i said but we have to make america great again and ultimately hopefully my biggest dream is to have those people love me, too, not because of me, but because we're going to do such a great job, does that make sense, right? so i'll introduce -- i'll introduce eric trump. rarick trump did an unbelievable job. he's doing an unbelievable job, and he was pushed into the world of politics not because he wanted it but because i said good luck on television tonight, you're doing the show. so eric trump, everybody. >> wow. >> wow! wow. >> well, thank you. we have some good fans over there and my father is just the greatest and i truly say this from the bottom of my heart. i love him to death. as a family we love him and

thank you for loving him. as a family we are so proud of him. you know, he is going to win this. we are going to win this. he is going to make america great again. we are going to beat crooked hillary clinton. there's no question about it. we're going to bring this country back and thank you guys so much for all the support from the entire family. thank you, we love you, ohio. >> thank you, eric, thank you. thank you to your brothers and sisters and thank you, everybody, and family has just been incredible, so when i was getting off the plane i just wanted to tell you a couple of good things and a couple of bad things about the country and what's going on. terrorism is at a -- just at a horrible, horrible level. people don't feel safe. polls are coming out people feel more unsafe right now than they have at any time for many, many years. we're going to make feel safe again. you're going to feel safe again. i'm very, very proud of the fact

in a when we ran that in the history of the republican party, you've got the most votes ever by a lot. almost 14 million votes. more than anybody that's ever run and i'm very proud of that fact. and maybe more important, and i want to thank the rnc and reince priebus. he's been great. i have to tell you reince has been great, and i mean that 100%. he's been so amazing. he works hard. he'll fly if there's an event in california. he will fly on that plane and he'll be there. i'll say weren't you just in washington? yes, i flew to be at the event. the guy is really terrific, but it was just announced that the republicans in terms of the primary voters, final count, final count, 62% up from four years ago. it's unheard of. that's unheard of numbers. that is an unheard of -- did you know, that newt? that is an unheard of number.

the democrats. there was a mosquito. i don't want mosquitos around me. i don't like mosquitos. i don't like those mosquitos, i never did. speaking of mosquitos, hello, hillary, how are you doing? so the democrats -- the democrats were down, with all the bernie sanders stuff and everything you hear and all this and by the way, our crowds are so much bigger than his, it's not even close, but with all of the things you hear the democrats are down 21% from four years ago. there's no real enthusiasm. if they had enthusiasm for bernie and bernie was outflanked by the establishment. he was really outflanked. he never had a chance and frankly i wouldn't have had a chance except we were winning by such large numbers. if we didn't win, florida a 21-point victory, one 66 of 67 counties.

new york, pennsylvania, connecticut. you look at all of these different places, rhode island, maryland, delaware. we had a group where we won every single county in every single state. in california i got 78% of the vote, and there were still lots of names on there, and you know when you have the largest number of votes in the history of the republican party and we had 17 people running, folks. that's a big difference as opposed to two or three or four. we had 17 people so it's impossible to win that number when you have 17 people, and we won easily, more than ronald reagan who we love. more than richard nixon, more than the bushes, more than dwight d. eisenhower who did have a lot to do with the second world war victory in all fairness. that's a great thing. the bad part is this. in coming off the plane i heard that our trade numbers are a disaster, a disaster. getting worse than ever before.

we're losing so much money. we have trade deficits that are so massive. not only with china, not only with mexico, which is massive. i give -- i take my hats off to the leadership of mexico for the job they have done on us. they treat us like we're babies. they treat us at the border and with trade. you ever see the companies that are moving to mexico? i think i waon indiana largely because carrier air conditioning company -- i love indiana and i also won because of the great bobby knight, right, bobby knight. i told you that story where bobby called up and he said, sir. you've got to run for president. that a year before i did it. you're going to run for president. i said is this really bobby knight. i didn't know bobby knight and then when i ran and i got to indiana, somebody said you think you could ever get bobby knight? and i said i think so and i had his paper and i had his number, and he picks up the phone and he goes i've been waiting for you

to call. he's a cool dude. he won 900 games. he won three championships for indiana. he won the olympics. he won the pan-am games. he had the last undefeated season in college basketball. he's a winner. jack nicklaus and jack, you know, when ohio, to me having his endorsement is so great and jack and bobby, we have so many unbelievable champs endorsing, so many unbelievable champs and here's the story, folks. we're going to turn it around. we're going to bring our jobs back to this country, and we're going to bring them back big league. we're not going to let conditions -- we're not going to let companies leave our country without there being consequences, consequences. as an example. when carrier left and they left 1,400 people and those 1,400 people, many of them followed me all over indiana. they love trump because i'm the only one that spoke their

language. they were fired like dogs. they were fired by a mid-level management guy. they had jocks, some of them for 30 years. they were fired viciously like you never saw anything like it, and fortunately somebody had the cell phone and we never -- i probably wouldn't be talking about it right now and it was all over the news, and it made a big impact, and i've been talking about it long before i went to indiana. the other guys just started talking about it when they arrived to try and win because that was going to be the fire wall. remember, the fire wall. trump is going to win new york, but trump is going to win also pennsylvania and these other states, connecticut. we're doing great in connecticut, too, by the way, but trump's going to win all these states but when we get to indiana, that's the fire wall. trump's not going to win the firewall. and we won the firewall in a landslide. that was a big, big, and then everybody just said, you know what they said? we just can't take it anymore.

we're leaving, gone and that was the end of that, right? but we've had an amazing period of time, but what i would have told carrier air conditioning, and i would if i can get there in time. i would have said enjoy your plant, hot weather. pretty hot up here, too, by the way. hot weather. i said enjoy your plant and make lots of air conditioners, but when you start selling air conditioners through a very strong bothered and we have a very strong border and i want people to come in. i want people to come into the country. they are going to come in by the thousands, but they are going to come into the country legally, right? legally. so i'm going to say myself or my rep, and i always say to my wife but i want to call carrier. you're the president of the united states, you're not

supposed to be calling but it's so much fun. i'll get carl icahn to call, so many people endorsing us. and we call carrier and say enjoy your new plant and i hope you have great success but every single time you make a beautiful air conditioner and you want to sell it to the united states, there's going to be a 35% tax on that air conditioner coming into this country. okay? now a lot of conservatives, you know, these characters that have been fighting me never trump, never trump, never trump. oh, these are people -- here's a guy, you talk about a great conservative but he gets it. some of these people don't go it. never trump. never trump is disappearing rapidly. you heard about the 51 million, anybody? 51? raised $51 million, right? $51 million. even newt couldn't believe that, right, newt? $51 million raised. okay.

so here's what's going to happen and i just started really -- listen. sounds like a football game. newt, newt, newt. i don't know, newt, are they booing or are they saying newt? it's one of those names, right? no, they love newt. they do love newt. we all love newt. newt gets it. i'll tell you one thing, folks. i'm not saying it's newt, but if it's newt, nobody's going to be beating him in those debates, that's for sure, right? nobody. nobody's beating on newt in the debates. yeah. we raised $51 million and "the washington post" had a good story for the first time in a long time and gave a great story. 51 million. nobody can believe it, and i only started mid-june because they were beating me up. trump was down -- and i'm raising the money for the party and i'm putting up a lot of my own money, like i put up over 50 for the primaries. i'm putting up a lot of my own money, but here's what's going to happen. folks. here's what's going to happen. we're going to be so successful,

and when people call me, pundits, people right up here in these platforms, look at all these people, i can't stand them, but look, look, one of them called who is here today and said mr. trump, what you've done is incredible. sir, this is a pretty liberal call. i was surprised he called me sir actually. what you've done is absolutely incredible and honestly i said, you know, it's not so incredible. i haven't won. they said, no, no, you don't have to win. you don't interest to win. what you've done has never been done before in the history of politics. it's incredible. i said let me give you a little clue. if i don't mean winning the run person left then i've wasted a lot of time and a lot of money. i haven't done a damn thing. that's the way i feel about it. because we're not going to be able to lower your taxes, we're not going to be able to get you good health care, we're not going to be able to save your

second amendment which is under siege, by the way, and the national rifle association, the nra, endorsed me with the earliest endorsement they have ever given to a and can a date, okay? and hillary clinton wants to take your guns away. she wants to effectively abolish the second amendment. that's why they gave me the early endorsement because she is unthinkable for the nra. unthinkable. but all of these things are going to happen, so let me just finish my saying the following. i love ohio. i love the people of ohio. go out and vote for rob portman. he's been terrific. go out and vote for rob, but i love the people of ohio, and we're going to start winning again, folks. we don't win anymore as a country. we don't win on trade. we don't win with the military.

you know, when i was young, we never lost a war, all of us, a lot of you my age. when we were young, i still feel young, don't you feel young? but -- but when we were young, we never lost a war. they used to say we've never lost a war. now we never win a war. we never win a bat. we never win anything. we have these idiots that get on television saying we are going to attack isis in 48 hours and when we attack we're going to hit them from the rear and we're going after fallujah and that will take place in exactly two weeks and after that thanks place we're going to ramadi and we will -- now what happens is they say, oh, i mean, the only problem is they can't be anybody is so stupid to be saying all this stuff so sometimes they don't believe it and we can get away with it. can you imagine, newt, the great

general george patton getting on television to say when we're leaving iraq. we are leaving on that date so the enemy goes back and they say nobody can be that stupid to say that. we don't really believe it, but you know what? just in case obama is serious, let's just pull back. hey, you know. they don't want to be killed. you know they talk about they want to be killed, trust me. they can live. they would rather live. they will have their time. but you know what? pull back, pull back. so now they pull back and he didn't leave anybody behind. i didn't want to go into iraq from beginning. i said you're going to destabilize the middle east, once you go in, the way he got out was unbelievable. draws the line in the sand, the line in the sand. a violation. the line in the sand doesn't mean anything. nothing means anything. we have a president who is terrible. we have a president who is -- who is right now what he wants to do is -- all he wants to do

is campaign. he has fun campaigning. he has a good time campaigning. i want a president that's going to be focusing on knocking the hell out of isis is. i want a. -- i want a president that's going to focus on making great trade deals so that china and us, we don't have a $505 billion a year trade deficit. i want a president that's going to create strong borders and i want a president that's going to keep criminals out of our country and people that kill us, people that are going around shooting people in the back. jameel shaw great, shot in the face by a person who shouldn't be in this country. kate, san francisco, shot in the back by somebody that was thrown out of the country five times and probably got forced back in. we're going to have a safe country again, folks, and we're going to start winning again. we're going to win and we're

going to win so much, and i'm telling you, and i have saying this, but there's nothing fun about it because of what's going on. but we're going to win so much that the people of ohio are going to call your representatives. they are going to call matt borgess, head of the republican party, good guy, by the way. matt, you better win ohio for me, matt. they are going to call matt. they are going to call rob. you're going to call you have to see the president. we're winning too much. we're not used to winning this much. we're going to win with our military. we'll knock the hell out of isis. we're winning with the vets and with health care and we're winning with the border and we're winning with the wall and we're wing on our second amendment. mr. president, sir, you're winning too much. the people of ohio can't stand so much winning. we're not used to it! and you know what? i'm going to say i don't care, rob. i don't care, matt!

we're going to keep winning because we are going to make america great again! thank you, everybody. i love you. thank you. thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you, ohio. thank you, cincinnati. i love cincinnati. ♪

>> at this evening's campaign rally in cincinnati, donald trump talked about fbi director james comey's recommendation to not go forward with criminal charges against hillary clinton for her use of private e-mail servers while secretary of state. we did learn this evening that the attorney general loretta lynch says the e-mail investigation is closed and that no charges will be brought. the "wall street journal" sent this treat today from house speaker paul ryan saying hillary clinton should be denied access to classified information during the presidential campaign. here's more from speakerer ryan on that. >> speaker ryan, are you confident the fbi's

investigation of hillary clinton and do you think she got preferential treatment? >> i'll let everybody be the judge of that. it looks like it to me. i'll say a couple of things. number one, director comey's press conference tomorrow raises more questions than provides answers. that's point number one. point number two, there are a lot of questions that have to be answered, and so we're going to be asking those questions. i know the judiciary committee sent a letter i think last night with a number of questions, ogr, that committee is going to invite the fbi director to come up and testify. he did say that short of prosecution some kind of administration -- administrative action might be in order. look, i was on the ticket in 2012. after the convention you get the full deep classified information as part of transition, as part of being a nominee. i think the dni, clapper, should -- should deny hillary clinton access to classified

information during this campaign given how she so recklessly handled classified information. that's point one. point two. director comey's presentation shredded the claims that secretary clinton made throughout the year with respect to this issue. he -- he laid out a case how the things she had been saying she had or had not done were false so we have seen nothing but stonewalling and dishonesty from secretary clinton on this issue and that means there's a lot more questions that need to be answered. >> speaker ryan there talking about fbi director james comey's decision. we'll have live coverage of the fbi director tomorrow. he's schedule to testify before the house oversight committee. that's live at 10:00 a.m. eastern right here on c-span 3. more about the fbi director's decision on "congressional journal."

>> congressman louie gomert joins us now after fbi director james comey outlined hillary clinton's extremely careless handling of classified information while show was secretary of state. congressman, first your reaction to that press conference yesterday? >> i was amazed. he, as so many have said, he spent about 13 of his 15 minutes outlining a powerful case against hillary clinton and why she should be indicted, and then at the end, you know, he yanked the string and pulled it all back and said, you know, no good prosecutor would pursue that case, and he said there was no direct evidence of intent. i mean, i've been a prosecutor, judge, chief justice. i know most of the time there's no direct evidence of intent. it's very rare that you have an e-mail or an overt statement i intend to do this. now hillary may have had e-mails that stated in that intent and that's why those were destroyed. we'll never know.

>> can intent be considered not -- wanting to avoid disclosure rules? >> absolutely. absolutely. it doesn't have to be intent under a couple of different statutes. there's no requirement for intent to betray the united states, and in fact the law that he cited, gross negligence is a basis for prosecution, and gross negligence is extreme carelessness which is what he said they found. a vocabulary word for perhaps the viewers spoliation, a legal doctrine that's applied in most forms in every state and it is under federal rule 35 that if someone -- if a party has possession of evidence and that evidence is destroyed while in their sole possession then the judge may instruct the jury that

you may consider as direct evidence that they had this party, in this case, hillary clinton had the evidence. it was destroyed in her possession and, therefore, you may take that as evidence of guilt or guilty knowledge or what the judge -- going to the intent issue again. >> yes, exactly. can you prove intent just by the fact that she destroyed massive amounts of e-mails when she knew, at least part of those before they were destroyed, they were being sought. >> you're a former federal prosecutor, former judge so what sort of precedent does this decision set in future cases when it comes to classified e-mails? >> i don't think it sets any more precedent than the prosecution of general petraeus which, by the way, you know, comey, and this is from his words, that normally you don't prosecute unless it's clearly intentional or willful miss handling of classified information. vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support inference of intentional

misconduct, indications of disloyalty to the united states or efforts to obstruct justice. you didn't have any of those in petraeus, but the one he didn't mention is if you have information as petraeus did about benghazi that would have put the administration in severe jeopardy of being re-elected, then it's important to prosecute that person. that's -- that's what they did with petraeus. he knew that what they were saying about benghazi was a lie. it was not about a video. they didn't say it was, and -- and they had to destroy him before he could destroy them, and, of course, they have got him on a rope right now because obviously there are things he did that were inappropriate. >> we know the speaker wants to hear more from director comey, perhaps before the house oversight and government reform. >> i've heard all i need to hear. >> do you think director comey should step down? one of the callers on the republican line says he doesn't trust him anymore. >> well, he's given us good reason not to trust him after yesterday. he's basically -- >> was there reason not to trust him before that?

>> i didn't have any reason not to trust him before that. he's been an honorable man, but when your caller was saying so many people don't know how it works here in washington, and she works and she works for the government. well, it's true. the saying here in washington, you probably heard many times. no matter how cynical you get, it's never enough to catch up. and it's just -- just when you think it can't get much worse, are you kidding me? you laid out the case. this is basically a lay-down case against hillary clinton. you establish gross negligence. you don't need direct evidence of intent. you've got gross negligence. and then he walks away from it. >> louie gohmert is with us until about 8:45 this morning. democrats. independents 202-748-2002. we're talk about the fbi director's recommendations

yesterday. we'll also get into gun legislation making its way to the floor of the congress of the house this week. but we'll start with emily. alexandria, virginia, a republican. emily, you're on with congressman gohmert. >> caller: hi, good morning. i want to start by making a quick comment then i have a question for the congressman. my comment is my husband and i both live in the beltway in d.c. and every day we are entrusted with a certain amount of information that we were required under law to maintain and keep. if by any chance we were to make any gross negligence on behalf of any data we had. >> you would be toast. >> we would not only not have a job and not have clearance, but we might go to jail. now we have two little kids. so every day we think we need to stay aboveboard, not only for our country, but also for our children. so that's my comment. second, my question is knowing that that's against the law and yet anybody from gs-9 to gs-13,

14, 15 spf, would be required under law give off their clearance for something like hillary clinton did. how can the democratic party or the republican party side with somebody that they know that law themselves and uphold somebody who is running for congress that also has been put under oath and has to do the same federal training we all have to do and yet be above the law on that? >> congressman? >> well, thank you, emily. i really appreciate your work and your husband's work. it is a dangerous time to be working in the federal government in this modern era when it's so easy to make mistakes. and with the internet, boy, it normally it's institutionalized

unless you are sophisticated enough or have sophisticated enough friends to destroy the evidence before it can be come to the light. but you raise a good question. how do you trust people like that. since benghazi, i've talked to most of the immediate family members of people that were killed at benghazi. they were particularly offended to have hillary clinton shake their hand with their loved one's body just arriving there and to say we're going to get the guy that did the video, because the ones that told me said we didn't care about a guy that did the video. even if it was about a video, which it turns out it was not, and hillary clinton e-mailed a couple of people including her daughter to say it wasn't. this was an attack. but they couldn't believe hillary clinton would look them

in the eye and say that with their remains of their loved one right there. there are issues of credibility that are always at stake. but i just thank god that there are people willing to serve our government like you and your husband that are concerned about not violating the law. and i know it's a slap to people like you that work so hard to be honest and forthright, but please don't give up. we need you. we need people like you that are going to be honest no matter what's happening around. i deal with some of the same problems myself. >> we're talking with congressman louie gohmert, republican of texas, member of the judiciary committee and chairman of the natural resources investigative subcommittee here with us for about the next half hour. john is in conestoga, pennsylvania, republican. john, good morning. >> i'm not a republican. i called on the independent line. i'm an independent. >> okay, good ahead, john. >> caller: yeah, i was surprised

too. i listened to the whole thing yesterday. when comey made his statement, and i thought he was building up to the fact that she should be indicted. so given that, and you being on the judiciary committee, are you going to now open a war criminals case against bush, cheney, wolfowitz, rumsfeld, and rice for lying continually for years about the war in iraq and the war in afghanistan? >> yeah, well, obviously you've fallen victim to things that were said about bush and cheney and rumsfeld. everybody including hillary clinton believed that saddam hussein weapons of mass destruction. he had killed thousands and thousands of people with poisonous gas, with weapons of mass destruction when most of

the countries in the u.n. supported resolutions requiring saddam to come forward. he didn't. the biggest mistake that call rove made during those years was just to advise bush don't worry about it. don't respond, and they didn't respond. and now we have people that think that lies were institutionalized when they weren't. everybody believed saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction, except for a handful of people. donald trump says now that he didn't. but anyway, at the time, that's what people believed. and saddam hussein gave every indication of that. bush's mistake was not in not responding. he followed the advice of his father who tony snow, the late tony snow told me that in '92 when clinton kept making allegation after allegation of charges against him that were ridiculous, george h.w. bush, a

classy man said we're not going to dignify these with a response. we're not going to respond. and he went from about 90% approval down to losing the election. but tony said he told him trying to get him to respond at one point, mr. president, when someone keeps attacking your honor and you don't respond, eventually people will assume you don't have any honor. and w. bush refused to defend his honor, and now people like john believe he didn't have any honor. and it's really unfortunate because he is much more honorable than people gave credit. >> i want to bring it to what's happening today. >> sure. >> and this week in the house of representatives. republican leaders expected to have some sort of gun legislation on the floor. the bill likely, the one that was written by senator john cornyn of texas, just to remind our viewers that would grant the attorney general the power to delay gun sales for up to three days for anyone suspected of terrorist connections. authorities would then have to

go to court to prove their case or else the sale would go through. democrats are rallying around a much stronger restrictions, a measure pushed by republican susan collins of maine. this all happening in the wake of that sit-in by democrats on the floor of the house for a gun vote. question for you is should this vote be happening in the floor this week in the wake of that sit-in? >> it absolutely should not. two weeks ago, when we had a conference, i thought it was outrageous that as the majority party we allowed this sit-in violation of massive numbers of rules to good on unimpeded. and i was ready. i was challenging the sergeant at arms. so you only enforce the rules against republicans? is that the deal now? and he said, well, when we tell a republican to stop violating the rules, you guys do. we've told them repeatedly, and

they're not stopping their violation. >> show our viewers, the video of going down to the house floor during that sit-in and confronting democrats during that sit-in. you were one of the few republicans who went down on the floor during that time. >> well, yeah. but this was after we had had our conference. and we had been told don't worry, we were told there will be severe consequences for these violations. fine. there have been no severe consequences. had i known that the only severe consequences was that there would be a gun restriction vote as they were demanding, against the rules. and by the way, they wanted to debate. i came down to the well to give them a debate. they were saying it was all about a gun. look at the shiny object in his hand. don't look at the killer. i felt like, and i still feel like they were dishonoring those victims in orlando by refusing

to recognize what it was that killed them. yes, he had a gun. as i told them, if you're going to go after guns, the next thing to be honest, you're going to have to go after pressure cookers. because that's what was used in boston. and then you're going to have to go after box cutters, because that was used on 9/11. you've got to go after the people that are holding the weapon, not the weapon. and so i've said it was radical islam that killed these innocent victims. and frank pallone of new jersey yelled you're a racist. i couldn't believe he said that. because islam is not a race. they're people from all races that become muslim. and there is no problem being muslim unless you're a radical islamist. and i said he pledged allegiance to the islamic state. and he said you're a racist. how do you debate people? that's all they've got. and then after get yelled at i'm a racist repeatedly, their koryn

brown comes up and he said he was pledging allegiance to the islamic state. carin brown said that's a lie because it happened in my district. and i said it's what he said. this came from loretta lynch. it's a lie because it happened in my district. >> coming up on c-span3, a discussion on monetary policy and the u.s. economy. then house and senate members discussed legislation to assist with the treatment and prevention of opioid addiction. after that, the d.c. bar hosts a review of the recent supreme court term. and later, a look at how the media can improve education. next, a discussion on monetary policy, the economy, and the impact of the uk brexit vote on the global economy. federal reserve board member daniel tarullo spoke at an event hosted by "the wall street journal." this is just over an hour.

good morning. thank you all for coming. and of course thank you, governor tarullo. a couple of quick programing notes. we're going to talk up here, the three of us for about a half hour. then we're going to open it up to people in the audience and to the audience watching on livestream and via c-span. if you want to submit questions from afar via twitter, i'm jake schlesinger. i'm the journal finance regulation editor. this is jon hillenwrath. since we're "the wall street journal," we're going start from the right. so john, take it away. >> we're going to get right into it. let's start with the news. the british voted to leave the

european union. there has been a fair amount of turbulence in financial markets. how do you assess how the global financial system has absorbed that shock and more specifically how the u.s. has absorbed it. >> jon, i think the global financial system was reasonably well prepared for the initial shock. even though the vote itself was unexpected in many quarter, the bank of england had done an enormous amount of work overseeing the uk banks to make sure that they were in a very viable liquidity position. our banks had -- u.s. banks had run internal stress tests to try to predict the kinds of developments which they might encountered in the immediate aftermath of the vote. and there, as i think you saw notwithstanding flight to quality and the down push in equity markets, it was something that the financial system was

better able to absorb than in some instances of turbulence in the past. but as people have said from the outset, that was just the initial reaction. and a i think we're all going to have to watch to see over the medium term how macroeconomic developments play out. the one thing that we can be certain about is that is there a good bit of uncertainty as to what the future holds for the precise relationship of the uk to the european union in terms of the kind of exit agreements that they will negotiate. and when there is uncertainty, as everyone knows, there is an inhibiting effect upon investment decisions and maybe household decisions as well. how much of that turns out to be the case? well, we'll just have to see.

and i know that central banks in the uk and in frankfurt are very much focused on developments and responding as appropriate to developments. in terms of the u.s., again, i think things to this point have gone about what we expected as sort of the medium scenario. but, again, that was just the first chapter in developments. and we will be monitoring developments, the macroeconomic developments closely, as we would in any case. >> so we've heard a number of officials in the last few days talk about taking a wait and see attitude. this was just the first stage. how long is it going to take to really get your hands around the affects of that particular event? are we talking about weeks? are we talking about months? >> i don't think we know. but in some sense, jon, the

impact of brexit as it -- as it transmits to the economy is just going to run in to the impact and effects of a lot of other developments as well. and so for us, it will be a matter, as it always is of surveying economic developments more broadly. the uncertainty point, you don't know how long that's going to last. indeed, we don't even know the magnitude of the effect. i think we're pretty sure about the sign, which is that there will be some inhibiting effect, particularly in the uk and the eurozone on investment and household behavior. i think governor carney has indicated he thinks the risk to the economy in the uk have increased. but none of us really knows the magnitude of it. and i doubt that there will be a moment where people say, well, we don't have to -- brexit is done. it will probably be something that just attenuates over time.

>> so let's talk about the u.s. and monetary policy, that and regulatory policy, the two things that a lot of people want to hear you discuss. the fed raised short-term interest rates in december. we've been talking all year about when you're going to do it again. and keep waiting. what are you going to need to see in this economy and in the financial system for that matter to get to a point of comfort to raise interest rates again? >> well, let me first say, and i think this is important to say, when you use the second person, i'm taking that as a second person singular. when you say what do you need to say? i'm going to speak what i need to say. i think people understand it -- >> you don't speak for the federal -- >> i do not speak for the fed. only chair yellen speaks for the fed as a whole. but i think it's useful to give a little context here. i don't think of this as a normalization process.

people sometimes write about it, talk about it. using the term normalize or normalization. and i don't believe that there is some target that the federal reserve should be moving towards. what the right level of interest rates is depends upon the manifold factors that are affecting the economy in the short-term and over the longer term. so for me, it is a judgment as to how taking a prague hat tick look at things, how we can best pursue the dual aims of maximum employment and price stability. now in current circumstances, what does that mean? well, i think first it's worth focusing on the maximum employment goal. the statute, the federal reserve access would preserve maximum employment, not some abstracted

concept of full employment. but maximum employment that is consistent with price stability. and i think as we've seen that even though, for nine or ten months now, some people have said we're at or close to full employment. and yet during that period, we've created eight or 900,000 jobs with the unemployment rate essentially stable, except for last month when the participation rate brought it down. that tells me that there was more slack in the economy. that tells me that we have the opportunity to create more jobs, that is obviously good for those 800,000 or 900,000 americans. it's almost surely good for those who are more on the margins of the labor force. it's almost surely good for groups like african americans and hispanics who have traditionally had higher unemployment rates. so i looked at this as an opportunity for greater maximum employment in a context moving to the second point in which

inflation is not at or stated target, not near our stated target, and hasn't been so in quite some time. this is not an economy that is running hot. this is not the late '70s. this is an economy that has been moving forward in a gradual recovery modestly above trend for some time now. but as i said a moment ago, surely not running hot. and it's also an economy in which we probably are not actually providing as much stimulus as people may think. the neutral rate of interest has surely come down a good bit since the precrisis period. probably because of slower productivity, slower demographic growth, probably a bit because of the global environment. but for all those reasons, the neutral rate is lower, which means we're not as far away. and finally, i think as many people have observed, the risks

we face present us with an asymmetric set of tools. were the economy to pick up more rapidly, which would be i think a welcome development we have the tools to respond appropriately. but were things to slow down, we obviously would face a more limited set of tools. and so for all those reasons, i have for some time now, this is not a brexit-driven issue, for some time now, i have thought that it was the better course to wait to see more convincing evidence that inflation is moving towards and would remain around the 2% target. >> so you don't sound like an individual who is anywhere near being comfortable raising interest rates again. >> well, certainly to this point have not seen that kind of evidence.

but i think, you know, for the audience's benefit, jon and i were talking before the session got started about correlations which may have prevailed for some period in the past, which maybe aren't prevailing anymore. various labor market correlations, things in markets and the like. and i think under those circumstances, one needs first not to have some sense that is there a normal rate of interest to which we're moving, but also i think one has to have a sense of being sensitive to the things that do happen. and i hope that i will remain and expect to remain sensitive to indications that perhaps things have picked up, that things are picking up. and if i saw developments suggesting that inflation really was moving. >> core inflation has risen. we were talking about this earlier. >> yeah, it's risen modestly. it was off 1.2, which is well below where we need to be. >> yeah. >> but i would want to be more convinced that the underlying

rate of inflation was around 2%, not simply that, the fact that oil prices are not declining anymore has taken some of the downward pressure off. >> it's moved from 1.2 to 1.6, 1.7. that's not convincing to you? that's not enough? >> it is a -- it's certainly a sign as many expected that the removal of the downward pressure which the rather substantial drop in oil prices had would have the inflation, the core inflation rate coming up somewhat again. but it's not enough to this point to convince me that the rate is headed in a nontransitory way to around 2%. what that -- but that evidence may well be forthcoming. and that's why -- i know this is a bit of a cliche. but i think we should all mean it. that's why i don't -- i don't want to say -- i don't see it now. maybe in three monday. maybe in six months.

i think you just have to be sensitive to what happens from meeting to meeting. >> so you said earlier you're not one of the normalization guys. you're not in that camp. you do, though, probably more than other fed governs have a sensitivity not just to the macroeconomic growth, but issues of financial instability. and there ra lot of people out there who say that the long-term period of near zero rates creates tremendous instabilities, wrecks financial market, distorts asset prices, makes price discovery difficult. how do you strike that balance, and what do you say to those critics? >> well, you know, i think, jake, you have to separate a positive observation from a normaltive recommendation. as a matter of fact, does a low rate interest environment that lasts for a long time create conditions that might pose risks to financial stability? stated that way, i think the answer is probably yes. whether it does or not in a particular instance, you have to

watch. but you can see the logic of it. but that's a different matter from them saying as normative ly you should raise rates. in the first place, if markets do regard economic prospects as only modest to moderate going forward, then raising short-term rates is almost surely going to flatten the yield curve, which generally speaking is not good for financial intermediation, and in some sense could actually exacerbate financial stability concerns. so as i say, i think the observation is a reasonable basis for paying more attention to financial stability issues. but it doesn't translate into therefore raise rates and all will be well. >> so you voted to support the fed's rate increase in december. were these financial stability issues at all on your mind when you voted to support them?

>> i mean obviously as you correctly said a moment ago, because of the regulatory role i play, and financial stability board issues and all the rest, i'm regularly thinking about financial stability concerns. i didn't think then and don't think now that that kind of phenomenon developments that are contemplated in jake's question are in a manner that causes me immediate concerns. that is i don't -- >> they're worried about bubbles right now. >> well, no, i'm not -- i mean, there are always going to be asset prices that may be above historic norms. i think everybody should be a little bit humble about thinking you can identify in each market where a price is sort of out of line and think that you can then dial it back. what we should probably be

looking at is to see whether across a broad range of assets first prices are above probably significantly above historic norms. but secondly, when you're thinking about financial stability, you really do want to look at how the assets are being funded. because to the degree that there is leverage, particularly short-term leverage, you've got greater risks. to the degree that there is, there may be money lost if assets prove not to have the value that the market currently assigns to them. but that is the way a market economy is supposed to function. >> so we want to move it into the regulatory arena. my colleague ryan tracy wrote a story about you recently. we put up a paragraph from that story which describes you as the most powerful man in banking. >> trying to sell newspapers here, jon. >> so my question for you, this is a judgment that not only exists in our reporting, but

among a lot of people in the banking community. so my question for you, should a regulator in washington be the most powerful man in banking? >> well, now that's -- first off, i mean, as i was semi facetious, but semi serious in saying i think you guys kind of come up with these things to make the stories interesting. to the degree that, you know, what we have all done, and this is not me. this is the united states government with the three banking regulators, the market regulators. certainly the congress in passing dodd/frank, all of my colleagues on the board, i think we all set ourselves to a fundamental reform of our financial regulatory system in the wake of the crisis. and perhaps by sheer longevity, since i've been here since early 2009, i'm -- you know, my name

ends up in more things that have been done because i've been here during that period. i've been occupying this role. but this is not -- this is not a set of decisions that i made. this is a set of decisions that flows out of a collective judgment by the congress, the executive branch, the president who signed the bill, and our regulators now that we needed to make a basic set of changes in how we regulated the financial system. >> so tell us -- so where does this go? and let me take this out of our words and put them into yours and help us understand where you see the ultimate goal of the end vision. in that story where we interviewed you, you said, and i quote, i think it likely that firms are going to have to change in some cases their size, in some cases their business model, in some cases their organization. i don't think you've seen all the adjustments that are going to be made at firms when we're doing stuff like that. and "like that" you were

alluding to changes in the stress test that are coming there is going to be a further round of adjustments. what did you mean by all of that? >> well, oddly enough, just what i said. what you called it. firms have already made some adjustments. in some cases it's been reduction in the size of their balance sheet. in other cases, it's been a shift in the composition of assets, moving from riskier to less riskier assets. and i think, jake, not just for regulatory reasons, but for market reasons, for business environment reasons, many financial institutions are still in the process of adapting to the regulatory business, financial environments which they face in the 20-teens as opposed to the first decade of the 21st century. so the adaptations will vary with the firm.

but each firm needs to make a judgment and i believe is making a judgment as to how its business model should evolve given the regulatory requirements, particularly on capital and liquidity that have been put in place. and as you point out with respect to the stress test, the further changes that we're likely to make over the course of the next year. so-so when you say what exactly did i mean, i don't mean -- we don't have anything specific in mind. and in a sense, that's the point. the point is we should put in place a set of regulatory requirements which are designed to make the firm safer and sounder and the financial system more stable. and then allow each firm to make its decisions on its business model working within those regulatory requirements. >> but i think -- help us figure out how far along in that adjustment process we are.

if you kind of treat 2006-2007 as the starting point of one and sort of the end point of the utopian ideal of an american banking system as 10. are we at a 5? are we at an 8? how much more dramatic are the changes yet to come? >> well, i don't think i want to assign a number on a spectrum. but certainly we have come a long way since 2005. >> how about baseball innings? you're a big baseball fan. what inning are we in? >> you know, the thing about baseball, jon, as you know, there is no clock. and the fifth inning can be the longest inning of the game. and six through nine, you know, six through nine you get that good set of relievers and the innings kind of go by like that. i think there have been a lot of changes, obviously, in how much capital has been built up in the system number one. number two, in the changes in funding structures.

that the reduced dependence on shorter term wholesale funding has been something that is significant. on the capacities of the firms to understand and manage their risks, a point which should not be understated. so a lot has happened. i think that the adaptation by firms to not just the regulatory requirements, but now the fact that they have built the capital and are shifting their liquidity profiles, i think that is something that they're probably continuing to do. and i believe in that interview what i was thinking specifically was that as we incorporate the surcharge, the capital surcharge into the post stress minimum requirement, therebyeverybody i effectively raising capital requirements for most of the

eight firms. >> the c-car. we're talking about the stress test. >> the eight largest firms. >> the eight largest firms, systematically important. >> we established a no acronym rule. >> we should have a buzzer. >> those -- how can you be in washington without using acronyms? you know what discussion you're in based on the acronyms. that's right. i suspect that those firms are continuing to make these kinds of decisions based on their seeing where the regulatory requirements are going to be. >> so just let me tell you one more time in a different form which is can you envision a scenario in which you think that those eight largest banks have met all the criteria you think are important, but remain largely the same in terms of their structure and size? >> i don't know. i don't know, jake. i think, you know, we're going to continue with the resolution

plan process, which has occasioned changes in structure organization, liquidity practices of firms. we're going to make the changes in the stress test, which is as i say will some firms increase capital requirements. i think we're going to continue to pay attention to funding because when it comes right down to it, funding and the runability of funding is core to financial stability, the potential for runs and panics throughout the economy. and through our annual comprehensive liquidity asse assessment exercises, we're going to be paying more attention there. so there will be more -- there will be more changes. and obviously, our aim is to get to a point where we can say that the financial system is relatively speaking stable, safer, sounder, certainly more stable, safer, sounder than it

was a decade ago. >> you mentioned funding in requestedt liquidity. rules on liquidity. those are an experiment. those didn't exist before the crisis rules in terms of liquidity. talk about how those have worked and whether there is some flexibility or feeling. >> and also if we can define liquidity for people in the room who aren't -- who aren't familiar not just with the acronyms, but some of the jargon. >> we'll do a little bit. why do you worry. so from our point of view as regulators, liquidity can mean a lot of things. it basically means the capacity -- the relative capacity to sell an asset at what you think is something close to its actual value. if you have a liquid market, that means you should be able to do it pretty quickly. so if you have 100 shares of apple stock, you should be able to do that pretty quickly because there are many people operating in the market, many buyers and sellers.

if you own a home way out in an area where there are very few homes and very few people, buyers and sellers, that's that may take a good while for you to be able to sale at a price you think fairly reflects its value. so that's the basic concept of liquidity. why do we as regulators care about liquidity so much? well, there is this old, old saying in financial regulatory circles that liquidity is most abundant when you don't need it. and it begins to disappear when you do. if you look at what happened in the run-up in the period to the financial crisis, what we saw then was because there had been the big asset price shock, meaning that investors, market actors didn't know how much, for example, mortgage-backed securities were actually worth because they didn't know how much the underlying mortgages were actually worth because there was so much concern about housing prices.

under those circumstances, a lot of actors pulled back. they were not willing to do the buying of these things that they normally would be. when firms were holding assets that they held because they had borrowed money to buy them, and this money was short-term, that is they had to reborrow every seven days, pardon me, or 30 days, or even every day, and you have an environment in which others are unwilling to lend the money because they don't know how much the collateral is worth, under those circumstances, firms were forced into fire sale, meaning that they couldn't borrow money anymore. they owed money. they had to pay it back. therefore they sold a lot of these assets. >> so the changes in the policy to fix that were? >> so the liquidity -- >> are they working? >> as jake noted, there were not

quantitative liquidity requirements, pardon me, in the precrisis period. we have quantitative capital requirements, but only a kind of qualitative observation on liquidity. so what the liquidity coverage ratio and the net stable funding ratio, which are the two liquidity quantitative liquidity requirements that are coming into place are doing is trying to make sure that the largest firms in the u.s., and these are requirements that apply only to the largest firms, do not get in that situation that i just described to you where they are reliant -- they have assets that are longer term or that are not so liquid. and they have liabilities that are shorter term. so it really is an effort to match the liquidity of assets and liabilities. and therefore, to minimize the impact of runs and minimize the impact of fire -- >> so have those work and are

you willing to see them unfold adjust them in ways that -- >> i think that -- you know, the brexit exercise and some of the -- i think as firms went through that process, they were finding that the liquidity coverage ratio requirements -- >> that was good. you caught yourself. >> move them into positions where they were in a better situation to handle stresses in markets. we have found in our review of the implementation -- i can now say lcr, because i've said the other thing three times. in the implementation of lcr that firms were able to and have been able to comply with it. so i think there the lcr is a 30-day requirement. i think there we feel as though this has been a positive contribution to the regulatory structure.

are we totally confident that liquidity writ large both in and out of regulated institutions is something that's been -- that is in the best position? no. i think there is where actually a fair amount of work remains to be done. somewhat inside the regulated financial institution, but particularly outside. >> but what we're seeing funds -- go ahead. >> we're seeing a number of funds freezing withdrawals in the uk. >> the real estate? yeah, the real estate fund. it's a little hard for me at a distance to tell how much that of is unusual because i was using in my example before individual pieces of real estate are relatively less liquid. but the issue that it raises is one that we have been

addressing, we meaning in -- and i'm sure you've all seen chair white, mary jo white's and some of the things that the s.e.c. has done, is proposing to deal with the issue of redemptions and asset managers which might pose a similar kind of risk because in order to get the funds to redeem the shares, the asset manage splar to engage in something like a fire sale. so it is a real issue that in this case something that the s.e.c. and financial stability oversight council, an interagency group formed -- >> we don't need to do that. >> before we turn it over to the audience, we want to briefly take it out of the policy and into the personal. talk a little bit about you. how much longer are you going to be in this job? will you be here a year from now? is it affected by who is president and who is the fed chair? >> jake, i'm doing the job that

i was put in place to do. and there is a good bit that remains to be done. and that's -- i really don't have much more to say than that. >> just a related note, before we get to audience questions, the dodd/frank law, which you've been very involved in implementing requires that the fed include a vice chair, have a vice chair for supervision in place. the white house has not nominated anyone for that position. is that okay? >> well, it certainly hasn't affected the way in which i've functioned. i mean, what that -- what the law basically does is to shift the discretion on designating who at the fed will sort of coordinate regulation from the fed chair as it's traditionally been to the president. it doesn't give that person any

powers. >> requires that person to be accountable to congress. and through. >> always available and have testified a lot. >> all right. when we take questions from the audience, raise your hand. a couple of programing notes. one question. jake and i reserve the right. but we will withhold the right to cut you off if we had any lectures or if questions go on for too long. we want it to be an inclusive conversation. well want to have as many people get in as possible. >> first one. and also a reminder that we are taking questions over twitter at #wsjfed. >> good morning. i'm aaron cadel from capstone here in washington, d.c. thank you for doing this.

by bank of england governor mark carney where he reduced the cyclical from 50 basis points back to zero. effectively as sort of a means of spring lending in the uk and i guess sort of a tacit admission that there is not a lot further that can be with rates so low. effectively kind of using regulatory policy to spur the economy in a period of when he acknowledged that rank. market risks are crystallizing. one can say that that's kind of the exact opposite time that you would want to reduce the counter cyclical buffer. >> sure. >> i want your decision. >> it's a very good question. and it's probably worth -- if you guys don't mind, giving a little context. so it's not acronyms, but i think people otherwise wouldn't understand. so the argument obviously as you know has been that there needs

to be much more capital in financial systems than there was prior to the crisis because you needed resiliency. firms took big losses. they were unable to lend in no small part because their capital was so low. that's been the exercise both in the u.s., certainly in the uk, and more generally internationally. so i think the questioner was saying, gee, if you want capitalized banks so that they're in a position to lend, why would you reduce their capital requirements? that seems to remove their capacity to do more lending because they hit up against the capital constraint. and that -- while that is the right way to think about sort of through the cycle, capital requirement, and it's a reason to get capital up, particularly in nonstress times, the counter cyclical capital buffer is a specific innovation that was put in place in the aftermath of the crisis.

which permits the national authorities in the uk it's the bank of england to decide that in some environments where there is sort of frothiness in asset markets that they will increase the capital requirements in order to make sure that the bank will be more resilient if things turn bad in that market. and at least at the margin, perhaps to disincentivize some of that additional lending. it was designed specifically to be reactive to the currently prevailing conditions as opposed to being through the cycle capital. and the bank of england has been among the first national authority -- national authorities to use it. and so they had already created a positive counter cyclical capital requirement. we in the united states do not. ours is at zero.

so i think what the bank of england did yesterday was to say, look, we dialed up the counter cyclical capital buffer requirement when we're in a period in which things are going along okay, and we thought maybe there was a little bit too much activity in some asset markets. but now under the post brexit circumstances, we think we're going to remove the requirement that had been put in place. so i think it's important to distinguish the use of the counter cyclical capital buffer from saying, oh, now we're going to reduce capital requirements. the -- you know, ryan tracy from the journal wrote a story today in which he quoted an academic as saying this is very interesting. it's kind of the first time it's been done trending down. now we'll see if it works. and i think everybody will be watching that. >> what is your expectation? do you think it's useful? >> it depends, jon.

when banks are well capitalized already and they feel comfortable making the lending, then the reduction of the counter cyclical buffer could have a salutory effect if there is demand for the loans. if you're going to do it, this is the circumstance to do it. >> banks are well capitalized right now, it raises the question of whether reducing some of the capital expectations and more broadly regulatory requirements that they're up against would help spur lending and economic growth. when you go up and testify on capitol hill, this is something you hear quite regularly that the regulatory burden is too great, and it's holding back lending and output. >> what i hear much of the time, and something with which i agree is that capital requirements for smaller institutions in the united states need to be simpler than they are. our small banks are very -- smaller banks are very well

capitalized. we do have a set of capital requirements i think is more complicated than they need to be. for the -- i don't think that capital constraints is the reason why we don't have more lending. first off, lending has been increasing in the u.s. in recent years. it's been increasing modestly more than gdp. i think that to the degree more lending is not taking place, it is still a demand story. it still the people not seeing reasons to have, to make investments in new productive capacity because they're not sure that the demand is there, which of course gets back to the overall macroeconomic picture. >> all right. let's take the gentleman in the front row here. >> i know the fed is not contemplating negative interest rates at the moment, but if the

fed were to move to negative interest rates at some point in the future, how do you think about the effect on bank balance sheets, the lending in the economy and the health of the financial system? >> let me first begin by restating the premise that you had at the beginning of the question, we're not thinking about negative interest rates. i think chair yellen has made that very clear. on the issue of what would happen were negative interest rates to come in to being whether or not because of central banks' own actions, our stress test this year actually tested for just that proposition. that is we hypothesized negative interest rates. and what we found was that by and large, the larger financial institutions in the united states are quite well-positioned to manage the challenges that come with negative interest

rates. i think some of the -- i don't know who this was, but somebody had a quote in a paper from a banker saying we actually learned a little bit about how we need to function operationally. but in terms of the losses that would be absorbed, i think there we're seeing that of course there would be losses there would be some stress depending on the circumstances. but that is something we've already tested for. and that's why we do different scenarios in the stress test every year. >> so as we get a mic over to our next questioner, i just want to remind our audience watching us on the journal or c-span that you can tweet out questions. and we're going to pick them up. and my colleagues at a table here will read them out. >> i think we'll go to them. >> we want to encourage the entire audience, the viewing audience. >> after this next question, we'll go to a couple of twitter question. >> we have some. >> yeah, we do. >> victoria with politico. the fed is working on a deal

with bank ownership dealing with physical commodities. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what your latest thinking is on that, what the most important priorities are to deal with that and whether you think it's important to get rid of the grandfathering provision. >> the things that we can address through regulation really go to the relative risks associated with the possession and trading of physical commodities. and that's -- that's the thing we'll be addressing. the answer is yes to the second part of your question which is there is a -- for those who don't know, the graham leech bliley act back in 1999 had an interestingly drawn provision which prospectively exempted institutions that were currently engaged in all forms of commodity activities that might at some point in the future

become bank holding companies. and thereby has given a grandfathered right to a couple of firms to engage in a far broader range of commodities-related activities than other bank holding companies. and as i have stated before publicly, i do think that's something that is anomalous in a regulatory system. and i think it would be better to phase that out. but we will have the capacity, for example, change capital requirements with respect to certain activities related to commodities. and that's the direction which we'll be head. >> sarah, why don't you tell what's we have from the twitter verse here. >> sure. we have a couple of questions from twitter. emily liner from third way asks if mr. tarullo can speak to hensarling with his leverage ratio proposal. >> sure.

>> there have been proposals around to substitute for other capital requirements, a single leverage ratio requirement. and make sure everybody is on a single foundation here. you have capital requirements for banks can be based either on just the dollar size of the balance sheet. so you take the amount of capital and divide it by the size of the balance sheet. that's called a leverage ratio. second way to do it is a risk weighted approach which takes the same number in the newsroumr but adjusts in the bank portfolio. the idea of the risk weighting is that obviously a portfolio can pose very different dangers

if it's composed of a lot of lending to -- a lot of unsecured lending to people with no income stream as opposed to very safe lending that is done by another institution. the size of the balance sheet in dollar terms may look the same. but the riskiness is different. so we have different capital requirements. an idea has been to say well, if you just have a higher leverage ratio, 10% i think is the current proposal, that should cover anything that is risky, and therefore you can just have a single capital requirement. i think the issue there i think is while you can take say 10% as a leverage ratio number and apply to it the current balance sheets of banks and say boy, 10% would be more than they have now under the various risk rating and stress test requirements that we have, if you actually --

there is a dynamic element to the situation here. because if you actually put that -- if that were the only requirement that were put in place, then banks would be incentivized to move towards much riskier assets because their capital requirements wouldn't change. it's just the dollar amount unadjusted. and so under those circumstances, you would probably have very different portfolios. and i -- i at least, my own judgment is that 10% number would have to be substantially higher to have regulators comfortable that in fact there were not safety and soundness considerations. and with a substantially higher number one really wonders whether that's the most efficient way because the amount of capital required there may not be particularly efficiently deployed. and it's probably worth noting as a historical matter the

reason why risk-weighted capital requirements came in as a regulatory device in the '80s was that leverage ratios had been used beforehand and banks gained the assets, they arbitraged their asset portfolios. that's why we have multiple capital measures. a leverage ratio is very important because it provides a kind of upper bound on the number of assets which are safe in normal times, but maybe not in abnormal times. but the risk weighting actually focuses you on the actual riskiness of the portfolio. so my view has been you really need both. and you need both to be meaningful. >> actually a quick follow up on that. sort of the broader point what emily is referring to is a bill by jeb hensarling. and it gets to a bigger divide over regulation, which is there are a lot of people, certainly republicans, fellow regulators like neel kashkari who say that dodd/frank and its implementation has just created

this incredible thicket of complexity. we buy the broad view, but, you know, you have thousands of pages of stress test, thousands of pages of living will proposals. and then it gets to jon's point of sort of regulator involved in a lot of the minutia of how a bank is run. their view is let's just keep it simpler. let's just have higher capital rates and let the banks decide how to adhere to it rather than having to go to dan tarullo with all the little parts of their business plan. how do you respond to that sort of divide? >> well, i think i just did actually, jake. the -- to have a single set of requirement and to make people comfortable that that requirement would be enough to ensure against -- to ensure resiliency, i think it would have to be substantially higher than people are talking about. financial institutions that the largest financial institutions are even if they look like

traditional lending institutions, they still are pretty complicated entities. and coming to grips with the different kind of risks that they have, i think is something that where i think, as i alluded to earlier, when it comes to smaller institutions and certainly community banks any institution under $10 billion, i think we can and should have a substantially simpler institution. one that looks like basel one coordination. the smaller banks in the united states by and large very well capitalized but it costs them in proportional terms a lot more to have to invest even in their reporting of more complicated capital. >> before we get to the next question i want to ask you to

bring it back to the economy and monetary policy for a second and then i want to quickly try to get back to the audience. the uk is now talking about cutting interest rates possibly at their august meeting, there's a lot of expectation in the market now that the japanese, bank of japan might cut interest rates as early as this month. can the fed be raising rates at a time when other central banks, major central banks are in the process of cutting rates to respond to slow global growth and their own domestic economic problems? >> again, john, the question of whether we should be holding rates where they are, raising rates, lowering rates, all of that depends, obviously, this is axiomatic on the macro economic environment we faces, an environment that's affected by the actions of other central

banks around the world, can have -- can certainly have an effect on, you know our inflationary situation. can be disinflationary if other -- if many other economies have lowered rates. but i don't think we ex-antisay that's the way it is going to be. >> is it a potential constraint given the effects that you talk about? >> when we face constraints the constraints are what we observe in the economy. if the others have a palpable effect in such a way that it affects us, then in some sense it is a constraint but no more or less of constraint that addition to buy firms or not make a constraint. >> okay, so we had a question over here.

>> richard manual from columbia. >> university? >> no, sorry. columbia thread neofunds. my question is the c-car process. i don't know how to deacronym that. >> de-stressing process. >> thank you. it is so robust. you've done such a great job stressing these organizations and forcing them to how much capital they should hold against them. why aren't they able to pay out in excess the minimum at the end of the stress period and is there a point at which that decision goes entirely back on to them and they can pay out all of their excess capital. >> in terms of dividends to shareholders and buybacks. >> thank you for the compliment about stress testing but want to quantify it. we don't test for all risks.

it is why we changed the scenario on a year to year basis, why we've done so this year and next year again. it is one thing to -- i really do mean this, stress tests aren't a pantcia. second, firms are free to submit the capital plan making the proposals for distributions as they see fit. and, if a firm feels that it is in a strong capital position, that it has a very good capital planning process, that it can adapt if unforeseen developments occur then they can submit that plan and our supervisors will evaluate it. there's not a prohibition in the regulation. the regulation requires that the firms be in a comfortable post stress minimum position relative

to minimum capital requirements. you have seen some -- you have always seen some variation in what different forms are doing because they do have business -- different business models, different capacities, they knew what their regulations were going to be so there's nothing that prohibits people from putting in a capital plan, but it does have to be both a quantitatively and qualitatively good capital plan, signed capital plan. and i think most firms have continued to think that a continued build in capital while making increased distributions

is the right path for them for both regulatory and business reasons. >> we're going to take this person. >> joshua hoffman, if there is resistance to his bank regulation agenda as over reach. >> i'm going to speak for myself here. throughout predodd frank, during dodd frank, post dodd frank, they are discussing what are the right set of policies to confront, too big to fail and an area that i think needs more attention to people in funding and run ability issues in and out of the regulated sector so i think it is good to have

discussions that might produce some ideas that haven't been produced or developed before. those of us who are policy makers through all these discussions though need to continue to do the work we've been charged with doing. in our case has been increasing capital, stress testing, pursuing the resolution plans and dealing with liquidity issues. so people in the room talk academics talk, public policy organizations talk. that's a healthy thing in the economy to have more discussion debate and if concrete things emerge that worth congress looking at or regulators looking at from any process is a good thing. those charged with policy have to go on and do our jobs as best we can during the discussions which will probably continue indefinitely.

>> a question right here. we have time for one more after this? no? we're getting -- maybe we'll have one more. i would like to get someone from the back if at all possible. >> go ahead. >> okay. that's you. >> carter mcdowell with sifma. taking a look at the cumulative impact of the changes that have taken place and the boswell committee is considering a similar effort. i'm wondering if the united states shouldn't be thinking about something similar to look at how these rules interact with each other and seems like it should be part of the on going process particularly in a way that allows for the public to comment and be involved in that.

>> should there be a review? >> i haven't heard anything since about what's happened. you know, i assume if they have something to say about that they will. look, we are looking at i can't remember if it was jake or john who asked earlier about the liquidity regulations, i wouldn't call them experimental but i would say they are new, so we are doing an assessment of that and people obviously open to people doing their own analyses. banks tell us all the time what their analyses are. i think it's this notion that you can somehow put together a very big model in effect that plugs in every regulation and looks at cumulative effect i

think that's probably not realistic for a number of reasons, it is going to be enormously assumption driven, is it's going to assume static behavior when they go into effect? that's never been the regulation, markets are always adaptive. number two, just trying to model all the interactions again i think would require -- >> aren't you doing something like that with stress tests? >> no, with stress tests you're basically saying here is a portfolio, let us assume this kind of scenario. we know we are making assumptions to some degree. that's why we vary the scenario from year to year but it is not trying to model the effect of ever regulation, adaptive behavior and everything else, it is looking at losses in response to a particular scenario. so getting back to the

question -- an then the other thing which is so important when people talk about cost benefit. the assumptions about the benefit are incredibly important. if you just change somewhat your assumption about the probableability crisis, reach assumption of what the cost of what a financial crisis would be. those assumptions can dwarf any of the perceived effects associated with a particular regulation. do you -- here is a good example. do you assume that the cost of the financial crisis is the difference between the financial crisis in a country that had a financial crisis? and gdp growth and a country

that didn't? or do you think wait a second financial crisis in one country had a depressing effect on another which is not adequate which would take off a couple of gdp points for everybody. so i think it is giving a grand unrealistic number, what is not unrealistic is to take a look at how regulations are being implements, and it is realistic but still a challenge because so much has changed in addition to regulations but to try to trace through what kind of impact those regulations are having both to see whether they are achieving what they are supposed to achieve in terms of safety and soundness but secondly to see whether they are doing it in

a manner that is most cost effective or at least relatively cost effective and that is something that we're trying to do with respect to liquidity. >> thank you. do we have time for one more question? >> okay, indicate larson from the consumers bank association. we have talked a lot about the aftermath of the financial crisis but i wanted to see as we sit here today what do you see is the biggest threat or risk to our financial system today? >> well, so in terms of yawn the financial system at large, again, we have made a lot of progress number one. number two, a healthy financial system is closely tied to the continued health and growth of the economy as a whole. and, so i have thought that the best thing we can do for bankers

and particularly consumer bankers to be honest is to produce jobs which spending is greater which in turn pulling forth investment by firms that see more demand on the horizon. and so i think that's -- the growing macroeconomy is something that will necessarily be a great benefit to bankers, when it comes to risks to the financial system, i don't think there's a single risk out there. in fact what we spend our time doing with the multiple scenarios and the like is trying to build up the general resilience of the system precisely because we cannot be

confident we can predict exactly where the risk comes from. >> thank you. i know there are a lot of questions out there. but that's all we have time today. thank you all for coming and for a lively conversation. before we conclude two conventions, we have implication of the brexit vote. july 19 we have online wsj events where john and now henderson, will discuss the third quarter out look. for information please stop by the registration table. and governor tarullo has to leave. >> we also have an events with mervin king. >> governor tarullo has to go but john and i can stick around and please have more coffee and baked goods and thank you for coming.

c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. thursday morning texas republican congressman will join us to discuss the fbi investigation into hillary clinton's e-mail practices while secretary of state and the fbi director's decision not to recommend prosecution. then congresswoman karen bass will also talk about the fbi's recommendation of no criminal charges against hillary clinton as well as the 2016 presidential campaign. plus representative bass will discuss possible house votes on gus violence. the police shooting of alton sterling and president obama's announcement to slow the pace of troop withdrawal. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal at 7:00 a.m. eastern thursday morning. join the discussion.

isaac arns dor of has been following these events for politico and joining us on the phone. >> thank you. >> let me begin with the testimony tomorrow by the fbi director before the house oversight committee. what questions should he expect? >> probably along the lines of the questions in senator johnson's letter from yesterday asking for more details about the investigation and the conclusion what is the difference between careless which is how he characterized her conduct and gross negligence which would be the legal standard for bringing charges. >> let me share with our audience that you wrote at politico.com. the house reaction calling the decision by the fbi director in his words surprising and

confusing. adding he thinks secretary clinton did violate the law. can you elaborate on that? >> well, i think a lot of people were surprised by if you listen to the first 15 minutes of director comey's speech you got a different impression from the last three minutes. i spoke with a lot of former prosecutors who actually sort of anticipated based on how negative he was being in describing the evidence that that was going to lead to not recommending charges because if you were going to indict someone you wouldn't want to be that prejudicial. the intention as they saw it was to be as transparent as possible, not pull any punches, not shy away from anything and also not have anyone out there wondering what was the evidence and talking about they tried to cover stuff up. just put it all out there but

then make clear the legal hurdle. if you're going to bring criminal charges can you prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt and to show the difference between the conduct he described and that actual legal standard. >> the attorney general said she would follow the decision by the career prosecutor, so it's highly unlikely that the justice department would seek any charges against the former secretary of state, the presumptive democratic nominee. do house republicans have any course of action? >> well, they are going to bring director comey over tomorrow and can certainly have more hearings or criminal investigation. they also want to create more opportunities to say things like he said yesterday to get him on tape disparaging her judgment and conduct. that feeds right into attack

ads. >> and the political equation was my other question. the headline today in the newspaper reaction to the fbi, the rules are different for the clintons. talk about that for a moment. that seems to be the republican and trump messaging on this that the clintons are above the law that they don't face the same accountability that others would face. it's not what director comey said yesterday. he talked about comparing this case to all the similar cases that happened before and the absence of an aggravating factor in this case like there were in the other ones where there were charges, but that's the way that the republicans want voters to see this as the system being rigged and unfair and the clintons getting away with things that they shouldn't.

>> isaac arnsdorf is following all this. thank you for being with us. i appreciate it. >> thank you. fbi director james comey testifies on capitol hill thursday on his recommendation that hillary clinton not be prosecuted for her use of a private e-mail server. director comey will appear before the house oversight and government reform committee live at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. our road to the white house coverage continues live with the democratic party platform committee in orlando. friday july 8th at 3:00 p.m. eastern and continuing saturday july 9th at 9:00 a.m. eastern. members will vote on the democratic party platform for this year's elections. live coverage on c-span. the c-span radio app and c-span.org. on "american history tv" on c-span 3, saturday afternoon at

1:50 eastern -- >> memoirs you have to be wary of because not only just bound to be self-serving to a degree, but most of these people did not want to disclose too much. in some cases, they may actually dissemble and try to mislead people. >> historians talk about the techniques used by the cia to gather intelligence dating back to the cold war and how that has changed since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. at 6:00 an examination of race relations in memphis. >> many whites thought this is it. it's finally happening. a full scale black uprising and they panicked. mobs of white men armed with pistols and clubs formed spontaneously downtown, marched to the scene of the shootout and

began shooting, beating every black person they could find. >> the 1866 riot that resulted in the master of dozens of african-americans. also the role of federal u.s. colored troops stationed near the city. j just before 9:00 walter isaacson offers innovation and passion for science as an example of what he calls america's national character. >> his view was that small businesses and start ups would be the backbone of a new economy. and indeed one of the things that his group did was made a set of rules for how to be a good entrepreneur and innovator. >> and sunday morning on road to the white house rewind -- >> and in the music of our children, we are told to everything there is a season and

a time to every purpose under heaven. and for america the time has come at last. >> you know that every politician's promise has a price. the tax pay tor pays the bill. the american people are not going to be taken in by any steam where government gives money with one hand and then takes it away with the other. >> the republican and democratic national conventions with richard nixon accepting the gop nomination for a second term and senator george mcgovern accepting the democratic nomination. for our complete schedule, go to c-span.org. house senate conference committee met to consider the comprehensive addiction and ror ri act. a senate bill aimed at addressing ode yoed abuse. this is just o over two and a half hours.

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good morning, everybody. so i call this meeting of the house on s-524 the comprehensive addiction and recovery act of 2016 to order. at the outset i'd like to make a few procedural announcements as well as a few requests of my fellow. we have allowed two minutes for each member to make an opening statement. 16 amendments were filed. more than we anticipated when we scheduled the meeting last week. votes are expected in the house and senate between 2:00 and 3:00 this afternoon and in order to be respectful of everyone's time and in order to move through the amendments that have been filed, i'm going to strongly urge my fellow confer rees to offer

their statement for the record rather than use their two minutes of statement time today. if you decide you need to spike, i would ask you try to use one minute of your time so we can move to the consideration of amendments. this room is aptly name the john dingell room. later on this afternoon there's a a celebration in support of his birthday. so we'd like to be done knowing there's another event to use this room for. in the spirit of moving things forward. i would welcome all of you to the conference on s-524. i look forward to deliberations today and i will submit my opening statement for the record. >> mr. chairman? >> i would recognize the gentleman from tennessee. >> when would it be appropriate to name a chairman of the conference? >> right now. >> mr. chairman i nominate the

chairman as chairman of the conference. >> gentleman from vermont seconds there. is there objection? if not, i am named as chairman of the conference. thank you. so i would now recognize senator grassley for two minutes. i have urged folks to not use their time. mr. leahy is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'll put my full statement on the record. but i did want to hear because i have never seen anything like this in my own state, the opioid addiction from my years as a parent and grandparent, the yeeshz years as a prosecutor, i have never seen this. i have held hearingings, had

conversations across kitchen tables, i have heard how this have destroyed lives. we're desperate for help. that's why we're here because, mr. chairman, all of you represent communities just like we have in vermont. there's not a state or a district that isn't facing this. we're in this together. i think if we stick together, we can do something about it. the comprehensive addiction and recovery act through the senate. prior the knee jerk reaction was punitive on addiction. we showed as you combat addiction as you would any other disease. prevention, treatment, recovery. i think that i worry in the draft conference report that we have programs administered by

the attorney general and have stripped out these strategies that are best practices evidence shows that. it replaces a structure of the kara legislation with a block grant that would place important programs in jeopardy. we also need real funding. any one of us if. we go home and have honest conversations at home, we are going to find people who have families that have been torn apart by addiction, suicides that could have been avoided, families destroyed and they are looking for us to do something. thank you, mr. chairman. >> gentleman's time has expired.

any members wish to make an opening statement. the gentleman from new jersey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'll try to summarize. the opioid abuse has taken a tremendous toll on families and communities around the country. while there are important provisions in this conference agreement that will dress this epidemic, we can and should not approve any report that does not provide funding. house and senate democratic confer rees put forward that we all support so there's no excuse for us failing to make the federal investments necessary to begin to turn the tide in this public health crisis. they will large ly remain that f we do not provide the federal funding necessary to help states and local communities respond to the crisis. those on the front lines have been clear about the urgent need for immediate funding. the governors association and 182ed advocacy groups have writn

to us to include federal funding in this package and we should listen to them and add the fund i ing. there there are two policies included that i believe are critically important to our response. we need an all hands on deck approach to this crisis and that's why i support the provision allowing nurse practitioners to treat individuals with opiate abuse disorders. the report clarifies that a doctor or patient may request that a prescription such as an opioid be filled. this could ruse the amount dispensed unnecessarily, reduce the number of unused pills in circulation and reduce the risk of misuse and overdose. so again, mr. chairman, i believe this conference report substantively is a good conference report, but without the funding, i cannot agree to

support it at this time. i would urge we include funding. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the gentleman from iowa, mr. grassley. >> you have heard the annual figure of about 40,000 people dieing from this overdose every year, so that's 129 americans a day dying from drug overdose. 129 of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, parents, spouses, co-workers, friends and neighbors, lost to addiction every 24 hours. it's a human tragedy that touches communities of all shapes and sizes across the united states. despite the awful toll of this epidemic, i have been inspired by how many fellow citizens have turned their personal tragedies into stories of hope for others. i have heard these stories across my state of iowa, the judiciary heard them during a

hearing i convened on this crisis in january. now congress has an opportunity to do our part and pass this landmark bill kara. it's a comprehensive u approach authorizing almost $900 million over five years for prevention, education, treatment, recovery and law enforcement. i was proud to lead the bill through the committee and manage its near unanimous approval by the full senate. i'm pleased that the bill now also includes the kingpin designation improvement act, which i introduced with senator amy klobuchar of minnesota and after all of our hard work kara now represents the collective effort of both democrats and republicans from both the house and senate. the time for us to act is now. let's not let another 129 americans lose their lives without approving the conference report this very day.

as over 100 advocacy organizations have urged us to do. let's move kara one step closer to becoming law. >> the chair recognizes the majority leader of the house mr. mccarthy from california for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. before i begin, i want to thank you for your work on this issue and many others and not giving up. i appreciate that. mr. chairman, the opioid crisis continues in our country. families are suffering. communities as we know are being torn apart. those addicted are deprived of their freedom of will. now we have a chance to e reverse this and give the people new hope. government can't end addiction. but it can support community efforts to stop opioid abuse and help those in recovery. the house bill has targeted the root causes and results of the ep didemic. the drug trade, prips abuse, health care, prevention and

recovery. but we aren't just creating new programs with the hope that more money attached to some new washington acronym will solve our problems. this legislation uses the power of data to determine if the programs we are fupding to fight opioid addiction actually works. that's the purpose of the open act, which i sponsored with minority whips. it gives researchers and citizens the opportunity to see exactly what their government is doing and use that information to respond to the opioid epidemic. i want to thank the chairman of the committees and for their bipartisan work to get to where we are today. but today is not where we should end. we have to finish this. and the sooner the better.

i look forward to working to get this bill signed loo law. >> the chair recognizes mr. a x alexander. >> the epidemic is killing more tennesseans than car accidents or gunshots do. more than 1,000 tennesseans die from an opioid abuse every year. last month the headline in a knoxville newspaper said opioid crisis hard for officials to get a handle on. the way to fight this epidemic is not to wage a battle from washington but to support those waging the battle on the front lines. county by county, doctors office by doctors office. what we are doing today should afford substantial help. supporting education, prevings and treatment, providing grants to expand access to life-saving opioid reversal medication, providing grants to states to carry out a comprehensive response. this legislation is about

program reform. this comprehensive addiction and recovery act passed the senate 94-1. it passed 400-5. we should finish its work today. 184 different advocacy groups signed a letter yesterday saying they supported the conference report. it is bipartisan. it includes the work of many members. money helps. money helps. over the last two years, congress has increased funding for opioids by serve time seven times. 766% if we include the recommendations of what the senate appropriations committee has recommended this year and not yet heard from the house. this is the regular order. when we fixed no child left behind, we didn't appropriate dollars. when we passed the defense bill, we don't spend dollars. we do that on the spending track and both tracks have been working well. there are important discussions

going on about funding. i'm glad to be a part of this committee. it's important we get a result today. >> gentleman yields back. chair would recognize the gentle lady from washington state, senator patty murray. >> i want to start by sharing something a constituent of mine whouz daughter died of an ep yoid abuse. it can happen to anyone. it is everywhere. she is right. no one is immune to this disease. the number of heroin deaths nearly quadrupled from 2000 to 2013. this epidemic is hurting children, parents, grandparent, friends and neighbors all across our country. so i'm glad we were able to reach bipartisan agreement on many policies we are debating today. but just changing policies alone will not be enough.

we all know without more funding to expand access to medication, assisted treatment, states simply won't have the resources they need to put people on the path to recovery and save lives. i'm very concerned that if we pass a bill that changed our nation's policies that completely ignores the funding to put these policies into practice the funding might never come. for too many families, there's no later. there is no next time. this is the opioid bill and people across the country are running out of time. that's why i'm introducing an amendment that lays out a clear plan for investing desperately needed resources in reventing and treating opioid addiction so families and communities get the relief they are calling for. i hope all of our colleagues will join me in supporting it, especially since so many of us on both sides of the aisle agreed heading into conference

that new invest mements in prevention, treatment and recovery aren't necessary. we have an opportunity and the clear responsibility to take life-saving action on this issue today. we have a choice between preventing more of the deaths we have all heard too much about and allowing the status quo to continue. for mothers like penny and many others suffering as a result of opioid addiction across the country, let's make the right choice today. >> gentle lady yields back. the chair recognizes the congressman from new mexico. >> thank you, mr. chairman. 2014, 47,000 people died from drug overdose. it accounted for 28,000 deaths. an increase of 200% since 2000. my home state of new mexico has been hard hit by this crisis. in 2014 alone 547 people lost their lives.

they missed their daughter's softball game, 547 people who aren't able to help their son with their math homework or kiss their spouse good night. 547 brothers and sisters, parents and friends that we lost too soon. i know the members of this conference committee are committed to helping our communities because this crisis touches everyone. every member of this committee represents someone who has suffered. many of our constituents have experienced this tragedy firsthand. these are our friends, loved ones, our neighbors. but if we want to address this crisis in a meaningful way n a way that will save lives, we need to do more. we need to make real investments and provide funding for this package. take legislation i introduced. it passed with bipartisan

support and i'm encouraged its inclusion will help mothers get the care they need to put families on their right path. for this effort to make a difference, we must provide funding. continuing the status quo will not make it work. if we're going to combat this epidemic and help people, we must provide more resources, more funding. the work we're doing today is so important. no single solution will solve this crisis, but we have the opportunity to invest in the tools needed to combat this crisis and save lives. i thank my colleagues for their efforts to address this epidemic, but we need to do more and i hope we can come together today to do what is right. with that, thank you very much. i yield back. >> the gentleman from utah mr. hatch for an opening state. >> i'm glad to see the senate and house are coming together to tackle this issue. i'm pleased to serve as a confer

ree. this is an epidemic that is devastating families and communities across the country. my own home state of utah has been particularly hard hit. a very serious of bipartisan votes in both chamber, we are poised to take action that the american people want and deserve. i was pleased to vote for the bill when it was reported o out of the judiciary committee and when it passed by 94-1 on the senate floor. i commend the senator who worked for years along senator whitehouse and i commend him for their leadership on kara. recognize the senator as she's long been a true champion of this issue as well. speaking as the chairman of the finance committee, i'm pleased

this agreement provides medicare with an important tool in the fight against opioid abuse. the agreement allows medicare part d prescription drug plans to work with beneficiaries to identify one physician to describe and one pharmacy to fill all the opioid prescriptions. this is a a common sense step that will improve patient care and reduce abuse. it also makes it more likely that beneficiaries with a problem get the help that they need. i commend the senator who worked with senator brown for his leadership on this issue as well as senator brown. the agreement also increases access o to medication assisted treatment and proud of our past work and appreciate the improvement made by this agreement. i put the rest of my remarks in the record. >> i appreciate that. the chair recognizes the chairman of the house committee

for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm pleased to be here today and i commend my colleagues on their hard work on this report. over the past several weeks, staff worked diligently to produce the conference report in front of us today, which represents a comprehensive response to the opioid epidemic plaguing our nation. in particular i'm pleased that the report preserves the justice department opioid grant program, the comprehensive opioid abuse reduction act sponsored by my colleague and friend and confer ree. i believe this program will do a great deal to stem the opioid abuse by offering states and localities the resources needed to fight opioid addiction and the flexibility to use the grant dollars to address their unique needs. importantly, the comprehensive doj grant program is authorized at $103 million annually over five years and is fully offset

in accordance with the cut go protocol. i'm also thankful to the chairman and colleagues at the house appropriations committee who worked closely with us in this effort. this year the house appropria appropriators have included $103 million in funding from anti-opioid activities in the appropriations bill which aligns with the authorization amount in hr-5046. the conference report includes the provisions of the other bills in the jurisdiction of the house judiciary committee including hr-5048 the good sa marry tan assessment act, the open act and hr-4985, the kingpin designation improvement act. along with the other provisions in the report, these bills take real steps to address the opioid epidemic and provide real relief

to a real problem affecting real americans. members of this body should be proud of these accomplishments. i support the conference report and urge my colleagues to do the same. >> gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes from oregon. >> thank you, chairman. opioid addiction is ripping through many american communities like wild fire. in my view, you cannot fight an infer no with a prevention package that's no more than a a thimble full of water. there have to be financial resources that reflect the magnitude of the problem. resources that prevent opioid addiction from escalating in the first place. resources that strengthen enforcement to ensure bad actors don't rip off the system. resources that get better access to treatment for our people. it would be legislative

malpractice for congress to do only half the job while the crisis continues to rage across america. action needs to be taken today to lock in real funds to deal with this epidemic. i'm sorry to say the measure being considered now falls short. the conference does have an opportunity and that is to come together in a bipartisan fashion and i note that chairman upton's comments there's been an awful lot of bipartisan work done in this committee over the years and it's my hope that we can work together in a bipartisan way to improve this bill today and lock in the real funding we need so we have enforcement, treatment and prevention. thank you, mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. the chair would recognize for an

opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm glad we're gathered here now to make some progress with respect to this epidemic of the opioid and heroin addiction and crisis across the country and bring together the efforts of both chambers. in a roundtable discussion in annapolis in my district in the state of maryland. we brought together in that forum a diverse advocates, first responders, hospital personnel, law enforcement, all of the people who professionally now are affected by and are trying to respond to this crisis of opioid and heroin addiction

across the country. a crisis obviously that's touching just about every community in our country. and much of the discussion, as you would imagine, as much of the components of the legislation that we're looking at today was addressing public awareness, education breaking down, the silos that exist among all the different parts of the community that can mount an effective response to this crisis. but in addition, of course, there was a discussion of trying to bring resources to bare to make a real difference. and in particular the treatment providers who are at the table and part of that discussion making a point that they need more resources. so in addition to the things that are achieved through the legislation that we're going to be looking at today bringing more resources to bare so the response can be what the

american people i think expect it to be. i think are prepared to put resources behind is a critical part of the conversation. i hope that we can bring more resources behind this effort. with that, i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i ask that my remarks be made part of the written record and i yield back one minute 55 seconds. >> thank you, sir. the chair would recognize the gentleman from texas. opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the united states is experiencing an opioid abuse epidemic. 25% of patients who are prescribed opioids for long-term pain subsequently battle addiction. as many as 2 million americans abuse or depend on prescription opioids.

tens of thousands of americans die each year from opioid overdoses. these deaths are preventable, yet have aqua drquadrupled sinc. the house and senate have approved versions of the addiction and recovery act. i'm a co-sponsor of the house bill. today congress moves closer to combatting opioid addiction. the bipartisan conference report ensures that the necessary resources are in place to prevent or respond to opioid abuse. i thank my colleagues here today and the authors of the house and senate legislation for their efforts and i urge adoption of the conference report and yield back. >> gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas for an opening statement. >> prescription drug and heroin addiction crisis has ravaged so many families and neighbors and communities at every corner of the kocountry. 12 minutes an american dies from a drug overdose.

it's a grave reality and must face it head on. i believe these programs have the potential to help expand access to treatment and prescribing practices to faci facilitate understanding of disease and educate policymakers and the public. however, resources to address this crisis head on and meaningfully impact those will accomplish little. i join my colleagues in including funding for the opioid epidemic as we stated in our recent letter. the scope and urgency will justify this being considered emergency spending and yet we're willing to put budget savings on the table demonstrating there's no excuse for inaction when it comes to funding for treatment and prevention of. i want ta thank my colleagues and i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you, sir. next is mr. guthrie from kentucky is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i'll submit my remarks for the record. on june 30th in kentucky i attended a forum on opioids. we talked about statistics of people who had passed away. we had a mother there whose child was an honor student in high school, played soccer, tore acl and went to a physician and got a prescription and became addicted to opioids which led to heroin. in the two years the family went through, including relocate iin just to get out of the neighboring state where this happened, her daughter went home to visit a friend and came back and found her dead after she thought she was clean. these are the stories throughout the country. in honor of her and her daughter, i urge that we move this legislation forward and will submit the rest of my remarks for the record. >> the chair recognizes the congressman from tennessee. >> thank you, mr. chair and members of the committee.

i applaud the bill is because this congress and governments throughout this country have wrongly sent a message to young people that marijuana is more dangerous than heroin. that's the message we send by having marijuana as schedule one. marijuana is more dangerous than heroin. young people see that and think government lies to them about drugs. they try marijuana and they find out that it's not harmful and it doesn't ruin their lives. not that they should be doing it when they are under 21. not that they should necessarily be doing it later, but in d.c. and many states you can do it legally and people do it and aren't killing themselves and causing committee crime because they do it, but this congress and governments throughout this land have told young people we

are old foegys, we don't know what we're talking about. we think marijuana is more dangerous than heroin. so they think it's okay to do heroin and they die. we need to be straight and honest and marijuana should not be schedule one. it shouldn't be scheduled, but a minimum it should be schedule two as this drug and this particular bill. schedule one for marijuana is wrong. it is an alternative painkiller that could do good for people who would not go to prescription drugs and maybe kill themselves. let's get straight and let's make our laws realistic and not have people think it's old foegys that don't know what they are doing. i yield back the balance of my time. >> the chair would recognize the gentle lady from california for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chair.

decades ago i was a drug abuse counsellor helping people detox off heroin. it's alarming to see that today opiate and heroin abuse is once again on the rise. it is, in fact, at epidemic levels in every community throughout our country including my state of california, which according to the cdc saw 4,521 drug overdose deaths in 2014 alone. recently in my district in pasadena, i met ryan hampton, who like 4 in 5 new heroin users began by using prescription drugs. he was once an ambitious white house intern succeeding in it college, but then he broke his knee while hiking and was put on prescription opiates for pain. ryan, like so many other young people, became dependent on prescription drugs and started running out of his prescriptions too fast. he was then labeled a drug

seeker and discharged from medical care. without any other option, he turned to heroin. the heroin addiction was quick and within months he was homeless and living on the addiction was quick and within months he was a homeless man on the streets. there was a lifelong waiting list for accessing publicly available treatment options. thankfully, one of his family members was able to send him to a self paying treatment program. most are not that lucky. he told me if he had to wait for the 30 days to access care, he would have been the tragic over dose statistics that we are talking about today. passing a comprehensive policy with the necessary funding is critical. i cannot support this without a funding commitment from congress. we cannot deliver the promises of this bill without it. so lets increase prevention programs and access to

treatments and recovery. lets fund these program ss so tt we can save lives. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> as state legislature in 2009, i began to work to prevent the destruction of prescription drug addictions. now, i received calls everyday in my office from families of drug addicts or heroine addicts. i am pleased to come together today more than 120 americans today from drug addiction. by the time we conclude this meeting another 12 american lives will be loss. the policies and proposals for this bill are important but it

will help. without adequate funding we are not doing our job. it is easy to stand up and cheer for good policies, to tell our constituents and the service providers and tell the heroine addiction counselors that we are with them and helping them. our state are in crisis and providers are in crisis without the funding. to do that, we need to do our jobs and that's providing them the resources to do their jobs and save lives. >> i hope we can continue to work together and support these important policies and give resources so that the folks on the streets in the clinics, in our communities or law enforcement can do their jobs and help these families. with that, i yield back. >> mr. conner from louisiana state. >> thank you, ladies and

gentlemen, this calls for an immediate attention. in michigan, for example, there were 1745 drug over dose incidents in 2014. more than half of the over dose deaths were caused by opiates and heroines. each day, 78 americans died for an over dose. now, we have better ways of adjusting issues of addictions and we know that incarceration is not the answer. we know there is effective ways to give addicts treatments and quickly provided them with needed services. we know also that evidence based

treatments of alternatives incarceration worked. title two of this bill of this approach in the grand program is reported by the judiciary committee and passed by the house. the approaches that provides separate programs for many of these worthy purposes, regardless of which approach this conference committee adopts, we must do more than simply authorize funding. we must provide dollars and urgently needed by those fighting this crisis. i ask consent into the record of leonard, the police chief participating in the police assisted, recovery initiative sent to us that we provide

$1.1 billion in increase funding to adjust this issue. >> thank you. >> that will be the true measure of success of this legislative effort and i thank the chair and our time. >> recogniziining texas. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much, i am pleased from this moment of history to join my colleagues who have come together with a similar and very important purpose and that's to save lives. the ranking members on the committee dealing with crimes. we see tl after math over the years of a wrong policy. let me simply add to the record of startling facts. when an average day in united states, more than 650,000 opiate

prescriptions are dispensed and 3900 people used non-prescription use of opiates. 78 people died from an opiate related deaths. $55 billion in health and social costs related to prescription opiate abuse each year and opiate poisoning. this conference committee is on the right direction. there are worthy bills. the problem is huge between 2014, almost half a million people died from drug over doses based on the statistic that i just read. >> also to fulfill our obligations for funding, i am glad to be a coresponsponsor of

committee, comprehensive of opiate abusive reduction act. i am glad to work with the chairman and the chairman o f the subcommittee. the text of 5446 is largely incorporated in the report and provided to us to be administered to the department of justice particularly by helping criminal justice and agencies to tackle the opiate problems from a variety of angles. i would encourage or it would encourage the development of alternatives to incarceration that would provide treatments to under line motivation for criminal behavior or conduct associated with mental disorder. breaking news, there is no mandatory minimum in this legislation. combined with other treatments under the committees and proposed to be included in the conference report, the approach congress is taking and the prices of heroine and other opiate is thoughtful and comprehensive. the counties of the united

states have had one of their elements or suggestions is providing for a greater use. we have done that. we are training police officers. i hope it signals the departure with some of the failed approaches concerning other direct price in the past. many of you know that our responses of surge cocaine and out of cocaine. in the 1980s, treatments for crack and cocaine. at that time, congress took action that we are still trying to rectify. let me make one final point. we know in that instance, many of those ins kacarcerated were african-americans. i hope we are turning the page going forward dealing these drastic and terrible accidents that impact our society.

with that, i yield back. >> chair recognized the lady from new hampshire. thank you mr. chair and all of the bipartisan members taking part today. many people from both chambers and both parties have been working for a long time to address the challenges of addiction as the opiate and heroine epidemic has swept across our country. in my home state of new hampshire, the epidemic continues to grow. 2015, the total number of drug over dose in the states surpassed 435. and our population is only 1.3 million people. >> far exceeding the records set just one year before at 325 and well over double the amount. we had in 2013. this rapid rise in over dose reflects a deadly combination in

new hampshire. we have one of the nation's highest addiction rates but ranks second to last in treatment capacity. the bill before us today and the program included with in it providing crucial tools to help us beginning to address this epidemic from allowing nurse practitioners to provid provide -- building communities of recovery and improving prevention and education efforts. however, this legislation still falls short of where we need to be. with 129 americans dying each and every day from over dose, action is needed now. the lack of funding included in this proposal represents a whole in this package and will hamper our ability to provide education and treatments and recovery services in our community across

the country. with amendments still to be considered later today, i urge my colleagues on both sides of the isle, please support representatives to ensure emergency funding for this legislation. by doing so, we can deliver help to those in need before it is too late. thank you mr. chairman, i yield back. >> young lady, we recognize the gentleman from georgia. mr. colins. . >> thank you, we can hear from the opening statement of the magnitude of what we are dealing with. i think it is effective as well of the state of georgia. over doses are up by 300% this year. >> my sheriff say it is becoming one of the longest time where you see it more regularly now than any other confiscations. i appreciate the conference

board and the addiction recovery act. i just want to focus on one quickly section 502, this is particularly close to my heart. it is a section that deals with the grand process to expand treatments. as a member of the air force who has served over seas. it is startling of these statistics, that's why i introduce the mental health act to expand treatment course and most of language reflected in the conference report because opiate epidemic clearly and tragically affects veterans. disorders also have ptsd, one and six veterans of operations suffer substance abuse. we need to help them and we should not cast it aside. this call is on our military and on our families everyday. i am pleased with the report, i am looking for the continue efforts of this conference to bring forward of this crisis. i yield back.

>> thank you mr. chairman. in 2004, decenter of disease control, 7,000 americans lost their lives of american opiate over doses. last year, they had full statistic, that number grew four times. 28,000 americans lost their lives in heroine and opiate over doses. state by state number is going to be worse. 2016 is off to a horrendous start as well. mr. chairman, if there is an affection disease or a natural disaster that's causing this kind of halvoc to our country, getting emergency funding out of the country to deal with this devastation. this bill contains many good provisions in terms of policy changes and authorize languages. the absence of any real resources to help families who right now as we are sitting in this room are scrambling trying to find a detox pad or a

long-term treatment pad. lock up they're trying to get out and into a treatment program, and emergency room where doctors brought people back to live. no treatment options available. we need to get much more serious about dealing with the overwh m overwhelming avalanche of harm and need existing in this country. the amendment will be offered later providing a fully paid for amount of resources that deals with preventions and deals with treatments and also gives resources in terms of education and law enforcement. this is the approach that ultimately is going to make a real difference to those families or look to us and desperately for help so they can help their offloved ones get th treatments that we know works. we have that power and we have that opportunity. we should view this just like we would like any natural disaster and view it like any other type

of again, infectious disease. we as a nation sit up and responded with real resource to getting help to the people that rerepresent. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman, i please to support it today. compromise language of opiate use disorder of modernization act and the treat act as passed by the senate health committee. i will submit the remainder of my remarks for r the record, and i yield back. >> the chairman recognize the chairman from virginia, mr. scott. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is the house version of the comprehensive care vel. i know we have an opportunity to make a real difference. we are losing far too many people to opiate addictions.

many of them are found in this bill that are focused in prevention and early preventions and rehabilitation. we know the states need more resources to respond to this kri crisis and while this takes a positive step in the right direction, offering several programs. authorizing funding levels to ensure these programs making the impact they are designed to make. we have al choi choice, we can it from a criminal justice expenses or we can put up the money now, save lives and keeping families together and save money. mr. chairman, this is a good bill as far as it goes. in addition to the funding issue, there is another issue and that's the bill should include support on initiatives. this provision was included in

the legislation and in the house bill that our colleague in wisconsin introduced which i am proud to be a cosponsor of. that bill had over 100 cosponsor and including over 40 republicans and so because of the need of the program to assist those and the bipartisan support, it will be introduced in an amendment which will include congressional activities as an allowable use. the state block grants to address opiate addiction. mr. chairman, thank you for your leadership and i yield back. >> the chairman recognize a gentleman from michigan. >> thank you mr. chairman, as so many of my colleagues have mentioned this morning. the opiate epidemic has no boundaries a few minutes ago, my colleague, mr. conyers,

indicated that 17 people passed away from opiate abuse. >> 449 people passed away from drug abuse. we are considering this this morning containing important solutions to fight this problem. first, the bill we pass on providing us a grant program to ensure law enforcement and first responders and criminal investigations and drug courses to fight this problem. second, it provides for transparency and accountability to ensure that our solution is stwa actually making a difference and reducing the number of deaths because of opiate abuse and finally it attacks the root of the problems. and international traffickers as kingpins -- and also keeping such destination confidential. >> i applaud the house and the

senate for tackling this issue to address this epidemic and i yield back. >> gentleman. i recognize the jegentleman fro california. thank you. >> we are together to address our nation's crisis opiate addiction abuse. i would like to thank the house and state and senate leadership for their work on this conference report. particularly, i would like to thank members on guiding on this. my colleague before me and millions of americans each year facing the devastating impact that drug abuse and addiction. as an emergency medicine proserious conditipr addiction, i have seen far too many victims to this. i remember when a young man, with purple lips was drpulled o

from the car without moving. i saved his life. to get treatments and to live that better life that we all strive for. i have seen this emotional impact on medication abuse and on individuals and families. today, we have an incredible opportunity to enact meaningful legislation to combat the epidemic opiate abuse and help saves millions of lives. in 2014, more than 28,000 americans dies because of opiate abuse. they suffered and the family and loved ones suffered and their community suffered. today, more americans died from drug over doses than car crashes. it is the leading cause of injuries in deaths in the united

states. our continue westiuents are cal to act. they must include resources that'll allow local states and federal officials to implement these ideas and fully address what it is truly a public health crisis. that's why i join my colleagues in demanding that our actions reflect a seriousness of this health crisis by including the necessary funding as part of this report. we'll produce today. we need funding so law enforcement and first responders are able toll reverse the effect of an over dose and save for lives. more importantly how to prevent opiate abuse. and making lasting measures. we cannot let our words becoming nearly empty and promises and

conclusions are critical that we ensure americans are suffering and treatments is important. they need to over come the addiction so that opiate patients and families have an immediate chance to heel and turn their lives around. >> gentleman, time is expire. >> as my colleagues have talked about of the devastation created. in scott county, a rural county in southern indiana, the hiv rate exploded over a year ago as a result of iv drug use. while the spotlight is on scott county for a period of time, we know it helps crisis happening all across the country. we see rising rates of child

well failure cases and large any of neglect of children. large number of infants being born addicted to opiates. the epidemic did not happen over night. medical providers and health care workers say much of the the crisis of opiate prescriptions of over used. this country, we developed a culture of over prescription that's built on expectations and providers lack of awareness and failure to address this over prescription of these types of medication which is a major part of the epidemic which i would say the route from the offset from our communities. i urge my colleagues to support this legislation which includes beginning with section 101, the task force on pain management which is establishes comprehensive task force and comprised with representatives and federal agencies and all

sorts of groups and mental health groups and addiction communities. we need to get to the root of this problem. it is going to take all of us work together. i urge my colleague to move forward. thank you, i yield back. without objection. >> needed five. the issue here is whether you will put the resources. you heard it over and over again. we are preparing today for the house to adopt the mental health bill that has no money attached to it. you are not going to fix a problem that we are talking about today with legislation

perfectly decided policies. policies are wonderful but you have to have money to implement it. that's clearly with the problem of this particular piece that we are working on today. you would have a unanimous signature at the end of this conference if there were some money. if there is no money in it, it becomes like building a house, you say we got a housing problem -- lets build al house. then you build al nice shell but you don't connect the le electricity. this is a public health house we are building. we are not connecting the utilities to make it work. that's really why i think we must consider the amendment in a

positive way if we are serious about this. i have heard about it 33 times of how many people died and stuff. i am tired of that. the time is to do something. that means where you put your money in your mouth is. i yield back. >> ladies and gentlemen, i appreciate the opportunity to serve on this conference committee. there are so many statistics have been cited so far by my colleagues. it is too many to mention and review again. suffice to say that my community is not the only that's seeing this epidemic. to many have suffered from opiate. this is a ticking time bomb in everybody's district and community.

as a father of three children, i know full well that unacceptable percentage of younger people finding it very easy to obtain opiate in every possible form. they are available in every school and neighborhood. the abuse continues to pr prolifirate. i believe it is a great step in the great direction. one of the things it does is i am grateful to be apart of this. it encourages treatments and diversion programs before prosecuto prosecutors, they're very effective in what they do addressing this issue community based programs.

addiction problems need treatments and i believe that it is effective in doing that. technology that'll prevent or at the during individuals and particularly from children. i want the congress committee, my time has concluded and thank you for your effort today. i yield back. >> gentleman, yielding back, i recognize mr. carter. >> mr. chairman, i have been a member of this body for 14 months. this is definitely a problem in our country.

i am proud of this body for recognizing this and addressing it. i believe there are numerous challenges of our health care providers and leaders face and this bill helps them address many of those challenges. i believe the key to fulfilling any successful prescription is education. this bill does that. it makes improvements of current preventions and ensure americans are staying well and informed of their medications. one key components that's lacked in the past has been a real concentration of treatments and treatment facilities. this bill does that. improving treatments for women or training of first responders, this report provides treatments for all americans who need it. i am glad to see this bill recognizing for the need of greater involvement when it comes to monitoring programs. as the author of george's pdmd.

i believe these programs will play an important role in our fighting of opiate addiction. i believe pdmp's with the coordination of prescribers and pharmacists can be a corner stone and not fight against american opiate abuse epidemic. i have real concerns with provisions that include the definition of one pharmacy ace multiple locations. over the past few years, farmly benefit managers have used their money to purchase chains -- i hope i can work with chairman upton and my colleagues to address this issue and issues related to pharmacy market to ensure that everything is being done to help this country. again, i want to thank the leadership and commend them in both chambers on this bill and i am looking forward to send something to the president's desk soon so we can identify

this epidemic. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. i appreciate very much. i want to thank you mr. chairman and all members and staffs for their tire less efforts and hard work. we have all been touched one way or another knowing one being affected by opiates whether it is family or friends or heartbreaking stories back home. including this report and the under lining opiate bill, i have been advocating for on behalf of our true american heroes and event rooms and military that have sacrificesed so much. it will provide tl qualihe qual health care that our veterans will earn and reserve.

additionally, pilot program author was included it will provide access and treatments in our communities that have shown positive results with those experiencing mental health or chronic pain. i urge all my colleagues to support this and the under lining bill. doing so, we uphold of who we represent and sending messages that we have covered. thank you. thank you mr. chair. i am very concerned over the issues of opiate over prescripti prescription. i am honored to support this report. veterans facing high rate of chronic pain of traumas particularly ptsd and traumatic brain injuries.

veterans are vulnerable to addiction and i see the problem firsthand. the crisis is escalated so quickly that the dea has raided and including several locations. for two long, the dea relying too heavy on prescription of open ra opiates. >> with that said, i want to highlight two important provisions of this legislation that i advocated for years. the first requires the va to report to state prescription drug monitoring program. these databases have proven to be an important tool to track it. t this will open windows to law

enforcement. secondly, the other provision allows the va alternative forms of treatments such as fda approved medical devices for patients of chronic pain and offering veterans than strictly providing opiate. >> i thank you for the opportunity to work side by side on this important issue facing our nation and i yield back. i recognize mr. mean from pennsylvania. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman i knew john tomas decker. he was a scholar and a leader and an outstanding athlete. he's not a toxic. he had a sport related injury and led to opiate abuse and heroine addiction and his death. in so many ways it is the name that's important. we are not talking about statistics. we are talking about real lives and families so struggling with addiction first and then

ultimately, the loss of a loved ones. we have so much opportunities with this bill to do meaningful things now. as we are hearing the statistics over 120 people a day who are dying, we must do something now. this is an ongoing process and a commitment that we must make to continue but, we have so much of the sports related interventions that could be done. i have seen make a difference in the lives of those who are struggling. prescription monitoring, i am sure we can identify those who are using opiate. infant safe care, so many that's going to make a difference in the lives of those struggling families. i heard my colleagues on both sides of the isle to stay focused on these real people and make sure that we do something meaningful today. i yield back.

>> thank you, mr. chairman and it is an honor to be able to work with you and my colleagues on this conference committee. this is about families across the country. high school student that had his life in front of him. a good student and a good athlete with a lot of friends and off to college and ended up dying from a heroine over dose. we have an epidemic in our hands in our country. this legislation is talking about hopefully giving a second chance of recovery for literally millions of people across our nation. every single committee. as someone serving, i have seen

firsthand of what this is doing to families right back. no mothers should have to walk to a child's bedroom to find them over dosed from heroine and prescription drugs. so there is meaningful piece of legislation. mr. chairman, i am going to submit the rest of my remarks for the record. i do think this is an important piece of legislation that requires our attention and requires that we step up meaningfully attack what's going on across our country. i yield back. i would now -- now, i ask you all statements to be made for the record, without objections to order. all that are here have given an opening statement or submitted them to the record. i now call i aming up the confe. >> conference draft of the comprehensive act of 2016.

>> so the conference draft will be considered as read. excuse me. i want to remind members of our amendment process. so the conference of the sponsor's house will discuss the amendment for five minutes. each for the majority and then for the minority. that house will vote on the amendment. if the amendment is agreed to, the process over a repeat of the cou conferees of the over bodies. >> amendment to the conference report on s 5 24 offered by chairman upton. >> it is considered as read. staff issues the amendment. this amendment provides technical edits to the conference report. the edit ensures that grants are carried out to the secretary of

hhs and authorization of appropriations is included in that section. it also mimics minor classifications of section 303 of treatments and modernization. i would ask my colleagues to support the amendment. are there members supporting it? >> seeing none, i will yield back the balance of my time. are there minorities that would like to speak for or against the amendment? >> seeing none. the vote occurs on the upton amendment. those in favor will say aye and those oppose saying no. >> at this point, we yield to see if the senate will exceacce the house's amendment.

>> i support chairman upton's and thank you for this opportunity. we ought to thank members of staff from both chambers from both sides of the isle from their work finalizing the reported preparation for today. it was truly bipartisan bicameral team efforts. is there anybody on the senate minority want to speak? then i will yield back my time. those in favor shall signify by saying aye. >> pooppose saying no. the aye have it. >> the house offer on the upton amendment and the amendment is about to be. >> with that, the conference

accepts the upton's amendment. the next in line, he will be back shortly, when he returns, we'll take his amendment up. at this point, the gentleman from new jersey has an amendment. >> thank you, i do have an amendment. >> s 524 offered by mr. colon. >> the staff will distribute the amendment and the gentleman from new jersey recognizing five minutes to support the amendment. >> thank you, h this amendment will provide critical funding for opiate treatments that's solely paid for that's vetted by bipartisans. we are here today because we are in the mist of precedented of opiate -- our public health and

treatment systems have not kept pace of expanding epidemic. those struggling of heroine and opiate addiction suffering from sources and treatment access. only one and ten individuals suffering from substances. that's why i am offering this amendment which provides $920 million in immediate funding to provide critical tools to attack opiate epidemic and expands the type of providers to be treated opiate depen dense. the funding will go directly to the states to enable to treat in capacity and withstanding access to medication. this proposal provides for a

target and response where funding is allocated to the areas hit the hardest by this epidemic. >> it will increase treatment capacity as well as treatments affordable for those seeking for services. we all agree in the past including and all listen, one, rolling back the start date on our policy that's enacted and i want to ensure that we are applicable. two, changing the way medicare pays for part b and diffusion drugs to the asp methodology which could result in a payment amount that better reflects the transaction. through a requirement that states supporting any provider that's terminated into a uniform

and central database that's assessed to all states. and fourth, protecting our medicare program and algorithms. and lastly, allow tg creation of prescription drugs managing programs for beneficiaries and our deep programs. that goes towards the opiate crisis in this country. >> mr. chairman, i would urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this amendment, these are all policies that we voted on before and funding is needed to address this crisis in a a meaningful way. >> we will fail. anything less than a robust response to address this crisis will result in deaths and place tremendous emotional burdens on families and communities. the need for action is now. we cannot wait until the normal

appropriation site. in addition, mr. chairman, if congress does not take a proactive approach in providing this necessary resources. we'll pay for it later through the collateral consequences epidemic and through the criminal justice system. meaning that, we save money today at the expense of lives loss and increase spending later. so mr. chairman, as time to step up, with funding they need to fight this epidemic, i urge my colleague to support this and i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. i will clean the time in our opposition. i want to thank, i want to say all members on this conference committee believed that resources to fight the opiate and epidemic and our strategies and families that are suffering and helping our community. i was noting just this morning,

the house announced they'll be providing 581 million dhars $58 address opiate. as $525 million increased above the enacted level and some $490 million above the president's budget request. so this conference report includes my bipartisan party addressing education treatments in recovery of opiate use disorders and strengthening our nation in response to this horrendous epidemic. one example is an important proserious condition in the bill to provide pregnant or post partum women of this disorder. >> with the amendment before us and it is not a bipartisan attempt in fiepdinding resourceo point was this amendment was discussed during the months of negotiations and the house in the senate. the idea included in the

amendment were included in a letter that the democratic released saying yesterday afternoon. i would agree with our appropriators that we have to evoke significant resources to combat this. yesterday over 100 groups voiced their support for the legislation. we must not allow the bill to be weighed down of last minute objections to major bipartisan. that would urge mike humphries in the house to oppose the amendment and would ask that any members of the majority side to speak against it. if not, i would yield back the balance of my time.

role call is being requested, right? five minutes on each side. the clerk will call the role. i would note on this amendment, the confereess a and ways and ms will be weighing in it. >> mr. pitts. votes know. >> mr. lance. >> no. >> mr. guthrie. >> mr. bu shawn? >> votes no. >> mr. sense burner. >> mr. smith? >> mr. moreno?

>> mr. colins? mr. colins vote no. >> mr. tran votes no. >> mr. bishop. mr. bishop votes no. >> mr. palone. >> mr. palone votes ay. >> mr. green? >> mr. conyers? >> miss jackson lee. >> miss jackson lee votes aye. >> mr. colins votes aye. miss etsy votes aye. mr. custard votes aye. mr. courtney votes aye. >> mr. mean votes no. mr. dole votes no.

mr. mcdermott votes aye. >> chairman upton votes no. >> we have proxies for all these members. how is this reported? >> he's not reported. oh, i have a proxy. he votes no by proxy. >> mr. -- how is miss moreno recorded. >> he's not recorded. >> how is mr. mccartney? >> he's not recorded. >> i have a proxy, he votes no. >> mccartney votes no. >> i would ask -- mr. chairman? >> mr. chairman? how is mr. smith recorded? >> mr. smith is not recorded. >> i i believe the only proxy i

have is mr. conyers -- >> how is mr. conyers repocorde >> i vote aye. >> how was mr. luhan recorded? >> he's not recorded. >> how is mr. green recorded? >> mr. green did not recorded. >> i do not have a problem of mr. green. >> other members that are not recorded yet? >> yes, you may. [ inaudible ] >> yes, it is my understanding that the conferences allows for proxy voting and we told all members earlier -- proxy will be

included. are there members that we called not voted or changed your vote? >> if not, the clerk will report the tally. >> you know -- how is congressman lamar smith recorded? >> he's not recorded. so he votes no. >> mr. smith votes no. >> now -- >> mr. chairman on that vote, there are 17 ayes and 11 ayes and 17 nays. >> 11 ayes and 17 nays, the amendment is not agreed to. next amendment, general lady

from washington state, miss murray. >> i call my amendment on number four. >> the conference report of s 524 offered by miss murray. >> the amendment is considered read by the staff and the lady is recognized for five minutes. i am glad that we have been able toll reach some important bipartisan agreement on this issue. our states need more to tackle crisis head on. this investment will provide $920 million in funding for states to expand access to preventions and treatments and services especially for those who are cannot afford it. there is no reason we cannot all support this amendment. we all agree the funding is desperately needed to help our committees and stop the waves of over dose deaths and properly treated addiction to opiate and

heroine. we know without more funding to ex pend ax access to medication and treatments, states will not have the researches they need to put people on the pat through recovery to save lives. we are debating a bill to address the opiate epidemic. it should include the fund necessary to fight that epidemic. this amendment we providing funding and medicaid system treatments and allowing nurse practitioners or physician assistants of revising the drug of -- this is critical for many of our rural communities that had been hit hard by this epidemic. the amendment ais also paid for by a set of parties both supported and would not at a single dollar to the deficit.

the bottom out line is when someone is ready for treatment, we need to make sure health care system is ready to treatment them. i am concerned that if we pass a bill that changes our nation, opiate policies but completely ignores the funding, that woumd enable cities and states to put those policies into practice. that funding may never come. far too many families, there is no later or next time. this is the opiate bill this year and frankly, people across the country are running out of time. lets make the tough choices. lets vote for this amendment and lets make sure that this bill takes an absolute and necessary steps forward and expanding access to the life saving treatments that families across the countriy need. i yield my additional time to senator rice. >> mr. chairman, do i have al few minutes? >> 2:28.

>> all right, i will be very brief. >> i strongly support this. this is what i meant when we are talking about fighting and inferno with full of water. in the journal of american medical association, 80% of people who are dependant on heroine or painkillers are not getting treatment. now, i don't want to tell families at home or in oregon and across the country that they ought to wait around for the appropriation process, my staff did research and apparently it had been years since there is a labor health and human services budget. the question is, are we going to be able to tell families now if we are serious about securing the money when 80% of those who need treatment, according to research done by one of the most reputable groups in the country say they are waiting and i don't

think they ought to be waiting around for the appropriation process and the amendment and the amendment that never really seems to get there when these families are in crisis. i urge colleagues to support this amendment. >> the lady still has a minute left, did she yield back? >> gentleman from tennessee, we recognize of five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> i think the senator from washington, and oregon of their comments. we have bipartisan support here we are talking about today. 94-1 in the senate and 400-5 in the house. but, over the last two years if you follow of what the committee

recommended, we increase funding for opiate abuse by factor of seven times more money than two years ago. and if we do what the house appropriation committee announced today, it would be 14 times. so seven times more than two years ago. 14 times more than two years ago. that's an opportunity for bipartisan support. that's the way we always do it in the senate. we operate on two tracks. senator from washington and i worked last year on fixings on no child left behind with members of the house of representatives. the president calls it a christmas miracle. it did not spend one penny because it reforms programs. we do the appropriation process. we passed an energy bill and it does not spend one penny. the bills are good and so are the appropriation bills.

we are spending money on opiate and we are doing it the right way. we should finish our work today on reforming the program and finish our work on funding and on funding opiates which is as i said the appropriations committee and the senate wants to do it at seven times o f the rate of two years ago. the house senate today wants to do it at a rate of 14 times of two years ago. that's an improvement and i think it would have bipartisan support. there is a second reason why i oppose the amendment by my friend from washington state. that's offsets if it comes from the 21st century that's already passed by the house of representatives with 324 votes. this is an important legislation. it could be the most important in the year if we could finish it this year in the senate and the house.

a whole variety of other initiatives that we'll get treatments and drug discoveries and getting it through the cabinets faster. it is different than the money t the house found when it passed it with 344 votes last year is the same money. we can't spend that money, that same money twice. so let's recognize that we have bipartisan support for funding, that we are spending money, that there are not -- i cannot think of other provisions in the budget where we're spending seven times what we did two years ago or 14 times what we did to two years ago and we're still talking about additional funding in the senate in a bipartisan way, in the house in a bipartisan way and surely let's don't take the money we would use for 21st century cure which is the house did so well with and try to spend the money twice. so i'm opposed to the amendment.

but i'm in favor of the policy and i'm in favor of funding, this is just not the way to do it. we can get it done in the appropriate way at another time soon. >> any members wishing to speak against the amendment from the senate side? if not, time has expired. the vote occurs on the amendment. those in favor will say aye? those opposed say no? the opinion of the chair the noes have it. recorded vote is asked for on the senate side and the clerk will call the roll. >> mr. grassley? >> no. >> mr. gasly votes no. mr. alexander? >> no. >> mr. alexander votes no. mr. hatch? >> is there a proxy? >> no proxy. >> mr. hatch votes no. mr. sessions? >> no by proxy. >> mr. sessions votes no. mr. lahey votes aye.

ms. murray. ms. murai votes aye. mr. wyden votes aye. >> other members wishing to change your vote? if not, the clerk will call the tally. >> mr. chairman on that vote there were three ayes and four noes. >> three ayes and four noes, the amendment is not agreed to. just the senate votes. is there a next amendment offered by mr. lahey? he has an amendment and the clerk will read the title of the amendment. >> amendment to the conference report for 524 offered by mr. lahey. >> and the amendment will be considered as read and the staff will distribute the amendment to the senate side and the gentleman from vermont is recognized for five minutes in support of his maemt. >> thank you militia and i

helped put together the -- this amendment 16797, is that correct? >> it is. >> thank you. i worked to help create the heroin task force program legislation. i hear from law enforcement people all over the country they have to have additional funds to combat traffickers. this not only affects vermont, it helps fix states like tennessee or wisconsin, michigan. i mention those only because they get critical support sffro this last year. now this draft removes direct task force funding and puts in the a block grand. it would really place the task force program at risk.

it would allow it to be spend on nine other allowable issues. we really wanted this the way it was. senator grassley had methamphetamine added to it and i agree with him. i know the director of the tennessee bureau of investigation, i just happened to mention that state, wrote a letter on behalf of the association of state criminal investigative agencies in support of it. the fact is there's no easy way out of all this. but the fact is, whether you're in a state with large cities or small areas you need this help and this is set soup so that if like every state, where you've got small areas, rural areas, you can get help. your big cities can, too, but

you can get help in the smaller areas, it is something that has worked. . that's the other advantage of it. the police, everybody else, they tell us it works. i think we should keep something that works. i yield back my time, mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman? >> gentleman from iowa. >> this amendment restores a separate stand alone authorization for heroine and methamphetamine law task forces as provided by in section 204 that passed the senate. the amendment offauthorizes the task forces in the state appropriations bill. the conference report currently provides resources for heroin investigations but only as an allowable use under section 201 grant program. the report does not authorize methamphetamine task forces at all. i know these task forces are

important for law enforcement in iowa and particularly the methamphetamine task force. given how strained resources are at the state level, i support having these task forces funded through a separate authorization. i urge my colleagues to support the amendment. does anybody else on the majority side want to speak? i field back my time. [ inaudible ] >> apparently the wrong amendment was distributed on the house side but the amendment is being debated on the senate -- so it will come back, we'll get you the right one. i apologize. the wrong amendment on this side was distributed. i'm sorry about that. i wish the gentleman had raised the parliamentary question

earlier. we would have had it in his paw earlier. all right. senate yields back the balance of the time that the vote occurs on the lahey-grassley amendment. those in favor will say aye. opposed say no? in the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. the amendment now comes for debate on the house side as it was passed in the senate and the gentleman from virginia, mr. goodlatte, will control the first five minutes. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i rise in opposition to this amendment. because the comprehensive opioid abuse reduction act is designed to be just that, a comprehensive grants program, a purposeful area was specifically included to provide for grants for locating or investigating illicit activities related to the unlawful distribution of

opioids. language that generally tracks the task force language in section 204 of s-524. in contrast, this amendment would single out task forces resulted in a disjointed rather than comprehensive doj grant program for addressing the opioid epidemic. the leahy-grassley amendment attempts to elevate these pet programs which have only benefitted a small number of select states and have never been supported in a house appropriations bill. in fact, the justice department's fy-2017 budget submission proposed to eliminate the programs. indefensebly, the leahy-grassley amendment gives the task forces preferential treatment over drug and veterans treatment court program, prescription drug monitoring initiatives, residential substance abuse programs and all of the other extremely important efforts supported by the comprehensive opioid abuse reduction act, moreover, this amendment gives

these task forces and exclusive authorization for appropriations that is not fully offset for the purposes of the comprehensive opioid abuse reduction act. it falls short by $15 million. the house went off of its way to offset the authorizations in the act. this amendment would negate that effort. it is an incontrovertible fact that the funding level provided by by the house for the comprehensive opioid abuse reduction act is already significantly higher than the analogous authorization for appropriations included is-24 and it is fully offset under the houses cut-go protocol. the comprehensive abuse prevention act goes above and beyond to authorization new funding for its diverse purpose areas. its authorization for appropriations was carefully developed as a result of a thorough consideration of both the senate provisions and the house amendment's language as well as a disciplined recognition of the need to focus resources on opioid addiction at

this time. the leahy-grassley amendment also introduces unnecessary duplication into the comprehensive opioid abuse reduction act and attempts to shift some of the available funding from the anti-opioid efforts to methamphetamine. under the circumstances, this amendment is simply a poor fit for this bill, a vote to reject the leahy-grassley amendment is not a vote against grants for investigating illicit activities related to the unlawful distribution of opioids. it is simply a vote in favor of a comprehensive approach that supports law enforcement efforts to address opioid abuse, one purpose of which is to authorize grants for the purpose of investigating illicit activities related to the unlawful distribution of opioids. therefore i urge my colleagues, the house conferees to reject this amendment. >> does the gentleman yield back? >> i reserve the balance of my time. >> gentleman reserves.

1:38. are there other members wishing to speak in opposition to the leahy-grassley amendment? i would note dr. mcdermott indicated it's amendment oll-16797. are there other members wishing to speak against the amendment so the gentleman yields back? >> i yield jack? and are there members on the house side willing to speak in support of the amendment? i see none. the vote occurs on the amendment adopted on the senate side offered by mr. lah leahy and grassley. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to and that's the way that it is. the next amendment is -- the gentlelady from washington state, ms. murray has an amendment at the desk. i understand it's hey-16852.

and we'll have the staff -- clerk will report the title of the amendment. >> amendment to the conference report for s-524 offered by ms. murray. >> and this amendment will be considered as read and the gentlelady is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, local v.a. medical centers have patient advocates that are responsible for hearing complaints from veterans seeking care and helping them get the care that they need. but the v.a. does a poor job overseeing patient advocates system wide, tracking complaints from around the country and intervening where needed to make sure veterans get the high quality care that they have earned. these failures led to tragedy in thoma, wisconsin, when no one would listen when jason simkikowski raised concerns about how all the medications he

was being given at the v.a. medical center were making him feel and act. incredibly, the patient advocate at the facility where jason was treated reported to the chief of staff who was ultimately responsible for prescribing the deadly mix of medication that led to jason's death. to prevent that from happening again, this amendment would establish a central and independent office of patient advocacy to help patient advocates effectively meet their obligations to veterans, this office will give patient advocates national level support if a medical center will not resolve the problem they are working on and will ensure patient advocates report to an independent office rather than the medical center. a dedicated office reporting to the undersecretary for health will ensure that the program remains accountable to the needs of veterans and their families and will prevent any undue

pressure on advocates from the local medical facility leadership. this provision is widely supported by the veterans service organizations and was agreed to by both sides of the veterans affairs committee and is included in the veterans first act. appreciate my colleagues including much of senator baldwin's vital legislation on opioid treatment in v.a. this provision is a key component and we should include it just as the veterans committee has and i move its adoption. >> does the gentleman from tennessee want time? >> mr. chairman, i support senator murray's amendment and as she says so does the chairman of the veterans affairs committee. >> other members wishing to -- mr. grassley? >> for reasons beyond just this, i think we ought to support it because going back to august 2, 2014, we passed legislation we

thought would dramatically change the direction of the v.a. and it has accomplished very little. a new secretary has accomplished very little. we aren't doing enough for our veterans and this is a step in the direction of congress weighing in to make the necessary changes so that the v.a. gets the message. >> mr. chairman, senator murray, senator grassley, senator alexander and i totally agree on this. it's easy to get a parade and talk about veterans, we have to talk about the things we need to care for them. this does. it should be included. i thank the senator from washington state. >> other members in the senate side wishing to speak on the amendments? seeing none, the vote occurs, on the amendment offered by the gentlelady from washington state those in favor say aye. those opposed say no. in the opinion of the chair the

amendment is agreed to. the amendment comes to the house side. this is a good amendment. we need to support it and i would urge my colleagues to vote in favor. other members wishing to speak? seeing none, the vote occurs on agreeing to the murray amendment from the house side, those in favor will say aye. opposed say no. the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, the amendment is agreed to as part of the conferenc conferenc conference. is the jackson-lee amendment ready yet? >> we're ready, i don't know if we have the of pease. >> are there copies of the jackson-lee amendment? not quite. so maybe -- copies are coming to the desk.

>> okay, why don't we go with the jackson lee amendment as amended by -- i think she has a uc request first, is that right, to change it? >> i do, mr. chairman, members, thank you for your courtesy. >> if the clerk will report the title of the amendment. >> amendment to the conference report on s-524 offered by ms. jackson-lee of texas. >> i'll just say the gentlelady has an amendment she offers by unanimous consent. is there objection to the cha e changes? we can't do it in the senate t yet. it will come to you if it passes here. so with that, the gentlelady's amendment, she's recognized for five minutes to offer her amendment. >> i have unanimous consent that the amendment be accepted as amende

amended. >> the gentlelady has five minutes in support of her amendment. >> i thank you. let me do this for the members and my apologies to you. we have engaged in legislative compromise. it's a sense of congress that decades of experience and research have demonstrated that that the opioid abuse epidemic and other -- excuse me. have demonstrated that a fiscally responsible approach to addressing the opioid abuse epidemic and other substance abuse epidemics requires treating such epidemics as a public health emergency emphasizing prevention, treatment and recovery. let me thank my chairman and ranking member for working with me on this and ask my colleagues to support it and this is as i started out, i indicated that this is a significant moment in history. we want to move forward and assure as many of my colleagues have said that we have resources. but we also want to use this as a model.

many of you are -- need not to be reminded of the crack cocaine epidemic which resulted in now almost two million people who are incarcerated in the nation's prisons, both local, state, and federal. and this point simply says we have found a model that deals with those who are addicted, who are not criminally involved, who are literally sick and it is important to treat such epidemics, whether it's meth or other drugs, as public health emergencies emphasizing prevention, treatment and recovery. no matter where each conferee ends up on the final conference report, i think it's safe to say the legislation we're considering holds the promise of saving and redeeming lives. tens of thousands. in many of our communities throughout america, we lost thousands of lives, families destroyed through the epidemic of crack cocaine and certainly meth is another one, we know our health professionals were

overwhelmed, our emergency centers were overwhelmed. in particular, those who were locked up, 80% of the defendants sentence for crack offenses were african-american. in spite of the fact that they were sick, addicted people with broken lives. i believe it's important as we look forward to this conference that we reflect what the american public health association has indicated, that the ending of criminalization of drugs and drug consumers, prioritizing proven health treatment and harm reduction strategies, expanding and removing barriers to treatment and harm reduction services, including some innovative ways is a way to address the sickness, this epidemic and certainly we have experienced that in many of our inner city communities. i can't tell you the funerals that i've gone to simply because people were addicted to crack and i'm sure there are many other stories. i'm a member of the opioid

heroin caucus. i want to applaud them and i want to applaud the conferees as well. the jackson lee amendment is an explicit expression of the ground breaking work done by the legislation of these conferees and shows the congress has courage to learn from the past and is unafraid to embrace innovative and promising methods the problem confronting our nation. clearly i want to commend the chairman upton and goodlatte, ranking members conyers and palone, i want to commend senator leahy and grassley and i simply want to say we buried too many people. we know what crack did. we know they're drug epidemics, we don't nope what is next. any city just tried to do something about push users because of the drain on the public health system. we need to realize that we can deal with this in a way that is more than the way we've looked

at before so i ask my colleagues to support the jackson lee amendment and i'm not sure, did the gentlelady want me to yield? >> gentlelady from new hampshire. >> i yield the the gentlelady. sorry, i didn't see you. >> thank you very much and thank you to ms. jackson lee. i'm speaking on behalf as co-chair of the task force, bipartisan congressional task force to combat the heroin epidemic and i just want to join your comments, i come from a rural state, this is a new phenomenon for us but i commend your amendment, i urge a bipartisan support. we have now 85 members, bipartisan in our task force because we recognize that this is a public health emergency, just very briefly, one county in my district, sullivan county, they were able to implement treatment during incarceration, have a year-long program after and brought the recidivism rate from the 80th percentile to the

20th percentile. that is something that everybody can embrace, we can save tax dollars and we can save people's lives. i commend your amendment and i urge a strong bipartisan vote. >> thank you, i ask for support of the jackson lee amendment. i yield back. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia mr. goodlatte. >> i want to thank the gentlewoman for offering this sense of the congress amendment and i want to especially thank her for working with me and others on the committee to modify the language to make it bipartisan and acceptable to all. i commend her for doing just that. >> if the gentleman will yield? >> i also want to thank the gentlelady from texas for sharing the amendment with us yesterday and working with the gentleman from virginia to modify it. it's a very good piece -- and amendment and i support it as well and yield back to the gentleman from virginia who yields back?

>> i yield back. >> all those in favor of the time -- all those in favor of the jackson lee amendment will say eye. those opposed say no, in the opinion of the chair the eyes have it, the amendment is agreed to and the amendment now as modified goes to the senate. chair would recognize the gentleman from iowa. seeing none, the vote occurs on the amendment passed by the house conferees, those in favor will say eaye, those opposed no. in the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. the amendment is included as part of the conference agreement. the next amendment is offered by the gentleman from tennessee mr. coen has an amendment at the desk. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> it's number 112 and the clerk will report the title of the amendment. >> amendment to the conference report on s-524 offered by mr.

cohan. >> the amendment will be considered as read. the staff will distribute the amendment and the gentleman is recognized for five minutes in support of his amendment. >> mr. chairman, i in my opening statement talked about the messaging problem this congress and our governments in general have had with heroin and marijuana and other drugs. a young man who -- i dated his mother and we had a conversation one time at dinner about marijuana. and he smoked marijuana. he shouldn't have, he was young but he did and he said "nobody my age believes marijuana is bad for you because we smoked it and we've seen it doesn't have the same effects on us people say it does." that young man died from a heroin overdose. he was from a very prominent family in memphis, east memphis, "fortune" 500 world. i talked to a family in new york, friends of mine, young

man, young man's now a prominent actor and musician. i asked him about marijuana several years ago and he said "my friends all smoke it, they don't have a problem therefore they don't see a problem with other drugs like cocaine and crack and meth and heroin." we have mismanaged the messaging of this for years so kids do drugs because they don't believe the government. they don't believe people when they tell them not to do heroin, not to do meth, not do crack, not do marijuana. marijuana doesn't belong in that class. this amendment would tell nih to study marijuana and see if it's an appropriate alternative to opioids. it may be. and study they should do. i have a further amendment, 109, that ask it be rescheduled to schedule 2 so they can study it. all of the groups that are in favor of this have asked me to withdraw the amendments.

that i believe the best i can do today is message so with the permission of the committee i move to withdraw the amendment and hope that we will in the future better address this issue and speak the truth to what the effects of heroine are and opioids compared to marijuana. >> gentleman withdraws his amendment. appreciate that. and the next amendment is offered by mr. wyden. amendment tam-16328. the clerk will report the title of the amendment. >> amendment to the conference report for s-24 offered by mr. wyden. >> and the amendment will be considered as read. the staff will distribute the amendment to the senate side and the gentleman from oregon is recognized for five minutes in support of his amendment. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. chairman and colleagues, this is an amendment designed to

make sure that when you have task forces and the conference report creates an interagency pain management task force you don't create a situation where the fox guards the henhouse. there are non-federal members that will be serving as part of this task force and i think it's important that there be clear rules to make sure that there isn't bias in the work of the task force. there will be representatives of professional associations and pain advocacy group which is often receive substantial amounts of funding from pharmaceutical manufacturers. i have raised this issue before with the secretary of health and human services and the national academy of medicine and it seems to me if you're going to have non-federal participants you

ought to have clear guidelines to make sure the business of the task force and any financial interest is fully disclosed. as of right now, the conference language has no safeguards to ensure that either occurs and this is an approach that does not micromanage what the rules of the road ought to be but it requires there ought to be rules. there ought to be rules to make sure that special interests don't hijack the work of the task force, particularly in the opioid area in effect encourage overprescribing. so i hope my colleagues will support the amendment. it is a no-cost amendment, obviously it deals with conflicts of interest and i urge colleagues to support this in a bipartisan way. i compare this to the kind of work that senator grassley and i have done over the years to watchdog for these kinds of

abu abuses. i hope colleagues will support it. i yield back. >> the gentleman might want to yield to the gentleman from iowa, mr. grassley? he seeks the time. >> i would be happy to yield to my colleague from iowa. >> with my reputation for transparency and public policy i'm going to support this recommendation and support this amendment and recommend that my colleagues do as well. >> mr. chairman? mr. chairman i'm in favor of transparency and public policy but i think the conference report already provides that. it requires that the task force to provide the public with at least 90 days to comment on any recommendations made by the task force. so if we have an urgent situation here and we're trying to find the best practices for pain management to recommend to doctors and hospitals and others

dealing with the abuse of pain medication i'm afraid that having the secretary develop guidelines and procedures and the federal government, that takes a long time and it would discourage, i'm afraid, many of the best minds, the people who know the most about what we're talking about from volunteering their ideas and suggestions. so i like transparency, i like openness and i like the provision in the conference report that requires the task force to provide the public at least 90 days to comment. i also like the idea of having people who know the most about the subject available to tell us what the best practices are. so i'm going to vote no. >> mr. chairman? i don't think i used all my time. >> you didn't but he yielded back but mr. al sandler yield to you. >> one additional minute? >> the gentleman is recognized.

>> thank you. the concern i have that is with respect to this task force. there are no standards in the bill with respect to conflicts. we've had this problem before, colleagues. i don't know why we'd want to open this up again, particularly at a time where there's been concern that through these task forces there's been encouragement for overprescribing of opioids. so i thank my colleague for the extra time and appreciate senator grassley's support. >> the gentleman yields back? >> yeah. i any we need a roll call on this. >> okay, the senate will ask -- a roll call has been requested on this amendment. the clerk will call the roll. >> mr. grassley? >> aye. >> mr. grassley yovotes aye. mr. alexander votes no. mr. hatch -- >> is there a proxy? >> no by proxy. >> mr. chairman hatch votes no, mr. sessions? >> no by proxy. >> mr. sessions votes no. mr. leahy. >> aye by proxy.

>> mr. leahy votes yeah. ms. murray? ms. murray votes yeah. mr. wyden? mr. wyden votes yeah. >> other members wishing to vote or change the votes? seeing none the clerk will report the tally. >> mr. chairman, on that vote there were four ayes and three nays. >> four ayes, three nays. the amendment is agreed to on the senate side which then sends it to the house side. does the house have the language of the bill? i think we do have it. i will claim the time on the majority side and would just note that this amendment to the pain management task force was never raised as part of either chamber's deliberations that we're aware of during committee or floor considerations. particularly given some of the vague terminology used, it could have unintended consequences that have not been carefully

considered such as making qualified participants less willing to participate in the task force, including some of the foremost experts in pain management. it could also cast unwarranted doubt on the integrity or validity of the recommendations raised by participants, including patients and veterans so i would respectfully urge my colleagues on the house side to vote no on the amendment and ask if anyone in the majority would like to speak? seeing none i yield back. i would recognize mr. palone for five minutes on the minority side. >> and i would disagree and urge the that my colleagues support the wyden amendment. it seems clear to me that it is moving in the direction of ensuring greater transparency. and i think is important to address the potential conflict of interest.

pal loan so i would urge my colleagues to vote in favor. i would ask for a roll call. >> i would note to the clerk on the house side the general conferees, energy and commerce and judiciary are appropriate to vote on this amendment as passed by the senate and the clerk will call the role. >> mr. pitts? mr. pitts votes no. mr. lance? >> mr. lance votes no by proxy. >> mr. lance votes no. mr. guthrie? >> mr. guthrie votes no by proxy. >> mr. guthrie votes no. mr. kinsinger. mrs. brooks? >> mrs. brooks votes no. mr. goodlatte? mr. goodlatte votes no.

mr. sensenbrenner? >> votes no by proxy. >> mr. sensenbrenner votes no. mr. smith? >> splchlt smith votes no by proxy. >> mr. smith votes no. mr. moreno. >> no by approximately. >> mr. colins? >> mr. collins votes no by proxy. >> mr. collins votes no. mr. trot? >> mr. trot votes no by proxy. >> mr. bishop? >> mr. bishop votes no by proxy. >> mr. bishop votes no. mr. mccarthy? >> mr. mccarthy votes no by proxy. >> mr. pallone? >> aye. >> mr. pallone votes eye. >> mr.ly han? >> aye by proxy. mr. sarbanes votes aye. mr. greene? mr. green votes aye. mr. conniers? >> if eye by proxy. >> mr. conyers votes eye. ms. jackson lee?

a. >> eye. >> ms. chu votes aye. mr. cohen votes aye. ms. esty votes aye. ms. customer? ms. custer votes aye. pl mr. courtney votes aye. chairman upton? >> votes no. >> chairman upton votes no. >> members wish to change the vote. seeing none, the clerk will report the tally. >> mr. chairman, on that street there were 11 ayes and 15 nays. >> 11 eyes and 15 nays, the amendment is not agreat to. chair would recognize the gentleman from tennessee, mr. cohen, to offer amendment number 109 and the clerk will report the title of the amendment. >> mr. chairman, as in the last amendment, i think this may go

beyond our call on rescheduling marijuana and i don't want to put people to that issue nor do i want them to vote no on process rather than substance and i hope in the future we will get this straight and we will at least have study on mare wan in which we should and i would ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment at this time. >> the request is granted, the amendment is withdrawn. the chair would know recognize ms. murray for an amendment and the clerk will report the title of the amendment on the murray 2 cybill the amendment on v.a. bonuses. >> amendment to the conversation report for s-524 offered by ms. murray. >> the amendment will be considered as read. the staff will distribute the amendment and the gentlelady is recognized for five minutes in support of her amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i'll be short. this is a simple amount that adds language it is the sense of congress that reductions due to the limitation on bonuses at the

v.a. should not disproportionately affect lower-wage employees. it also says v.a. should prioritize awarding bonuses to incentivize high-performing employees in those positions where the v.a. struggles to retain good people. the v.a. certainly needs important reforms in many areas but i hope we can agree that the rank-and-file employees should not be targeted first over top executives. both the majority and minority on the veterans affairs committee worked on this language for the veterans first act and i hope we can spoupportt for this language here. >> mr. chairman? i support this amendment and urge my colleagues to support it as zblel do you want to call for a voice vote? >> those in favor say aye. those opposed say no. the ayes seem to have it, the ayes do have it and the amendment is adopted on the

senate side. >> amendment is adopted on the senate side. now comes to the house side. let me say i think this is a very good aechlt i would urge my colleagues to support it and yield back. with that the vote occurs on the amendment offered in the house by the adapted meant by ms. murray. those in favor say aye. those oppose say no. in the opinion of the chair the ayes have it the amendment is agreed to and made part of the conference the chair will now recognize mr. wyden. >> the medicaid and windfall amendment. >> goe-16301 i believe is the number and the clerk will report the title of the amendment. >> mr. chairman, i am not offering that amendment but if you want to -- >> did you -- >> ask me to offer the medicaid windfall amendment i would be

glad to do that. >> that's fine. go ahead. you want to do the -- >> medicaid windfall. >> ern-16169. >> yes, that's it, mr. chairman. >> and the clerk will report the title of the amendment. >> amendment to the conference report for s-524 offered by mr. wyden. >> and the amendment will be considered as read. the staff will distribute the amendment and the gentleman is recognized for five mnz. >> mr. chairman, there's confusion here. this is the amendment that i've authored on the medicaid windfall, not the amendment on -- >> that's right. >> you got it, medicaid windfall? >> correct. >> colleagues, in the medicaid program the drug companies pay a rebate to the state and the federal government to offer their drugs to the 70 million americans on medicaid. currently, drug companies making

opioids pay the full rebate. there is a provision in this bill, however, that would allow the companies to get special treatment, special treatment and a reduced rebate if they sell opioids that are considered so-called abuse deterrents. now, the truth is this is a windfall to the companies because they are already theiring their drugs in that manner and they have been doing so for many years. so what this amendment does is it strikes the windfall to the manufacturers who at least in some cases with overprescribing have distributed to the problem and instead funds care for low income pregnant women on medicaid who very much need

addiction treatment. these women who need assistance ought to have every opportunity to get back on track and that's what this amendment would do. >> does the gentleman yield back? >> i do. in fact, mr. chairman, only -- i want to wait and hear the response, i'm going to retain my time. >> you reserve your time. chair would recognize the gentleman from tennessee on the wyden amendment. >> unless senator grassley wants to go? >> i would take my time off of wyden's because i'm going to vote for this amendment. i think it's something that needs to be done and this clarifies it and so i urge my colleagues to vote aye. >> mr. chairman? >> tennessee? >> mr. chairman, senator hatch, chairman of the finance committee, has asked me to speak on this amendment which proposes to strike bipartisan language

included by the house of representatives to encourage the manufacturer of drug formulations that are more difficult to abuse that are resistant to crushing up for injecting or snorting by drug addicts. it's a policy supported by the prosecution and included in the president's budget request. so what the policy seeks to do is to provide an important incentive to develop abuse-deterrent formulations for drugs such as opioids. that seems to me to be a good incentive, a good practice, one that's consistent with our goal here. on top of that, this amendment would replace that policy with another policy that's a very large issue and hasn't been fully vetted. we're having a large discussion in the senate about whether or to what extent to allow medicaid

to pay for patients who go into institutions for mental health. to do that for all patients who might go is a very expensive proposition and is something that we'll need to discuss on the senate floor and find a way to pay for and be consistent and fair to all patients. so because it gets rid of a valuable incentive that could discourage opioid abuse and gets into an area that hadn't been fully vetted i'm going to join senator hatch in voting no. >> mr. chairman? >> gentleman still has two minutes left. >> thank you. colleagues, this is a pretty obvious choice, we are going to choose low income pregnant women. you do that by voting for my amendment or you go with the companies wi

companies who are getting a windfall here. it would be one thing, colleagues, because senator alexander, as is often the case, raises an important issue. if we were talking about research, if we were talking about something that hadn't been done i can see why there might be an argument for what's in the conference report. but the reality is, the companies have been making the drug in the manner i've described for years and years and years. there's no need to give them this windfall. so this is a clear choice. i'm very appreciative of senator grassley and my colleagues on the finance committee once again supporting an effort that in effect promoats the public interest and i hope colleagues will support this. >> gentleman yields back? >> ask for a role call vote. >> role call is requested. clerk will call the role. >> mr. grassley? >> aye. >> mr. grassley votes aye. mr. alexander? >> no.

>> mr. alexander votes no. mr. hatch? >> no by proxy. >> mr. hatch votes no. mr. sessions? >> no by proxy. >> mr. sessions votes no. mr. leahy? mr. leahy votes aye. ms. murray votes aye. mr. wyden votes aye. >> any members wishing to change your votes? seeing none, the clerk will report the tally. >> mr. chairman, on that vote there were four ayes and three nays. >> four ayes and three noes the amendment is agreed to and comes to the house conferees. and that -- before the majority, you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, appreciate this. i oppose this amendment because it strikes a bipartisan policy kwhvs included in the house passed bill and which the administration supports. this amendment strikes an important policy that represents

a key step forward in combatting opioid abuse. this policy fixes an unintended consequence with the medicaid drug rebate program that effectively discourages drug manufacturers from producing opioids that are harder to abuse. specifically this policy would exempt abuse deterrent formulations of drugs from the definition of line extension for purposes of calculating medicaid rebates. this policy is bipartisan and has strong support from this administration. supporting this amendment would remove a key policy to help combat opioid abuse and i oppose the amendment. i yield back the balance of my time, mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. does the gentleman want five minutes in support of the amendment? >> yes. >> i would urge support for wyden amendment. in my opinion, every effort should be made to encourage and facilitate pregnant and

postpartum women to seek substance abuse treatment, both for themselves and for their babies. this amendment ensures support for this vulnerable population when seeking treatment, it will support continuity of care and will maintain the continuity of care so i support this amendment. it is as mr. wyden said fully offset and i would ask for a roll call mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman? >> i yield to my colleague -- >> parliamentary inquiry. what section is being struck by this amendment? >> i don't have the amendment -- >> 705. >> 705 is what i'm told. further speakers on the minority side? seeing none, roll call is requeste requested. >> i'm just -- a brief moment. i want to support the wyden amendment because over my

legislative efforts i've been working with pregnant women. i can't emphasize enough as a woman the importance of this initiative dealing with women when they're most vulnerable and they're working, i hope, to recover and restore a better health for that unborn baby. i support the amendment, i yield back. >> thank the gentlewoman. >> gentleman yields back, a recorded vote has been asked for so i would note -- instruct the clerk that the general conferees, energy and commerce and judiciary members are included in the vote and the clerk will call the role. >> mr. pitts? >> no by proxy. >> mr. pits votes no. mr. lance? >> no by proxy. >> mr. lance votes no. mr. guthrie? mr. guthrie votes no. mr. kinsinger? mr. kinsinger votes no. mr. bucshon? mr. bucshon votes no. mrs. brooks? >> no by proxy.

>> will mrs. brooks votes no. mr. goodlatte? mr. goodlatte votes no. mr. seine seine brenner? >> no by proxy. >> mr. sensenbrenner votes no. mr. smith. >> no by proxy. >> mr. moreno. >> no by proxy. >> mr. moreno votes no. mr. collins? >> no by proxy. >> mr. collins votes no. mr. trott? >> no by proxy. >> mr. trott votes no. mr. bishop? >> no by proxy. >> mr. bishop votes no. mr. mccarthy. >> no by proxy. >> mr. mccarthy votes no. mr. pallone? >> yes. >> mr. pallone votes aye. mr. luhane? >> yes by proxy. >> mr. sarbanes? mr. sarbanes votes aye. mr. green? mr. green votes aye. mr. conniers? >> yes by proxy. >> mr. conyers votes aye. ms. jackson lee. >> aye. >> ms. jackson lee votes aye. ms. chu? ms. chu votes aye. mr. cohen? >> yes by proxy.

>> mr. cohen votes aye. ms. estie? ms. estie votes eye. many custer votes aye. mr. courtney votes aye. chairman upton? >> votes no. >> chairman upton votes no. >> member wishing to change their vote? seeing none the clerk will report the tally. >> mr. chairman, on that vote there were 11 ayes 15 noes. >> 11 ayes, 15 noes. the amendment is not agreed to mr. scott has an amendment at the desk to be offered with mr. pallone as i understand it and the clerk will -- is it number 056? the clerk will report the title of the amendment? >> amendment to conference report on s-524 offered by mr. scott. >> and the amendment will be considered as read. the staff will distribute the

amendment and the gentleman from virginia is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, mr. chairman this simply adds educational and recovery program for offenders in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities to the title six block grant program that would be an allowable use for states. mr. chairman, this would allow pilot programs to enable us to figure out what works? these programs as it's already been said, this is the opioid bill and it's hard to -- it would be hard to explain a comprehensive bill that does not deal with persons already in prison. we're not going to solve any problems by putting people in jail and having them come out as addicted as they went in. this provision was part of the senate passed bill with -- that passed with virtue unanimous support and was introduced in the house with other 100 co-sponsors. 40 of which were republicans so it has strong bipartisan support. so i would hope, mr. chairman,

that we would adopt the amendment. >> the gentleman yield? >> i yield. >> i'd like to -- i'm pleased to join mr. scott in offering this amendment. the purpose of section 601 is to provide funding to states for the implementation of a comprehensive response to this crisis. including by expanding education and prevention efforts, inproving state prescription drug monitoring programs and expanding access to treatment. this amendment would ensure states include a focus on helping offenders recover from opioid use disorder as part of efforts to expand access to treatment services in the state. such a focus will help ensure offenders get the treatment and support services they need in order to recover from their substance use disorder as well as to lead healthy and productive lives upon their release sfwr incarceration. i think this is an important amendment. i urge my colleagues to support this amendment and yield back to mr. scott.

>> thank you mr. scott and mr. pallone, i want to join you in this amendment and appreciate you bringing it forward. we have such a catch-22 that we're just locking people up and not giving them any treatment and then we act shocked when they come out and end up back in this vicious cycle of committing crimes in order to pay for their drug habit. i've seen, i've been, i've visited treatment facilities in house within our incarceration that are effective that they can make a difference, turn people's lives around and for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle i just want to say it's a very cost-effective choice for the taxpayer because we can drop those recidivism rates from, as i said, the 80th percentile down to the 20th percentile. put people back to work in their communities raising their

families and they've overcome this disease that we know as substance use disorder. so thank you, i yield back, appreciate your time. >> you can reserve it, i'll give you an extra minute. let me take five minutes against the amendment. the amendment would direct the grants awarded under section 601 straited by the secretary of hhs to go towards incarcerated individuals. currently as we know the justice department is responsible for providing treatment for offenders in prisons, jails and juvenile facilities. though i support the goal of what the gentleman is trying to do, theres a clear delineation between who's responsible for care in different settings when someone is incarcerated or not. the amendment would make it less clear on the state level who is held accountable and responsible for providing treatment so i would urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment and yield

back my time. does the gentleman still wish his minute? >> yes, yes, thank you, mr. chairman. reclaiming my time. i'll just say that it doesn't direct the states to do anything, just makes it an allowable use and there's not a lot of money on this line item so it would be more like pilot projects so we can find what works and doesn't work. so appreciate the support of the purpose of the amendment and i hope the amendment will be documented. >> you know, in the future i would like to work with the gentleman. maybe we can get language that we can accept on our side but appreciate the amendment. with that, time is expired. those in favor of the amendment will say aye. those opposed say no. my mike was on. in the opinion of the chair the nos have it. the amendment is not agreed to. >> mr. chairman? i have a unanimous consent for

introduction into the record. thank you, mr. chairman i'd like to add into the record a statement of the american public health association for science, action and health. i ask unanimous consent to place this into the record. >> without objection. it's my understanding there are no further amendments to be offered. is that correct? any member wish to offer an amendment that was put in by last night? so seeing none we've now concluded debate on the amendments filed for today's meeting of the house and senate conferees on s-524. the kara act of 2016, we will amend the text of the conference report to reflect the amendments adopted today, i want to thank members and staff for their hard work today and over this congress on this very, very important issue. at some point following the meeting we'll announce a time and place for members to review the final conference report text

and to then sign that conference report without objection. staff is authorized to make technical and confirming changes to the legislation approved by the committee today. so ordered and without objection the committee stands adjourned. [ indistinct conversation ] [ indistinct conversation ]

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c-span's "washington journal" live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, texas republican congressman blake farenthold will join us and karen bass will also talk about the fbi's recommendation of no criminal charges against mrs. clinton as well as the 2016 presidential campaign. plus representative bass will discuss possible house votes on gun violence. the baton rouge police shooting of alton sterling and president obama's announcement to slow the pace of afghanistan troop withdrawal. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern thursday morning. join the discussion. fbi director james comey

testifies on capitol hill thursday on his recommendation that hillary clinton not be prosecuted for her use of a private e-mail server. director comey will appear before the house oversight and government reform committee live at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span three. >> if we're going to invest a total $100 million into higher education in the commonwealth, we have to change the way we deliver education and more from the dollars we're getting. sunday night on "q&a" aei resident fellow gerard robinson talks about the state of education in the u.s. >> there's a body of literature that's pretty clear there's certain courses you should take -- math, science, english -- that should be in place if you expect to be successful in college to simply accept students who haven't filled that obligation is doing a great disservice to them and

it's sullying the effort of affirmative action which is something i support. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." book tv has 48 hours of non-fiction books and authors every weekend. here are some programs to watch out for. on saturday, hillary clinton's 1996 book "it takes a village" is a topic of a round table discussion with gill troy of the brookings institution. >> 1993 and 1994 if you said it takes a -- no one knew what you were talking about. it's hillary's branding. >> carlos lozada of the "washington post." >> it was a big moment right then to declare as she did in this book i'm a moderate. >> and amy parnes of "the hill." >> she's pushing equal pay and child care which was a huge issue for her right now. >> at 8:30 p.m. eastern, gary byrne discusses his book "crisis

of character." a white house secret service officer discloses his firsthand experience with hillary, bill, and how they operate. on sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, afterwards, author eric fair discusses his book "consequence, a memoir" and his experiences serving as an interrogator in abu ghraib prison in iraq. he's interviewed by raha wala from human rights first. >> the image of a number of men chained to their cell doors with their hands between their legs which was forced standing which was an enhanced technique. and donald rumsfeld said he stands at his desk all day, why can't we make -- i can tell you seeing someone in a forced standing position has nothing to do with standing at a standing desk. it was torture. >> go to booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule. next, a review of the cases and rulings of the supreme court term.

journalists from cnn, the "new york times," and the "national law journal" took part in this event hosted by the district of columbia bar. this is 90 minutes. good afternoon, everybody. welcome to the 28th annual view from the press gallery program sponsored by the d.c. bar section on courts, lawyers and the administration of justice i'm arthur spitzer, a former member of that steering committee and for my day job i see the american civil liberties union and in my spare time watched the supreme court. i've got a couple of preliminaries before we begin. first, our thanks for hosting us again this year and to marsha tucker, its pro bono coordinator

and its technical staff for making all the arrangements possible. thanks to c-span for covering us again this year. i understand we're being broadcast live this year on c-span 2. if you don't want the back of your head to show on tv you can shrink to the side of the room. many thanks to my former aclu colleague fritz mull jamaica plain -- mullhauser. as i mentioned, our main sponsor is on courts lawyers and administration of justice which focuses on matters involving court administration and rules, the relationship between the bench and the bar and all aspects of the profession including ethics, discipline and admission standards. the section also focuses on improving action to justice for everyone in the district of columbia. if you're not a member of the section, you're cordially invited to join. it's only one 206 sections of

the d.c. bar which cover most areas of practice from antitrust to entertainment, family law, criminal or real estate tax. if you're a member of the d.c. bar not involved in the section we encourage you to join one. if you're not yet a member of the d.c. bar we encourage you to think about sections once you've decided to live here and get admitted and on a personal note, if you're not yet a member of the american civil liberties union you can join at aclu.org. we'll be privileged to hear this afternoon from a panel of journalists who have covered the supreme court for many years. i'll introduce them in order of seniority. tony morrow at my far right of the "national law journal" and american lawyer media has covered the court since 1979 first for gannett news service and "usa today." he joined the washington legal times in 2000 and continued as a court correspondent after it merged into the "national law journal" in 2009.

david savage, who is next to tony, has been with the "los angeles times" since 1981 and covering the court since 1986. he started the same time justice scalia started. and also in recent years he covers the court for the "chicago tribune."