president trump will mark

his 100 day in office in a rally in harrisburg, pennsylvania, saturday night. that is scheduled to sfart at 7. 306789 p.m. eastern and can you see it on our companion network c-span. for the first time since ronald reagan was shot, the president is not attending the white house correspondents' association dinner. the dinner is going on, nonetheless. the entertainment is hassan managest daily show. you can see it saturday on c-span. our coverage begins at 9:30 p.m. eastern. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite providers. the u.n. security council met yesterday to hear from the u.n.'s undersecretary-general

for humanitarian affairs about the on going civil conflict in syria. at the meeting, u.s. ambassador nikki haley said russia is propping up the regime of syrian dictator basharal assad. >> good morning. the 7,931st meeting of the security council is called to order. the provisional ajenlda for this meeting is the situation in the middle east. the agenda is adopted. in accordance with rule 39 of the council's provisional rules of procedure, i invite mr. o'brien undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator to participate in this meeting. it is so decided.

i wish to draw council members to the report of the secretary-general on the implementation of security council's resolution 2139, 2165, 2191, 2258, and 2332. >> madam president, thank you very much. on the 15th of april, the exhausted oppressed people of syria suffered yet another hor endous attack. -- horrendous attack. women and men and children were targeted by a car bomb while stopped at a check point. there were 67 children among the

125 dead. such a terrible price for those already brought through so much. if i do not raise the instance solely because of the loss of life or the attackers, rather, it was the unity of the humanitarian response to the attack that ought also be in the headlines. humanitarians from all directions rushed in to save lives. syrian arab red decrees ent cre workers, ngos along with countless civilianed drew together to aid survivors as best they could. after a deplorable terrorist act arose the testament to the strength of the syrian spirit of ordinary civilian syrians coming together to help others regardless of their background.

all too sadly, too members of the humanity, acts we see every day at the local level across syria, are overshadowed by the sheer number and ferocity of attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, markets. the last month we've seen fighting continue to intensify on numerous fronts. the secretary-general said time and again that there will be no victory end to this conflict. yet, military might continues to be used against civilians in a way that defies all reasons let alone morality or the law. the use of chemical weapons on the fourth of april is yet another horrific account of such brutality. i wish i could say mindless brutality. but, no, it was deliberate,

planned, predetermined by other humans against their own fellow human beings, sheer unbridled cruelty by leaders and commanders and we're awaiting the investigation to confirm which ones. just a few days ago two more hospitals were renldered inoperable after reported air strikes that also led to the deaths and injury of civilians including children. at least six hospitals and three schools have been impacted in april alone. i echoed a call from our coordinators that the attacks against medical facilities are completely unacceptable and must stop. what purpose can the use of such military tactics bring? well, certainly not peace. nor any benefit to any syrian. these gross tactics will only cause further human suffering, human suffering primarily by the civilian population.

and for which they must and we are determined to be held to account if not now in the nearest future possible. beyond these attacks, this was so shocked the world, as i said to you, i am also gravely concerned about the situation in besieged eastern -- where civilians remain trapped amid reports of relent else shelling and air strikes. they have reportedly been closed and further restriction movement for some 400,000 people who live in the area. wheen the u.n. has been unable to access since october last year. increased fighting has also resulted in displace ment in the north where some 20,000 people have been displaced in recent days. air strikes and shelling continues to kill civilians and

damage civilian infrastructure. just this week i met with a medical facility in a village and was reportedly struck by air strikes and the chemical attack occurred earlier in the month its market was taken out by aerial bombardment that resulted in the death of seven civilians including a child and the wounding of 30 more. on going fighting has also led to deaths, injury, and displacement. some 39,000 newly displaced people plead fighting to join the tens of thousands already in camps and more arrive every day. the situation for those in the camps is extremely difficult with four out of five people lacking appropriate shelter and now reports of the death of several children due to a lack of medical care. united nations and our ngo

partners are responding and there are plans to scale p response? the coming days. while insecurity causes humanitarian situation to deteriorate for hundreds of thousands, access to provide them with life saving support is challenged at every turn. i am concerned by the rise, i repeat, rise in administrative and other bureaucratic restrictions by all parties. for example, in the northeast of syria, requirements by -- requirement for humanitarians to register with local authorities have been in place since march which include provisions regarding ngos recruitment policies and interference with procurement processes amongst others. further, since fourth of april, local authorities have attempted to direct where assistance could be delivered. such directing the assistance is contrary to the humanitarian principles. these wrongful attempts at

coercions have resulted in a pause in the u.n. operations and affecting nearly 100,000 people. similar restrictions such as new registration demands and requests for information on and interfeerns into the staffing, logistics and finances of ngos only penalize those most in need. i will not repeat again the bureaucratic tactics used by the governments of syria and the humanitarian assistance the every turn. beyond saying that they thin to bring untold human suffering. as a result of these tactics and the on going insecurity, levels of access to interagency cross line convoys are no greater than they were at this time last year. there are four convoys deployed so far under the april/may plan reaching 157,500 people. none of the convoys reached

besieged areas due to a lack of necessary authorizations. nakt, the only besieged people reached this year by land were the 6,000 people trapped in a town and 60,000 in the four towns who were accessed separately through the objectionable tit for tat four towns agreement. they continue to be reached by airdrops. i said publicly that the failure to deliver is a state on just the parties to the conflict and also to those in the international community including this council as well as the members of the humanitarian task force of the international syria support group who have committed themselves to exercise their interests to improve humanitarian access, particularly to besieged areas. despite this challenge, the u.n. and humanitarian partners

continue to relentlessly negotiate access as we always have done and wherever this is possible. real progress is needed now to stymie the tide of death and suffering inflicted on people day after day, month after month. for mshgs this is already too late. inaction has played a part in material changes to the humanitarian land xap. as the noose has tightened around the town, some 30,000 people in the add add jay sent areas have come under siege. significantly however we continue to seen overall reduction in the number of people besieged due to the start and surrender tactics used by the goovernment of syria. thousands of people in surrounding towns and in the four towns have now been displaced as part of the agreement which followed years

of besiege ment and intense air strikes, shelling, and sniping. people have been removed from the besieged locations. in fact, there is a town devoid of the civilian population. as a result of the changes, the number of people in besieged areas now stands at just over 620,000 people. although the overall number is reducing, this process of evacuation must not be misconstrued as a positive develop ment. these evacuations are not in line with humanitarian principles and are not conducted in conner istation with the people effected. this is not intend those evacuate to move to a location of safety. manufacture those who displace to northern alep yoe continue to live in areas where civilian structures come under regular

bombard ment and access to basic goods such as food and shelter is limited. these civilians may no longer be besieged, but they have been forced to leave their homes and they continue to suffer. so madam president, given the shifting from clients, all routes need to remain open to allow safe passage and aid to reach people in need throughout syria through the most direct routes by the brave humanitarian aid workers. we have seen innovations of necessities implemented through the airdrops. now with needs increasing in northeast syria and more traditional routes inaccessible, they're looking for alternatives. the number of ngo's operating out of northeast syria quadruple in the last year and expected to grow further as need continue to outjout strip assistance being

provided. a land fruit aleppo to provide support is also being negotiated and explored. the humanitarian situation is i'm sad to say deteriorating if that were possible and the need for acts of engage ment by membersst council is urgently needed. the core needs of the syrian people from theibility national community in general and to those member states seated at this council in particular remain largely unphased. they include a consolidation of the nationwide cease-fire and in particular a pause in fighting in the eastern town tone able the delivery of aid. it is imperative that no country or group prevent people from moving in safety and

humanitarian organizations from accessing people in need wherever they are in syria. a change in hard to reach locations is needed to ensure full implementation of u.n. interagency convoy plans and tone sure delivery on the basis of humanitarian need assessmentes. also an to end the removal of medical license for sear yachlt a step change in access to besieged and hard to reach locations is needed in order to ensure full implementation of the convoy plans and to ensure delivery on the basis of the humanitarian needs assess mentes. and also an end to the removal of medical items off convoys. immediate unimpeded and sustained access to all in need throughout syria and in particular there must be an immediate lifting of all sieges. finally, there must be a political solution to the

conflict in accordance with the resolution and the geneva communique. as long as military tactics are prioritize over political, there can be no lasting peace. it will be the civilian population that is the need for suffering as a result. also, i would wish to say that now is when we need the action because now is already too late for the over quarter a million syrians who have died over the period of this atrocious war. so please, members of the security council, it is action today that is going to count. >> thank you very much, stephen. i'm sorry i was trying to give you someone else's name. this will certainly help us going forward. now i give the floor to those council members who wish to make

statement ands we'll start by giving the floor to the representative of japan. >> thank you, madam president. i thank mr. o'brien for lhis briefing. we have heard many times that the situation in syria cannot get worse, yet this tragic crisis continues. 7.5 million people need humanitarian assistance. even marches so-called improved access allowed eight convoys to reach only 39% of people for whom access is requested. there's been some progress on the hard to reach areas since the 12 step agreement between the syrian higher committee for relief and united nations and the situation in the besieged areas is still devastating. and we can only imagine the horror of the he vak wooi wees on 15th of april who had finally

existed -- xiblted their besieges towns only for the convoy to be brutally targeted in at tack. the many tragedies in sear why you include not only ordinary civilians but also the people trying to help them. nearly one year has passed since the adoption of resolution 2286 which called for protection of medical staff. yet, countless medical personnel and humanitarian workers are still being killed in syria. i would like to take this opportunity to express our sorrow and gratitude to them. pay our respect to the brave men and women who continue to work for those in need and the most severe circumstances. madam frez, the council and the

issg humanitarian task force have been making strenuous efforts to achieve rapid, safe, and unhindered access throughout syria. our attention is extensive but any progress is often hard won. we have worked to identify concrete measures obstacles and areas to be reached. and yet we have constantly encountered bureaucratic impedestrian imei impediments and delayed responses from the syrian government. every interagency convoy's departure or potential kans slags a subject of worry and every item is potential at risk of being withdrawn. from the convoy. furthermore, it is clear that facility letters issued by the

syrian government are crucial. it is tragic and unbelievable that one bureaucratic document can be so critical for access to thousands of people. the humanitarian court in egypt, sweden and gentleman pal have discussed this matter directly with the syrian mission here. we urge syria to make more efforts to issue letters immediately in line with the u.n.'s call to issue them within two to three days. we believe that the syrian mission conveyed our joint message to damascus and they will strive to achieve as much as possible in this area. one of the most urgent concerns at present is eastern gutar. the u.n. is requesting a us is station of hostilities to allow

humanitarian access. japan sports this call. but the need for a cease-fire is not limited to this area. we are concerned by many reports of fighting in var -- various locations, the next meeting at the beginning of may will be crucial to preserving the cease-fire mechanism which allows for humanitarian access. madam president, while the details and logistics i mention ready vitally important for syria, we should also keep two broader goals in mind. first is the political process. al thoet recent geneva daukz not good a breakthrough, there were also no breakdowns. this is an implisive affirmation that there is no military solution to the conflict. we must act on this progress to

gain commitment which translate into life saving changes on the ground. and the second broad point is a need for truth and accountability. we have seen so much destruction and so many crimes during this six year war, in particular, the use of chemical weapons. justice may not come immediately but the u.n. and other humanitarian actors must use their darius tools including those granted by the security council to get facts on the ground. the facts will form basis for accountability and for addressing the suffering of the syrian people. we must continue efforts unbaited to achieve good faith cooperation and humanitarian access from the syrian

government in order to serve those most in need. "thank you, madam president. >> i thank the representative of japan. i now give the floor to the representative of sweden. >> thank you. thank you madam president. and i thank undersecretary-general o'brien for his comprehensive briefing today. each month he returns to this council to report on the humanitarian situation in syria. each month the situation becomes more acute. the number of people driven from their homes increases and the number not knowing where the next needle come from grows. and the number of people killed rises. mr. undersecretary-general, we heard from you again today about the worsening plight of the syrian people. over six million people brutalized, displaced and trapped in syria in need of humanitarian assistance. five million people ran from their homes and loved ones to seek refuge in the region and beyond if they survive the

journey. now they're waiting in towns and villages and refugee camps in jordan, lebanon and turkey, waiting for the assistance they need, waiting for the war to end. waiting for the moment when they can begin to rebuild their lives. madam president, it seems unlikely that the way will end soon as we heard today, rather than decreasing, there is increase the military violence on the ground leading to large numbers of civilian casualties and more internal displace ment. it seems that humanitarian considerations are suborder nant to military objectives. there continues to be a complete disregard for the laws of war and obligations to protect civilians. cynical military laws tactics that blatantly violate international humanitarian law by deliberately targeting civilians are being used to gain military advantage particularly

by the government forces. the upcoming meeting the third of may offers an opportunity for the cease-fire guarantors to make progress. we expect that they will take this opportunity to deliver. a failure to do so also threatens progress on the upcoming u.n.-led talks in geneva. while emphasizing the syrian regime and its allies bear responsibility for the overwhelming majority of violations of international humanitarian law in syria, we also know that the recent air strikes have allegedly led civilian casualties and hit civilian infrastructure. this compounds the suffering of people who are already the victims of senseless torture and murder at the hands of the people. madam president, the reality for

many of those who have been forced to live under siege for years is that when the opportunity does arise to lead, they are cruelly being moved to areas xascarcely more stable or safe. the u.n. expressed concern over local agreements preceded by the besiege ment and bombard ment and resulting in the fourth displace ment of civilians. so as to enable local agreements must come to a stop. we ral the waurng from the secretary-general that under international humanitarian law forced displacement my constitute a war crime. we reiterate that any of our evacuation of civilians must be safe, voluntary, teen a place their choosing. he urge the full kblins of any new local agreements with

international humanitarian law. and we encourage the u.n. and other relevant organizations and member states with influence to intensify dialogue what w. parties and actors, primarily the government of syria to end this. we understand the predicament that local agreements present for the u.n. and other humanitarian agencies. they're not informed of the terms, have no access and the security situation limits the possibility to be present during subsequent relocations. we must make every effort to avoid another catastrophe like the one here. until the fighting stops, we must continue to zplor options to increase safety for civilians, for example, using cameras or other tools as a form of protective precedence. the deplorable situation for those relocated is of great concern. the air strikes on hospitals and

schools in must come to a stop. civilians must protect and humanitarian access must be granted. we call on those with influence over the armed group to use the influence against the humanitarian agencies and ngos to do their work. until the situation improves, we might all want to advocate alternative destinations for civilians with better protection and access. we encourage the u.n. to inform the council in the next report about the situation in another main destination area. madam president, we want to take this opportunity to express our strong support and admiration for the u.n. and other humanitarian organizations tireless efforts to deliver assistance to populations in need in an extremely challenging context. they continue to encounter

barriers and access to they need on daily basis. we renew our call on the syrian regime to grant safe, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all those in need of assistance, sustained humanitar assistance to all who need it, including areas subject to local agreements. access is a function of political will. agreeing to provide lifesaving aid to women and men, boys and girls or not to do so. we fully support japan's call on behalf of the holders for the syrian authorities to recommend the u.n.'s simple fight humanitarian process. let me underline our deep concern about the deterioratini condition in southern guta. we call for a pause in fighting to allow humanitarian agencies

to reach all they need in the area. access being requested by the u.n. since october of last year. in addition to the well known access constraints particularly to areas besieged by the government of syria, we're also increasingly worried about the new restrictions such as those imposed now in idlib and kurdish controlled areas. madam president, every day longer that the syrian -- that the people of syria wait for assistance and an end to this conflict is an indication of the failed yur of the international community and of this council. of our failure to show the courage to take tough decisions necessary to pit humanitarian needs above political considerations.

by failing to live up to deliver a peaceful end to the suffering for the people of syria. how much longer must they wait? for many, including the thousands of children's, their dreams for the future are already shattered. least we should be able to do is to give them the support they need to end the nightmare they live today. thank you madam president. >> i thank the represent offensive of sweden and i give the floor to the lettive of egypt. >> translator: madam president, we are holding meetings at the security council on the situation in syria to reaffirm our positions vis-a-vis the unprecedented suffering of the syrian people.

wor we have gotten used to it. it has become part of the traditional practice that has started to i effect our outlook and our real engagement in an interactive dialogue that seeks to reach a common ground that we can build upon to support a serious effort towards a settlement. it is important to give ourselves the opportunity to review what the security council has achieved during the past few months so that we can judge in an objective way the track adopted by the council. let us remind ourselves that the meetings and outcomes are -- did

not bring pressure. it did not prevent the two who irveg ibc dents that took place this month that has claimed the hooifls of more women children and men to add to the hundreds of thousands who have lost their lives during the past six years. the first incident on the 4th of april, the second incident, the terrorist explosion on the 15th of the same month. madam president, reviewing the concept and approach of the security council on the situation in syria and its impact on the reality on the ground, this has become an urgent matter. we have warned time and again that the council cannot become

an immediate outlet where the impact of its actions do not go beyond headlines. we clearly see that the work of the council is moving steadily towards that fate. if a crisis of this magnitude does not provide us with a modicum of common ground, what are we waiting to happen before we make the necessary effort to overcome the state of polarization and opposing interests? madam president, i would like to thank mr. o'brien for his focused and clear briefing today. we repeat our support to the efforts of the united nations on the humanitarian level, we are ready to support any efforts that seek to alleviate the suffering of civilians in any of the syrian towns, whether when

it comes to the access to humanitarian assistance or the evacuation of the sick and injured, we urge the parties concerned to facilitate the mission of the organization and to work on removing any impediments. i would like to express our deep regret that the briefing reflected, as expected, the continued human suffering in syria. it was no different than previous briefings, exempt in some details, locations and numbers, the practices did not change. the impediments did not fall. the factors that continue to fuel this cries did not and will not change until parties continue to stall for any reason.

or if the security council continues to reflect points of diversions and not commonality or if it continues to focus on details without looking at the infrastructure. therefore, i call on all parties to support the efforts of the secretary general through the u.n. envoy to reach an agreement on instructing a transitional period that meets the aspirations of if syrian people on establishing democracy and freedoms in accordance with the geneva communique 2254. i also renew our call to all parties to engage in a serious manner to counter terrorism and the spread of terrorist groups in syria and to confront the phenomenon of armed groups and militia that are not governed by any law and that continue to

deceived for of guns and weapons without their sponsors being accountable, without even being held for these practices. something in sponsoring 234ri678 an orpgd and systematic way in syria and countries of the region. this is not an illusion. it is a fact. it is a fact that imposes itself and that threatens the countries of the region and that is witnessed by the countries of the region of the world and they will continue to suffer from it if some continue to bury their heads in the sand. madam president, we still seek a common ground between the members of the council that we can build upon if there are serious intentions and we are committed to add dialogue, a frank dialogue on the syrian crisis away from any

polarizations. we still see the central ality of the support group, the united states and the russian federation when it comes to syria at the political level and on the ground, we also believe that the documents of this council, the statements of the support group, and previous understandings, these could be a foundation that we can build upon in this regard. they will contribute to reinvigorate the work of the issg. we are fully prepared to support any efforts in this regard. the challenges of the crisis are bigger than -- are bigger and no one can address them alone. the saboteurs of the political process and the saboteurs in

syria mentioned them time and again. they will seek to exploit the division in the council and between international parties so that they can fuel the situation on the ground and defeat any attempt to a political settlement and to ensure that the proxy war continues. thank you, madam president. le. >> i thank the secretary of egypt and give the floor to the representative of the united kingdom. >> thank you madam president. i want to begin as you did, stephen, by wholeheartedly condemning the terrorist attack on desperate civilians as rp they were being evacuated as part of the agreement. it is utterly tragedy that over 120 people, including a very high number of children, were brutally killed. the yupt united kingdom will

work to make sure whoever is responsible is held to account. i wish also to salute the unity and bravery of the humanitarian response, including the response of the white helmets. depilot a cease fire being in plies since 2016 we continue to witness terrible ongong violence. in april alone we know that the regime or its allies have carried out aerial attacks on at least six hospitals and three schools in syria. six hospitals, three schools. this is utterly deplorable. i hope others will join me in condemning all the such incidents. all of us need to do everything in our power to bring the suffering to an end. and so i ask my russian colleague, what is russia doing with its p leverage to ensure the regime stops attacking schools and hospitals.

these attacks, once again, bring in to laser focus the you are gent and desperate humanitarian needs of 1 million people in syria. i'm especially concerned by the difficulty in reaching the 1.5 million people who live undersiegelike condition and the 33.2 million in the hard to reach areas in syria, all of them who require food, water, and medicine. roughly five million syrians live in besieged and hard to reach areas, but the only regime besieged area to be reached in 2017 was kam al sheer. the other areas.

this is a tiny proportion of aid reaching those people who are in most need of it. let me be clear. the syrian gulfstream using starve or surrender tactics. that is an p hornet and a clear breach of international humanitarian law. i'm especially concerned about the 420,000 syrians who are running out of supplies. there are medical needs, shortage of basic food items and no water or power supplies. i fully support b stephen's call for a pause in fighting to allow the u.n. and its humanitarian partners to safely enter eastern gupta. at the spore group meeting in geneva in april, refresh voted

to press the regime. what is the situation one week later? the regime has not acted. there is still no convoy. we owe it to the people of dumais to do everything we can to improve the situation. the u.n. has received assurances from the relevant armed opposition groups to allow them to deliver assistance and it has identified a safe route to enter. the only things now lacking are for the assad regime to issue a facilitation letter and to pause it's aerial bottom batterment for long enough for the u.n. and its humanitarian partners to enter. if russia is unable to ensure that the regime requires access, we call upon the security council to act to make sure

they're able to deliver urgent supplies to dumais, in the first instance. i will restate what i have said many times before. there can be no sustainable peace until there is a political transition. the assad regime bears overwhelming responsibility for the suffering of the syrian people. i implore the whole of the security council to work in unity to end the suffering for the syrian people. thank you. >> i now give the floor to the representative of senegal. >> translator: thank you very much, madam president. president, as i begin, i would like to thank mr. stephen o'brien for his high-quality briefing. i'd also like to thank him for everything he's doing. through him, i would like to thank medical staffer and

workers. i pay tribute to them, the sacrifices they make for the syrian people. madam, senegal remains deeply concerned by the devastating impact of the syrian conflict. this is the reason that my delegation would like to reiterate its firm condemnation of the terrorist attack on 15 april 2017 in western aleppo. this was perpetrated during the evacuati evacuation. it led to the death of 130 individuals, including 67 children and hundreds of wounded. this is an attack which has been condemned by the security council. it is our view that this is an

additional reason to accord due importance to combatting terrorism and violent extremism. in particular, combatting dias and the direct alyou're ra front. this shook done under a stroinl that uphold humanitarian measures. this conflict is one which has led to the suffering of syrian childr children. i would note the fate of 2.4 million individuals who fled their homes and 280,000 others who continue to live in besieged are areas. their fate is something we must

all be concerned about. here, there's a need to take up the paem launched by the u.n. committee in rights of the child, mainly that an investigation be opened regarding the crimes against children through cooperation with existing mechanisms. these mechanisms include the ocpb, as well as the international commission of inquiry on syria and the impartial and independent mechanism on syria. my delegation would like to reiterate its encouragement of the opcw. we encourage in particular its fact finding mission, as it seeks to shed full light on the

chemical attacks so as to bring before justice the perpetrators of this terrible act which led to so many victims, including children. madam president, there are efforts being made. the cessation of hostilities facilitated by russia, turkey and iran is something we'd like to pay tribute to. this is in the frame work of the process. it is an initiative which has given rise to hope and optimism. yet, it is called into question today due to violence across the country in areas such as aleppo, hamma, morocco and damascus have seen the number of victims climbing higher and higher, growing destruction of public

infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, and markets, all of this is in violation of international humanitarian law. eastern gutta is about where about 400,000 people will besieged. this is particularly worry some. according to the pho, three public hospitals and 17 health centers in the area are no longer operational. and thus inaccessible to populations. further, the last time a humanitarian convoy reached that region was on 29 october 2016. p nonetheless, the n. and its partners have continued in spite of very difficult conditions to provide support to those in need. in this connection, my delegation would like to welcome

praise worthy progress made towards the end of march 2017 with assistance provided to 307,000 people out of 787,000 targeted. this was through five interagency convoys. it is a coverage rate of 39% against 28% coverage for last february. the relevant syrian authorities have approved 71.7% of u.n. requests for april-may 2017. nonetheless, we would like to see greater provision of humanitarian assistance. we hale the effort of the syrian

authorities but at the same time call upon them to provide letters of safe conduct. these letters are needed for optimal implementation of plans drawn up by u.n. humanitarian agencies and their partners. all parties to the syrian conflict must uphold their obligations under human rights laws mainly guaranteeing access to those in need for medical care and full security without restrictions conditions or hindrances in line with relevant security council resolutions. it is our hope that the process in tehran will solidify the cease fire. better still would be for the truce to lead to clear improvement in the provision of

humanitarian assistance proitd by the united nations. in this regard we welcome the task front co-chaired by the united states of the western federation under the issg. the task force in spite of major constraints on the ground continues its work to guarantee the provision of humanitarian assistance in particular to besieged areas. in these areas access to assistance is essentially impossib impossible. all these methods must continue to provide to those in need. in conclusion, madam, we reiterate our unshakeable view that only -- the only political solution to this crisis with the devastated consequences is a political one, a negotiated political solution on the basis

of the geneva communique and resolutions under the auspices of the united nations. >> thank you, sir. i recognize you. >> thank you, madam president. we are grateful to usg stephen o'brien's briefing but also his and his team's work and the humanitarian work ersz working in extremely difficult conditions. >> translator: we are grateful to all of them. what more can we say at this stage in the syrian conflict that has not yet been said? frankly, very little remains to be added. uruguay has been a member of the council since last year.

we should continue to work towards a political solution to this crisis and move towards a peaceful transition in syria negotiated by all syrians with the backing of the international community and to do this, we have every trust in the good offices of special enjoy to continue in the next round of negotiations in geneva between the parties to try to come up with a matter of convergence so they can give shape to a new chapter in syria. let us avoid duplicity. actors outside the region must altogether call for a political solution and cease to provide support to armed groups that can be likened to a diash or al

nusra. it is key for us to strengthen the cessation of violence across the territory which would lead to a significant reduction in violence to that country. we hail the efforts of russia, turkey, kazakhstan and others and we're hoping that their work can continue. let us step up the work of the issg in geneva so that we can help them trace the path towards a political transition. we believe that the ses sayings of hostilities by the security council two months ago must be abided by. madam president, the political process and the ses sayings of hostilities are only two offing the stages towards turning the page in syria. the third is the humanitarian aspect. we have taken note of the

improvement of humanitarian access in february and march in besieged areas that are hard to reach. however, compared to a year ago we're still far away from any good results. let us continue to call for sustained unfettered access to all these areas without distinction so we can alleviate the needs of many people in need. we believe that the protection of civilians in syria and any other area is an absolute priority. it is immoral to draw distinctions between citizens. we have seen over the past seven years the most serious human rights violations and violations under national humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict. to the point where we can't have any -- until we have accountability for these crimes, they will continue to commit them. and here we welcome the report

presented by last -- last friday by the independent inquiry on syria, and we would like to see fort worth exchange between them and the security council to make sure we can actually help each other in our work. it is marley difficult for civilians and they are prone to indiscriminate p bombings and the use of prohibited weapons as we saw on the 4th of april in the chemical attacks and we all condemned it unanimously. we are all aware why we were unable to reach our resolution. this is a war crime that need to be comprehensively investigated to determine who are the perpetrators. we encourage the pcw in its work and are hoping it can come up with elucidating conclusions.

we have to try to identify person freighters of this attack. there is also the use of force by some member states, and we reiterate that this is the least appropriate way of dealing with this kind of situation, because only -- it only increases the intentions in -- the tensions in the area. in april we saw the brutal attack against civilians create ed in the agreement which includes madaya and saladania. although we share concerns over the misplacement, we must also take into account that there are scores of thousands that are still in difficult conditions in

besieged areas and they are the victims of constant p bombs and in many cases they're dying of hunger. any evacuation must be done in the safety for the civilians and there must be humanitarian assistance and efforts made to ensure that they can eventually return to their homes as soon as possible. madam president, a year since the adoption of the relevant resolution, we continue to witness the destruction of hospitals and other million facilities in syria, and price parties have overlooked their commitments and deprived thousands of people of medical assistance and this has led to injuries. this is in schools, markets, and other places in yemen and we condemn them regardless of where

they occur and we believe that those who perpetrate such acts must be held accountable. in closing, madam president we would like to make several questions. first, we must consolidate the hostilities across the entire syrian area and second, we must call for all parties to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure including medical facilities and third we request that the syrian authorities eliminate or minimize bureaucratic restrictions to ensure that we can have mandatory access reaching to the besieged areas and those that are hard to reach. our fourth request is that -- and i don't believe there's need to stress this. we joined ocha in its called for a humanitarian pause of 48 hours in eastern gosa. this should be the practice in all areas under siege.

thank you very much, madam president. >> i thank the representative of uruguay way. i give the floor to the representative of italy. >> thank you madam president and thank you mr. o'brien for your briefing. the u.n. has the full support of italy. international humanitarian law is violated. terrorists continues to kill scores of syrians, including children, like in the bar baric attack on 15 april. the carnage that have reached new chemical weapons attacks can undermine any path towards a credible to to syrian conflict. we take note of the increase in

numbers of envoys. this is a demonstration that humanitarian access can be provided in syria. but it is not enough. it is important to focus on besieged areas where the situation clearly is worsening. especially in eastern guta where the 400,000 people under siege have no facilities to rely upon since all have been destroyed. convoys are ready to deliver much-needed assistance but cannot proceed. the armed faction have provided written guarantees for the convoys, whereas the regime, despite russian pressures, continues to deny this authorization. we support the call for an immediate pause in the fighting to allow for humanitarian aid to be delivered to eastern gouda,

which cannot become the next aleppo. this council should closely monitor this issue and step up the pressure on the rel vantd parties. madam president, local agreements between the parties to the conflict often reach after months of siege and bombings. such as the agreement over the four towns are also cause for concern. there is -- the evacuations that follow such agreements is not involved and is not an observer to have to respect humanitarian principles. we encourage the united nations to monitor the evacuation in the four towns and al wawer to prevent further violations of humanitarian law. the consequences of the kwlikt has spread across the region.

beating the form of terrorist or in the form of a controlled flow of refugees. legal and safe ways to ensure movement of people fleeing from conflicts are pair mount. we commend other designations. in this regard, the italian government is creating a program called humanitarian corridors which allows safe and legal entry to italy for people fleeing the horrors of combat. it is an act of solidarity and a means to combat trafficking, a model that other countries are following. i also wish to highlight the contribution of the recent brussels conference. italy confirmed this commitment of humanitarian aid and longer sterm assistance for 2017 and 2018.

but of course humanitarian system must be delivered to the population. the conference also resulted in a renewed effort of the international community both in response to the humanitarian tragedy but also in the reaction of a political solution. because madam president, humanitarian and political implications are deeply connected. it's key to creating a coon struckive environment in gentlemgeneva where talks will continue under leadership. we cannot allow this critical negotiation to be jeopardized by fighting on the ground or by continued lack of humanitarian access to population. the cease fire have a special representative in the vicinity and we look forward to the next meeting. as emerged in the g7 meegtsds in

the italy recently, which also included key regional stake holders, only a political settlement will bring the dire humanitarian situation to an end. in conclusion, madam president, wish to reaffirm the importance of accountability of those responsible of such terrible crimes that we are witnessing in syria. italy will continue to work with councilmembers to this end. thank you, madam president. >> i thank the representative of italy and i now give the floor to the representative of france. >> translator: madam president, stephen o'brien, i thank for his briefing and his engagement, but he once again reminds us of our responsibilities regarding the syrian tragedy.

sings our last humanitarian consultations, syria has slipped ever further into horror, the chemical weapons attack perpetrated on 4 april claimed the lives of more than 80 people and wounded more than 500. we expect from forthcoming report of the secretary general that a very careful look is taken regarding the humanitarian -- of the humanitarian agains of the attack. france does have information. the french minister of foreign affairs has made them public yesterday. they provide evidence that the use of sarin gas and -- and the responsibility of the regime, the regime will have to be held accountable for these crimes. syria committed in 2013 to no longer use chemical weapons and to destroy all of its stockpiles. more than ever, we must remind

syria of its obligations. more generally speaking, the prohibition of the use of chemical weapons must remain semi kwon nan and a universal condition for all of us. ten days after the attack on 4 april, a civilian convoy was attacked by a car bomber in the area of al rush di. this led -- this price being paid by the population is intolerable. this takes place in a particular context the namely the overlapping displacement of populations, more than 11,000 individuals have been evacuated from the four towns, but i'd like to remind you that civilian evacuations have to be carried out in a voluntary manner.

the second general has clearly recalled this. forced displacement of populations could constitute war crimes. concerned populations must also be able to choose where they're going. in this context, yet again, we make an appeal to those supporting the syrian regime. all necessary pressure should be brought to bear upon it to ensure that the regime uphold its international obligations and authorize full, safer, unconditional and unhampered humanitarian access to the united nations and humanitarian staff to all of those in need across syria. the lives of hundreds of thousands of people hang in the balance. united nations access to those in need is also hampered in particular in besieged cities. we would like to remind you that the use of hunger as a weapon of

war as well as hampering access constitute war crimes. we reiterate our appeal to the immediate lifting of all seejs. the disconnect between assistance goatsi igetting into regime-held areas and areas held by the opposition is of concern. in march, united nations agencies submitted just requests for access. the government has -- the government's refusal led to more than 68,000 being stripped of food assistance. we're particularly trucked by the humanitarian situation in eastern guta. humanitarian convoys were planned for by the united nations in this area but letters of safe conduct for the loading of convoys have not yet been delivered by the regime.

where on the other hand, the opposition has provided sufficient security guarantees for the transit of convoys. thus, we call upon parties to take all necessary measures to allow humanitarian work eers ca continue to provide assistance, enforce security. furthermore, the syrian government continues to refuse the authorization of medication and medical kits in humanitarian convoys. this is unsenble. the who has requested access to six zones of the country. these requests have been ignored. this is unacceptable, too. france recalls the right tofr the right of the syrian people to humanitarian laws. attacks against hospitals and schools in particular were touched upon by stephen o'brien.

these attacks warnltd our most firm condemnation as well. madam president, the situation i'm describing bears no resemblance to the ses sayings of hostilities. the regime has system atically - violence is intensifying in particular in hamma, dah mass cass and deera. air strikes against civilians continue. indiscriminate attacks against civilians have gone unabated. the garntors of the truce concluded on 29 december, have taken the responsibility to supervise its implementation. thus we call upon the guarantors let them effectively impose on the syrian regime a full ses sayings of hostilities. in this context, the setting up

of an international oversight mechanism of the cease fire, one which is effective is a necessity. france has repeated this many times and has made specific proposals along these lines. until improving the situation on the ground is crucial for a resumption of talks in geneva in may for a political transition. obviously guided by the united nations. this is the only solution to save syria from the abyss of violence, the violence of diash as well as the violence of the regime. we're all aware tan yibl improvement of this in syria is only possible with the political solution to the crisis. one based on a little transition in the country. this is set forth in 2254 and the geneva communique.

to not mince words, any credible resumption of political talks means that there must be much stronger pressure brought to bear by russia on to damascus and also in the continuation of the american air strikes, there has to be true commitment in syria in parallel with the international community. thank you. >> i thak the representative of france and i now give the more in to the representative of kazakhstan. >> i thank you madam president. madam president, we express our deep appreciation to the update by stephen o'brien.

the suffering in syria has reached unprecedented proportions. we are concerned about the catastrophic action. we believe the solution of humanitarian problems requires serious progress on the following issues. first, the further advancement of the political process facilitated by the janina and as pira. it should be preserved. second, counter terrorist groups need unified actions that will significantly improve the humanitarian situation. third, we need to strengthen the commendable efforts of the icrc, the syrian red crescent society as well as international agencies. we pay attention to the large

number of workers who work under such hazardous condition and some of them have sacrificed their lives for the noebel cause of peace. equally important should be the efforts of the international community to restore the damaged infrastructure and develop an integrated program to reveal the economic potential by providing electricity, water supply, education for children and setting up schools and hospitals in areas liberated in terroristings. these measures must commence now and not wait until after reaching an agreement. undoubtedly, the recovery process would serve as a powerful impetus for the rump of refugees and increase the social base for terrorist groups. its budget of 3.4 billion for

comprehensive humanitarian assistance. we had the dollars for the continued support was a request to hold up the commitments and pledges in order for the united nations to maintain such a situation for the country. we are concerned about continuing indiscriminate attacks which result in the loss of life of innocent civilians and long-term injury and impairment to them. practice as a conflict shoot comply immediately with international law. they must take all appropriate steps to protect civilians who have ceased to take part in hostilities including members of ethnic and religious communities. madam president, political tensions which reresult in such human suffering cannot have a military solution. therefore, kazakhstan's call on

the members of the u.n. security council about the conflict will have influence on them so as not to escalate the tensions and undo the progress made in geneva and as tina. thank you madam president. >> i thank you and i give the floor to the representative of china. >> translator: madam president, i would like to thank usg stephen o'brien for his briefing. there have been massive civilian casualties. china feels deeply for the people of syria. we urge all paerlts to find a solution. p recently with considered efforts with the international community, the cease fire has been holding. however, cease fire in certain regions allows no optimism.

we hope that the new round can consolidate the current momentum. plus the efforts of agencies to zale up their assistance and send out more aid convoys. while providing fast, safe, and unabated access. to create conditions for the u.n. actions and the political of the syrian issue. china weather the recent process the international process on syria. we look forward to early materialization of the meetings' outcomes. in order to find it, the humanitarian situation, the international community must take part. the new round of geneva peace

talks will take place in mid may. all relevant parties must stay firm in their diplomatic efforts and support the u.n. as the primary immediate ate oar. all parties in syria must participate in the next round in geneva in a constructive basis and gradually finding a complete and lasting solution acceptable to all parties. terrorist attacks within the syrian territory is a serious setback to the international assistance efforts. china condemns the recent terror attack that occurred targeting evacuation of civilians. we appear to intensify international assistance to come to rp determines and the firmly implement terrorist organizations. china has been support iing and the political segment of the syrian issue, we're ready to

play a constructive role for a complete, just without further delay. >> i thank the represent of china and i give the floor to the representative of bolivia. >> translator: thank you very much, madam president. we're grateful to the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs mr. stephen o'brien for his briefing this morning and for his commitment to the commendable work that he has carried out and we express our support to him. madam president, we're now entering the seven year of the syrian conflict and the humanitarian situation in that country continues to give us cause for concern. according to this year's press release by the world health organization since the beginning of the conflict, almost 400,000 people have died and 1.5 million

have been wounded. and therefore, 3.5 million people need humanitarian assistance now. we view with concern that despite the positive development in -- through the ses sayings of hostilities that has been implemented since resolution 33 6 of 3rd of december 2016 we still see attacks by the actors in the conflict such as the bombing against the russian embassy of damascus in 2017, which we reiterate firmly that the agreement within the framework of the cease fire should be abided by and right hand and reiterate the obligation on everybody to guarantee safety of persons trapped in the midst of this

conflict. madam president, we believe that for the interagency humanitarian assistance plan for the april to may period, 71.1% of the places that required access have been approved and we urge all parties to make all the necessary efforts to ensure that humanitarian access arrives to all these areas under the plan without obstacles or limitations. we are deeply concerned that there are still reports of security forces of the parties involved in the conflict continue deprive people of first aid and equipment for parts and so on and so forth, and this reduces their capacity and effectiveness to the detriment of the persons who need urgent assistance. we remind the parties involved in the conflict that they must allow for unconditional access

for humanitarian access and guarantee and safeguard their safety and integrity and they must avoid identifying humanitarian assistance convoys as military targets. furthermore, we recognize the important work that has been carried out by the reconciliation floor of opposition groups in the syrian arab republic in syria and they have been seeking to avoid clashes. we also recognize and welcome the work being carried out by staff of various humanitarian assistance organizations and agencies such as the icrc, syrian red crepes ent, the unhcr, unisefr and iom. inter alia to limit the humanitarian crisis, madam

president, we regret that during march h more than 450 people including women and children lost their lives in another -- and hundreds others were injured because of the cowardly attacks perpetrated by di ashe as well as clashes through the parties. we condemn 120 people dying including women and children among syrians being evacuated to aleppo. these must be punished. there's also the april attack in than h sheik houst-- hahn chish.

the use of chemical weapons is a violation of the obligations under international law. we call for an independent impartial comprehensive and conclusive investigation that is apolitical in nature and we must ensure that those responsible be brought to justice. we also reiterate our strong condemnation of all terrorist acts, because they are criminal and unjustifiable. we believe that any counterterrorism effort must be in condition with the government to avoid the innocent civilians and this should be in line with

resolutions 2254 and 2336. we recognize enormous effort being made by the government and people of syria in fighting the diash. we sbe rate that the bolivia believes that the only option is through a -- an inclusive, orderly and syrian-led political process and we reaffirm the support to the progress made in the geneva meetings and we have high expectations that these forums of dialogue will help us move towards lasting peace. thank you. >> i thank the representative of bolivia and give the floor to the representative of ethiopia. >> madam president, let me thank undersecretary general stephen

o'bri o'brien. we would like to appreciate the u.n. and its partners for the courageous humanitarian services to millions of syrian under extremely challenging circumstances. madam president, we remain seriously concerned about the humanitarian conditions in syria. the continued fighting in multiple areas around the country and the increased militarization on the ground as the report of the secretary general indicates is deeply troubling. the continued fighting has resulted in civilian death, injuries and displacement as well as the destruction of civilian infrastructures including schools and medical facilities. we also condemn all terrorist attacks, including the 15 april attack which took the lives of more than 126 people, many of them children, and injured

dozens. unfortunately, it is civilians who continue to bear the brunt of the armed conflict. hence, the protection of civilians remains of paramount importance. madame president, despite the continued humanitarian delivers in the first two month interagency plan reaching out to those who need humanitarian assistance remains important. ensuring safe, unimpeded access is important to all syrians throughout the country. we encourage the u.n. to continue its engagement with the syrian government to facilitate and improve that process. madame president, more than 30 million syrians require humanitarian assistance every day. the tragedy of the syrian people

will continue with adverse human political, economic, and social consequences. as we have been consistently saying and we reiterate the l t lasting solution to end the daily suffering of syrians is under the awe miuspices of the . international community, particularly the security council, has an essential role in achieving a political solution in syria. this brussels conferences, which placed financial support for the humanitarian works, is an important initiative which contributes to address the conflict and its regional impact. we also believe strengthening

the cease-fire guaranteed by russia, turkey, and iran and ensuring its full compliance is important for the next round of negotiations. should take place as quickly as possible with constructive and serious engagements of all parties. to conclude, madame president, it is an undeniable fact that it is a long-term humanitarian crisis that will continue to have a damaging impact on syrians to come. the continued worrying situation on the ground and the scale of the suffering of the syrians makes the search for a political search more urgent than ever. i thank you. >> i thank the representative of ethiopia, and i know give the floor to the representative of ukraine. >> i wish to thank the representatives for organizing today's hearing. syria continues to suffer from

the terrible six years long war, the war that has left unhealing scar marks on the syrian people and has presented an immense challenge to the entire world. it is clear from the secretary general's report and stephen's briefing that negative trends on humanitarian aid are piling up. we need to bear in mind that progress is limited mostly to the heart of each areas while the besieged ones where more than 6,000 people live need assistance the most. this council has spoken time and again that the besieged must will be lifted, access must be granted and upheld in a sustainable manner. here we are. keeping the sieges is a deliberate tactic of the assad

regime and his allies that supplements and feeds his military strategy. the essence of his tactics is star or surrender. when you surrender, we'll put you on the bus and send you to idlib where we'll continue to bomb you and bomb you again. the recent terrorist attack against rescuers who were carried by buses to besieged towns in syria is another terrible crime and a demonstration of shameless disregard for human life, which we have seen so many times throughout the conflict. we strongly condemn the continuing violence against the civilian population in syria, which has suffered immensely during this brutal war.

madame president, the situation where approximately 400,000 people are besieged is particularly worrisome. there are no functioning hospitals left there. hitting medical facilities and schools is also part of the aforementioned deliberate tactics of the assad regime. in march alone, the u.n. received credible reports of 19 attacks against medical facilities. deliberate strategy carries fundamental risks for the long-term stability not only of syrians, but the entire manna region. the six-year war keeps 1.75 million children out of school with 7,000 schools completely destroyed and 85% of syrians

living in poverty. as long as there's no progress on this and other humanitarian issues, we can rest assured that the assad regime is in no mood to seriously engage in political talks. against this backdrop, there is still an active and aggressive al qaeda and isis recruitment campaign in syria. leaving syrians without hope any longer equals creating a long-term terrorist safe haven at the very heart of the rengio. the stakes are really high. there is no more time for imitating the talks and following subversive strategies. serious responsible political engagement in syria and humanitarian efforts are long past due. this council should finally react to the numerous desperate calls for stephen o'brien and his colleagues. >> i thank the representative of ukraine. i now give the floor to the

representative of the russian federation. >> translator: madame president, we thank mr. o'brien for his briefing. in syria on the whole, the 30 december situation is holding. at the same time there are incidents of undermining as there are movement of terrorists and armed groups. fresh in our minds is still their aggressive action, including in damascus, which undermined the most recent round of intersyrian talks in geneva. the ongoing criticism of the syrian government and the emotional calls to the country guarantors, including russia, don't help anything. we're carrying out our obligations in good faith. there are other important players too who unfortunately aren't hurrying to meet us halfway. only a collective approach here

can create a positive effect. let us not forget about the ongoing relevance of the separation of constructive opposition from terrorists. first steps here were taken thanks solely to the joint efforts of the gauarantors of te process, but much remains to be done. the cessation of hostilities regime allows for the successful implementation of the syrian government agreed convoys. progress over the past months is clear. right now painstaking work is underway and the parameters of humanitarian access and medical evacuation in eastern guda. hoping for instant results, given the delicate nature of this as well as operational constraints, is not something we should do.

it's not as simple as some attempt to paint the picture, and it's not just about letters of safe context. one of the root causes of difficulties are the provoking actions of fighters. f furth furthermore, we can't fully share the concerns regarding the situation in this area. the outskirts of damascus is an old farming region which ensures food to the capital. it is not fortuitous in the nsg's report. we'd like to remind you that the conduct of humanitarian convoys in a time of conflict is necessarily fraught with risk. it doesn't all happen as it is thought out on paper. our military specialists often participate in the accompaniment

of caravans, and for this reason, unlike humanitarian, we know firsthand what's going on in the operations. we still need the framework of the humanitarian task force of the issg. in spite of it all though, in a number of syrian neighborhoods, the reconciliation process is underway. thanks to the activities of the russian center at least half 1,000 towns have joined this process. another format of this type of agreement is local truces. when relment agreements are signed by government leaders and militia. in this manner we're close to a conclusion of a local truce in the city of holmes. the members of illegal armed groups and their family members are evacuated from areas in

syria which haven't joined the cessation of he or sostilitieho. many fighters have decided to return to peaceful life using the government declared amnesty. it is our hope as a result of sound agreement in the regional centers of power the matter of the four towns will be dealt with. the attack on residents evacuated illicited due outrage across the globe. in this connection we don't share the criticism of the practice of local truces. it might not be ideal, but it is a practicali instrument to brin normalcy to the situation. now there's a need to help syrians in rebuild ing liberate areas so they can live in a dignified manner and return to their homes. we were surprised by the

statements of our french colleagues regarding local truces. these truces are the result of agreements between the government and relevant opposition groups. this is yet another possibility to avoid further casualties than if the truces weren't in place. double standards continue to be striking here. when in the c.a.r., with the participation of the u.n. and the french contingent, muslim populations were moved from -- to western areas. this was justified by the desire to save human life. the result of this type of move is well known. from the capital, the muslim population was reduced by 99.9% and the consequence of this type of move are still felt today.

the destabilization we're seeing now in central areas of the country is provoked from the northwestern parts where the muslims were moved. so let's not make a difference between the dignity of life of syrians and those in other countries. we're seriously worried by the situation north of the country where at the same time there are several military operations being deployed. the majority of their participants, including the so-called coalition, has not -- have not been invited by the syrian government. there are clear violations the sovereignty of the country as well as encroachment on its territorial integrity. vital infrastructure destroyed. there are strikes all these years combatting terrorists, and

this rounds counter to the approach of the international community to decisively push back against this evil. it is inadmissible to forget that in territories, which continue to be controlled by terrorists, we have no idea about what's going on and how hundreds of thousands of people are living. the u.n. nor its partners have access to these areas. we're not just talk iing this area. we have to note that in the humanitarian reports on syria at times there's a falsification of facts, which provide justification for criticizing fighters of armed groups. what happens is that unverified information gets into circulation. syrian government to outside participation for obvious reasons is very low against the backdrop the anti-damascus

campaign. all they see is provocation. why would we want to worsen this situation instead of building prospects to cooperate with damascus? we're disappointed there's a lack of data in aleppo. i'm talking about the stockpiles of medication. we require investigation and identification of all contexts. results were supposed to be reported on the security council officially. amongst other things, these type of stockpiles of medications were discovered by areas freed from fighterfighters. yet we call attention to the demining of syria, including its sites of cultural heritage. russian and syrian specialists have cooperated well. they have demined thousands of

hectares of residential areas in aleppo as well as engineering work in palmyra. we would call for the establishment for an international coalition on demining in syria with interested countries. we expect also the participation of specialized u.n. services. we see it suitable to create a fund to finance commercial companies which could participate in the demining as well. u.n. humanitarian bodies, the international -- the icrc, the syrian red crescent are working cooperatively so as to bring normal life back to people. let us not forget that massive efforts in spite of unfair outside sanctions are being made by the syrian government. indeed, the reports usually ignore this fact. there's also help being provided by international and local ngos. however, we would like to

highlight our critical -- our critical view of certain ngos, which violate the sovereignty of syria working in areas uncontrolled by the government and carrying out introductions that come from abroad. a striking example is the western capital lauded white helmets. many times they have distinguished themselves with bad faith, spread of false footage, and staged films, seeking to stain the reputation and the government and army of syria. there are multiple counts evidencing their ties with terrorists and extremists. in some cases our foreign partners participate in this. medical assistance is provided. more than 12,000 syrians have received qualified care. we underscore our unstinting

support to a peaceful solution in syria guided by the idea that the country's fate should be decided by syrians themselves. furthermore, russia is in the front line in these efforts. we don't see any reason to diverge from agreed upon parameters in the guided process from the u.n. syrians have already taken on board the u.n. formulated proposals on the basis of the four baskets. this includes building of a constitution as well as counterterrorism activities. geneva is a vital working format. progress on all negotiations tracks are the best way to improve the humanitarian situation. thank you. >> i thank the representative of the russian federation, and i shall now make a statement in my capacity as the representative of the united states. it's been just three weeks since the world was horrified by the

pictures of poisoned children in syria, the result of deadly nerve agents dropped from the sky. those images of suffering and dying children will never be forgotten, but there's a quieter, slower kind of death occurring in syria today. it is more deliberate, more labor intensive, more widespread than dropping chemical weapons from thousands of feet in the air. the syrian regime is engaged in a purposeful strategy of siege and surrender. civilians stranded inside are literally kept as prisoners until they die or kneel before the government. they are denied food. they are also denied life saving medical supplies. this campaign of holding humanitarian relief hostage to assad's political goals is not new, but it is worsening. more humanitarian assistance is being denied to besieged areas today than at this time last year. more syrian men, women, and

children are suffering and dying because aid isn't being allowed through. this is what the syrian doctor means when he says -- i'm sorry, which is what the syrian dictator says his, quote, only option is victory. assad will tighten the noose around his own people until they give in. the strangulation of its own people happens so frequently and so similarly that it has almost become textbook. first government forces or their allies surround the city, town, or village. they cut off all commercial routes inside and out. then the u.n. requests access to bring relief to people as food and medical supplies vanish. the u.n.'s mission is an humanitarian mission. they don't care who the people are, whether they are pro-government or pro-opposition. they just want to save human lives. but the syrian regime doesn't

let them. they hide behind bureaucracbure. this is permission the government could easily give if it actually wanted to. the few convoys that get approvals are often held up at checkpoints. the aid they carry doesn't reach those who need it, and month after month we sit in this council and talk about these very issues and nothing changes. even more bone chilling is the fact that convoys that do get through are increasingly looted of medical supplies, items that have no military purpose but are essential to saving the lives of civilians who don't bow to the regime. syrian government forces and pro-government militias remove baby formula, vaccines, and

forceps from midwifery kits. they raid pediatric kits of antibiotics, needles, and gauze. they remove dialysis equipment, family hygiene, and burn kits from trucks. there is no reason i can conceivably think of this to happen. maybe my colleagues from russia and other allies of the syrian regime can help me out. what possible definition of humanitarian relief does not include antibiotics and dialysis equipment. what possible justification is there for preventing malnourished women and their children from receiving baby formula from the u.n. and its partners? of course, there's no justification, but there is a reason. with impuimpunity, syrian regim troops on the ground work to prevent u.n. aid from going to the men, women, and children who need it. at the same time, they operate

black markets and they sell many of the same products. medical supplies that desperately people should be getting for free are instead sold at inflated prices or extorted through bribes at checkpoints. this is a major business in syria. yet another reason why the sieges have not been lifted. people are profiting off the suffering and dying of the syrian people, and none of this is prevented or even opposed by russia. according to the u.n.'s latest report, medical items that would have provided 36,000 life-saving and life-sustaining treatments were removed from humanitarian convoys in march. as we speak, 450,000 people in the damascus suburbs are being slowly squeezed by the syrian regime. these areas have been under siege since 2012, but recently government forces closed the last routes for even black markets to get into the city.

they have blocked all humanitarian and deliveries since last october. the people in the damascus suburbs just like in other besieged areas in syria are slowly dying. cancer patients are dying from lack of chemotherapy. kidney patients are dying from lack of dialysis, and children are suffering most of all. nearly one-third of all war-related injuries are to children under the age of 15. but because the syrian military has bombed all the hospitals in the area, they cannot receive professional treatment for their injuries. these are the atrocities occurring in syria every day that don't make the headlines. a resident doctor in one of the only cancer centers serving the besieged area summed up her patients tragically well when she said, quote, death is coming at them from every direction.

when death surrounds you, words mean very, very little. assad has proven he will act only to increase the suffering of his people, not ease it. and so it falls to others to do what basic human decency requires. russia must live up to its promise to deliver real peace talks and a real political solution. the sieges of the syrian people must be lifted. the war profiteering and the theft of medical supplies must be stopped. the syrians in desperate need of humanitarian assistance must receive it. bashar al assad clearly believes it is necessary to starve hundreds of thousands of people in order to remain in power. and i ask this council that as we talk about everything that is happening here, i heard from each and every one of you somewhat of desperation and

somewhat of defeat because we talk about this so much, and every time we talk about it more people continue to die. and i listen to my russian colleague and he talked about task forces and diplomacy and less criticism of the syrian regime. where has that gotten us? it hasn't gotten us anywhere. the times we can actually do something as a security council, who is the one member state who continues to protect the regime that prevents this humanitarian assistance going through? i will tell you -- many of you said we need to put pressure on the syrian regime. that's actually not the case. we need to put pressure on russia because russia continues to cover for the syrian regime. russia continues to allow them to keep humanitarian aid from the people who need it. russia continues to cover for a leader who uses chemical weapons against his own people. russia continues to veto and assad continues to do these things because they know russia

will continue to cover for them, so i will tell you sitting in this chamber i appreciate all the comment that is you made, but all eyes and all pressure now need to go to russia because they are the ones that could stop this if they wanted to. so don't listen to the distraction of what they're trying to say pointing to other conflicts. don't listen to the fact that they claim the reports now are wrong. so first it was the security council that was wrong. now it's mr. o'brien's report that's wrong. but the images don't lie. the humanitarian workers don't lie. the fact that they can't get the assistance they need, that's not lying. what is is to continue to give russia a pass for allowing this terrible situation to occur. so with that, i will continue to press the security council to

act to do something regardless of if the russians continue to veto it because it is our voice that needs to be heard because i can tell you the syrian people don't care about diplomacy. the syrian people don't care about any sort of task forces. syrian people don't care about any of the things we said today. they're just trying to live their very last day. thank you. no surprise. the representative of the russian federation has asked for the floor to make a further statement. >> madame president, with regard to your statement, allow me to once again call your attention to the fact that russia -- and this was stressed by many who took the floor today -- russia, turkey, and iran are bearing their weight of work to ensure there is compliance with the cessation of hostilities, which is the best manner to ensure an

improvement of the humanitarian situation in syria. neither you nor western colleagues said a single word obje about what you are doing to improve the situation. how are you bringing pressure to bear on the moderate or non-moderate opposition that you have influence on while mr. o'brien in his report did directly touch upon those areas that are surrounded or controlled by terrorists? thank you. >> i did resume my function as president of the council prior to his statement. there are no mr. speakers on the list, and so with that, the meeting the adjourned. c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you.

coming up saturday morning, robert, u.s. news and world report managing editor for opinion, will talk about president trump's first 100 days in office. then in our spotlight on magazine segment, author and kaiser health news editor and chief, elizabeth rosenthal, will discuss her recent piece in "the new york times" magazine. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live saturday morning. join the discussion. environmental activists are having a climate change march and rally saturday in washington and across the country. the event is hosted by the people's climate movement, a coalition of green and environmental justice groups, labor unions, students, indigenous peoples, and civil rights group. you can see the rally from the grounds of the national mall at 3:00 p.m. eastern live on our companion network, c-span.

up next here on c-span 3, a senate hearing on waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. the committee looks into improper tax credits by the irs. wisconsin senator ron johnson chairs this one hour and 40 minute hearing. >> morning. this hearing will come to order. i want to welcome our witnesses. i appreciate your time, your testimony, and look forward to your oral testimony in answering what i think will be some pretty interesting questions. i frequently say from this podium that the generals, the inspect generals, you're our go-to agencies in american

government doing so much to root out and identify and eliminate waste, profraud, abuse, and duplicated programs. the reports by the gao that really started with a pretty simple amendment offered in 2010 by senator colburn in the debate over increasing the debt ceiling, something we all hate to do, but if we're going to do it, it is nice to get some measure of control. a pretty simple concept to ask the gao to submit reports has resulted in $75 billion worth of savings over seven years, which is pretty remarkable based on the amount of budget authority that the gao has, $3.8 billion, over that same time frame. that is a 20 to 1 return on

investment. >> put the microphone on for this. 112 to 1. >> i know the inspector generals have a pretty good rate of return as well. so i do ask for unanimous consent that my written remarks or written opening statement get entered in the record. i do want to start with a couple charts i've prepared here for the hearing just to put things in context. we got a recent congressional budget office report on long-term debt and deficit. they always report these things as percentage of gdp, and we go through a fair amount of effort to convert those to dollars because i think it is just a little bit more meaningful for the last number of years because it's been a couple of years since they've updated their projection. the 33-year deficit is $133 trillion. we have moved forward in time,

and we haven't solved the problem. the projected deficit is $129 trillion. that's almost $10 trillion over the next decade, $37 trillion in the second decade, $82 trillion in the third decade, and to put that in perspective, the entire net private asset base of the united states, in other words all assets held by businesses and households, is equal to $128 trillion. this would be tacked onto our current debt for every man, woman, and child in america. what is unfortunate is it seems like nobody is paying attention to this. we're not addressing this here in congress of the change. i want to put that in context. i have one other chart here, which also puts in context the $75 billion. in no way, shape, or form do i want this detracting from your efforts, which i think are laudatory, but just so everybody

understands, the same seven-year period where the gao with their great work, 20 to 1 return investment, save $75 billion, we spent 25 billion. we borrowed $6.6 trillion of that about 26%. 26 cents for every dollar we spend we borrowed. i want to sthargeg athank all t witnesses. i think we're going to have a pretty good discussion talking about refundable tax credits and the improper payments, fraud and abuse of that program. obviously one of our favorite institutions and universities and dear to my heart is the university of wisconsin in madis madison. we have chancellor blank. she's going to be talking about the duplications of research imposed by universities and the difficulty time universities

have in dealing with federal regulations on their operations. then we have mr. keith from the va health system to talk about the problems talking about the duplicated regulations in their facilities. this is going to be a really good discussion. all laid before us because of a pretty simple amendment by senator tom colburn seven years ago and then the excellent work of gene dar rrow. with that, i'll turn it over to the ranking member. >> i want to echo many of the comments of the chairman, and i continue to be frustrated along with my colleague and former ranking member, senator carper, who has carped on improper payments for as long as i can -- >> one of my favorite verbs, to carp. >> i think gao is such an important ally to this

committee, and i want to take this opportunity, as i try every time you're here, to make sure you tell all the people in that big building their work does matter even though it is too often ignored or set aside. what you all do is really important, and you are tremendous public servants. and i love associating with the auditors at gao as a former auditor. your annual duplication report sets out important work you hai government spends tax dollars. you all have saved so much money for this country, but there is obviously a lot more work that we have to do. i want to welcome the other witnesses to the hearing also today. i especially want to welcome keith repco, who is here as the

leader of the va facilities in st. louis. and i don't think probably any other members of this committee can appreciate how nice that is to have that roll off my tongue since we struggled in st. louis trying to fill this position for years on end. people need to realize some of the management problems in the va can be beared out by the fact that we would open the head of the va facility st. louis job position and no one would apply. now, that tells you something. that tells you that there is a real problem in either the support these managers are getting or what we're paying them. but when you open a job that has that kind of responsibility and nobody wants it, it means that we still have a lot more work to do in figuring out how -- so thank you for filling this position. it has been badly needed. the stability there had been

badly needed, and we're thrilled to have you today. the reason you're here today is one of the things pointed out in this year's report is the problems va has managing construction. and it is -- clearly, we have put a lot of capital in the va. i want to make sure our facilities are first rate. i want to make sure it isn't lack of facilities that is causing any undue delay or problem. it's being managed well in terms of how these projects are being undertaken and how they're being executed, and we want to spend a little time on the management of those construction projects. i also want to echo about the tax credits. it is particularly -- i'm glad you're here, dr. blank, to talk about grants and the problems in terms of administrative burdens on grant recipients and also

administrative burdens on reporting crime statistics that are difficult for our universities right now, but i'm also glad you're here because i think we need to talk about the growth in improper payments in a new form of tax credit, refundable tax credit, and that is the amount of easily determined overpayments in the american opportunities tax credit. it may not be as large as the other refundable tax credits. doesn't mean it won't be if we don't get a handle on this and the notion that it is just as simple as double checking with universities and seeing how many hours someone is actually going to college is pretty jaw dropping that we are allowing a billion dollars to go out the door every year without just the rudimentary checks and balances as to whether or not those tax credits have actually been earned by students attending higher education. so thank you all for being here.

thank you, chairman, for having this hearing, and i'll look forward to questions and comments as we move forward. >> thank you. it is the tradition of this committee to swear in witnesses. if y'all will rise and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> i do. >> our first witness is mr. eugene de darrow. he's been the comptroller of the united states government accountability office since 2010. he has been acting comptroller general, chief operating officer, and head of accounting and operational management division. mr. darrow. >> good morning to you. it's a pleasure to be here. i appreciate very much the words

that you said complimenting gao, and i'll make sure to pass it along to all the people in the agency. we have such a dedicated, talented workforce and they deserve to hear such compliments. i want to assure this committee before i get into talking tha i this year's duplication report that i'm worried about the fiscal health of the federal government. now, while there need to be changes made in fiscal policy both on the spending and revenue side, particularly with entitlement programs, there are some things that can be done. this year in our -- this is our seventh report on overlap duplication of fragmentation.

we report on what's happened over the last six years with the 645 recommendations that we've made to date in the first six years. 51% of those have been implementati implemented by the congress in the executive branch. 31% have been partially addressed, and 18% have not been addressed at all. $75 billion is already accrued in savings, but there's another 61 billion in the pipeline that will accrued because of actions that have been taken. so the total amount of savings is $136 billion so far. now this year's report adds 79 new actions in 29 different areas that range across the federal government from the defense department, could save tens of millions of dollars by better managing their virtual training programs and integrating them and simple things like advertisement for recruitment purposes where there

are seven different advertising programs competing in the same market to hundreds of millions of dollars that could be saved in implementing our recommendations on medicare and medica medicaid, dealing with such things as providing not adequate compensation for uncompensated care that hospitals give. we think the formula is outdated and doesn't really reflect the true amount of uncompensated care, particularly since it is going down with the expansion of medicaid, for example. other areas where they could reduce improper payments, in medicare or medicaid we have a number of recommendations in that regard. most of the improper payments come from medicare, medicaid, and the earned income tax credits, so i'm glad we're addressing that today, and i'm glad russell is here to talk about this issue as well. so with the new areas that we're adding, there are 395 open areas yet of gao's recommended

suggestions. now i have recently met with omb director mull -- mulvaney. i mentioned giving priority attention to the head of the agency that he needs to pay personal attention to. and i think this will be particularly helpful as they go through their exercise of looking at reorganizing, streamlining, and gaining some more efficiencies in the federal government. most of our open recommendations are addressed to the executive branch, but i also have a senator langford appendix to the testimony this year where he asks every year what can the congress do. we have 61 open matters for the congress to consider. i would comment that most of the savings that have occurred to date have come from congress

taking action, and most of our savings, they're tens of billions of dollars that are still on the table that could be implemented and successfully achieved through implementing our recommendation. so i look forward to continuing to work with congress, and i look forward to continuing to work with the executive branch, which i'm committed to do. i'm in the process of meeting all new cabinet officials, talking about our work that gao has to make their operations more effective and efficient. thank you again for the opportunity to be here today, and i look forward to answering questions at the appropriate time. >> thank you very much. our next witness, i actually have a couple charts. let's put up the first improper payment chart. everybody has this in front. just lay the groundwork in terms of improper payments on refundable tax credits, just in these three programs, earned

income tax credit -- this is i believe in 2015, correct? $69.8 billion. additional child tax credit is 28.5 billion. the american opportunity tax credit is $4.4 billion. those are the refundable tax credits. improper payments are about 24%. the next chart shows how this has been a problem certainly for the seven years of the duplication report, but this has been going on for 20 years. and despite -- in spite of all the good efforts and publicizing this year after year after year, it doesn't look like we're making a whole lot of progress as you can see how much money is being spent on tax expenditure on the tax credits. just stubbornly stuck there. again, that's kind of the backdrop for our next witness, mr. jay russell george. mr. george, since being named by

president george w. bush in 2005, he has served as the treasury inspector general for the tax administration. prior to assuming this role, mr. george was the inspector general for the corporation of national service. he served as a member of the integrity committee. mr. george. >> thank you, chairman johnson, ranking member mccaskill, and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to testify on tax-related improper payments. ticta has conducted a number of reviews. my comments today will highlight our ongoing work. refundable credits are designed to help lower-income individuals reduce their tax burden or to provide incentives for other activities. because these tax credits are refundable, they are vulnerable

to unscrupulous individuals who file fraudulent claims. today the earned income tax credit remains the only refundable credit the irs has designated as high risk for improper payments. however, we have continued to report that the irs' improper payment risk assessments for the additional child tax credit and the american opportunity tax credit, also known as the education credit, substantially understate the risk of these credits. these credits accounted for more than $100 billion claimed during tax year 2015. for fiscal year 2016, the irs issued an estimated $25 billion in potentially erroneous payments for these credits. this represents a significant loss to the federal government. in addition, the assessment of the risk related to premium tax credit improper payments

continues to present challenges for the irs. this credit created by the affordable care act insists individuals and families in paying for their health insurance. unlike other refundable credits, the irs is not solely responsible for administering the premium tax credit. as a result the irs cannot effectively assess the risk of improper payments for this credit on its own. the irs and the department of health and human services continue to work on a methodology to effectively measure improper payments relating to this credit. to reduce certain fraudulent and improper payments, congress enacted the protecting americans from tax hikes act. among other provisions, the act moves up the deadlines for forms w-2, wage and tax statements, and other income information related documents and provides the irs additional time to verify earned income tax and additional tax credits that are

based on income individuals report on their tax returns. according to the house ways and means committee, these integrity provisions are projected to save $7 billion over ten years by reducing fraud, abuse, improper payments. to date, our work related to this legislation has found that the irs has properly withheld refir refunds for returns with earned income and released those returns that were not identified for additional review. irs management informed us these claims are being verified solely against form w-2 data to identify claims that have unsupported income. irs management indicated that for the 2017 filing season they do not plan to use other income reporting documents to systematically verify income reported on tax returns with

refundable credit claims. the irs has cited a number of technical challenges and timing issues that need to be addressed in order to use this information to verify income at the tieme tx returns are processed. in addition, the irs was unable to implement processes to identify erroneous claims for the 2016 filing season for taxpayers filing tax returns for prior years to claim certain refundable credits, referred to as retroactive claims. tax returns filed and processed during the 2016 filing season identified $35 million in refundable credits that were erroneous paid to taxpayers filing retroactive claims. finally, the irs still does not have the authority to correct tax returns during processing in which the information provided by the taxpayer does not match

information available to the irs. as a result, the irs must conduct an audit to address potentially erroneous claims. without correctable error authority, the irs' ability to correct that information remains limited. mr. chairman, members of the committee, we at ticta remain serious in our mandate to provide independent oversight of the irs in the administration of its tax system. we plan to provide continuing coverage in the irs' efforts to identify and reduce improper tax credits and payments. >> the seven-year total on refundable tax credits, just those three areas is $441

billion. it shows the mag anitude of tho problems. we're looking at more refundable tax credits. our next witness is ms. rebecca blank. ms. blank became the chancellor of the university of wisconsin madison in 2013. prior to serving as chancellor, she served as the obama administration secretary of commerce. under president bill clinton, she was a member of the council of economic advisers. ms. blank. >> i appreciate having the chance to say a few words about the regulation of federal research at our nation's top universities. i was an economist prior to becoming chancellor at the university of wisconsin at madison. i believe deeply we must do everything we can to help research universities to thrive. but they've also become some of the most -- entities in this

nation. so my message today is very clear. we have added layer upon layer of regulation, and we're at a point where this is seriously impeding the productivity of our scientists. there are as many as 23 administrative responsibilities associated with every federal research grant. each of those steps requires time from either the researcher or the support staff. ten years ago we had 50 full-time staff handling the regulatory compliance issues on human and animal research projects. today we have 80. there is not another function on campus that has added 35 full-time positions at a moment we've been working hard to increase efficiency and reduce staff. the latest federal demonstration partnership survey indicates

that nationwide scientists with federal funding spent 42% of their time on regulatory and administrative activities. about four hours in a nine-hour day. we recently surveyed our scientists at uw who do research involving human subjects, and half of them, 48.5%, told us they had given up or almost given up on one research study because of the red tape involved. the 21st century cures act and the american innovation and competitive sect took steps to reduce these administrative burdens, but as the gao notes in their report there is more to be done. let me give you two recommendatio recommendations. first, two key provisions of those acts should be prioritized for implementation. the new research policy board should be set up and streamlined grant application and reporting

requirements need to be put in place as soon as possible. right now almost every agency has different formats for submitting a research proposal, reporting on research progress, reporting on effort, reporting back on what your results are, and demonstrating compliance with the regulations, and the agencies have very different rules on how the results should be saved and made publicly available. that is confusing, costly, and inefficient. there was a report by the national academy of sciences that details these problems. i am encouraging you to read through much more extensive recommendations. secondly, the implementation of the final rule should be prioritized which allows low-risk projects to be subject to different restrictions than high-risk projects. the recently adopted final rule scheduled to take effect in january 2018 aims to reduce regulatory burden on human subject research that poses little to no risk to

participants. for example, survey research should be subject to different rules than medical research that may be testing medical procedures on human beings, but without clear guidance should address differences in how these regulations are applied. one of our pediatricians is wanting to create a registry to track health information from children across the state of wisconsin who have a very serious but relatively rare condition that can cause heart attacks at a young age. sharing that information can improve medical care and help keep health care costs down. we're six months into the effort to try to get approval for this project and we've still not been able to do so because there are multiple sites that provide information to this registry. let me be clear i am not arguing that we should do away with all the regulations governing

research. federal regulations help us ensure research integrity, they increase access to research data and results, and they help protect human and animal subjects in research, but we need to be smart about the regulations we have and how we implement them. i have spoken today about the regulations affecting our research enterprise, but let me note that my written testimony also gives a number of examples of excessive regulation that increases unnecessary costs and interferes with how we serve students. no nation on earth has been as successful as the united states as building remarkable institutions that offer an outstanding education and conduct the kind of basic research that fuels innovation and helps solve immediate problems in the real world. that's why the rest of the nation wants to send their best and brightest students. excessive regulation of research universities can only erode their success over time. thank you for your commitment to helping to bring this unwieldy

system under control, and with your help, great research constitutions, like the university of wisconsin, missouri, michigan, montana, will continue to keep this nation on the cutting edge of innovation. success over time. thank you for your commitment to helping to bring this unwielding system under control and with your help great institutions will continue to keep this nation on the cutting edge of innovation. thank you. >> thank you, chancellor. again, i really want to thank you for bringing this to my attention a couple years ago when you came to my office. and the small business administration has studies that puts the cost complying with federal regulations at $2 trillion per year. you divide that by the number of households it's almost $15,000 per year per household. >> i appreciate the fact the university is grappling with this problem, that you're highlighting it our entire economy is as well. our final witness is mr. keith repko. mr. repko currently serves as medical center director of veterans affairs for the st. louis healthcare system where he oversees 3,000 employees. prior to becoming medical center director he served as deputy director where he, to in the top 25% of v.a. facilities as well as patient advocacy. >> good morning. senator lankford and senator peters.

thank you for the opportunity to participate in this hearing and to discuss the design and construction projects at the jefferson barracks and john cochran campuses of the v.a. st. louis healthcare system. the st. louis healthcare system is a dual affiliated full service healthcare system providing inpatient and out patient care in medicine, psychology, rehab and many other subspecials. it's a two-division facility that serves veterans in east central missouri and southwest illinois. john sock dran division is located in midtown st. louis and comprises the medical centers surgical capability, ambulatory care units, intensive care units, and our emergency department. one of the top priorities for

the department has been improving access to care. in st. louis we've take than to heart. while more work remains to be done, both the v.a. and st. louis has made real progress. in fy fiscal year 16, st. louis has hired 385 staff including 36 physicians, four physician assistants, 93 nurses, and 252 other critical occupations. we've extended clinic hours at five of our locations and hold saturday clinics at two of them. additionally, we have increased the deliver riff care by using telephone consults and secure messaging to better use our providers' time, improve access and meet veterans's cares needs where it's convenient for them.

jefferson barracks zifgs a multibuilding campus over looking the river in south st. louis county. it provides psychiatric treatment were spinal cord injury treatment, geriatric care, rehab services, and has a program for our homeless veterans. the v. sachlt currently pursuing a major construction project on this campus that will enable us to better serve veterans healthcare for decades to come. the project is a joint vha and nca venture and will construct a total of five new buildings. the project will relocate primary care, mental health and specialty care clinics out of its current 1920s building into a modern environment and allow for expansion of care. we'll also construct a new patient aquatic and rehab facility, replace an older facility that frequently we have to shut down in the heat of the summer due to lack of adequate air-conditioning. lastly, the project will replace an obsolete fire alarm system, construct a new support mild building, provide 800 net new parking spaces, and construct a facility to replace our obsolete engineering and consolidated warehouses. upon completion, the project

will decrease the amount of infrastructure maintained and operated by vha through the inefficient and underutilized building. it will also provide approximately 30 acres to the nca for the jefferson barracks national cemetery. without this land the cemetery would be wloezed for burials in several years. the total cost is $366 million and it was approved in 2004, partially funded in 2007, designed in 2008, started construction in 2010, and is scheduled to be completed in 2020. currently the project is 52% complete and has no cost overruns. the john cochran campus also has a major project that was designed in 2010. the project proposes to construct a new inpatient bed tower and allow for the expansion of specialty care clinics with an estimated cost

of $433 million. in 2015, all of v.a.'s major products including the john cochran project were reevaluate and rescored through the skip process to ensure the project's requirements are still valid and the project remained a high priority for the department. st. louis's john con cochran project did not score high enough to be included in the 2015/2016 budget cycle and therefore is not currently actively being developed by the department at this time. however, the project is eligible to be reconsidered in skip and will be reconsidered for funding in the future budget year. in closing, each day we move towards our goal of improving and streamlining our processes in order to provide the exceptional care that veterans earned and deserve. mr. chairman, this concludes my statement. thank you for the opportunity to testify for the committee today and i'm pleased to respond to any questions from you and

members of the committee. >> thank you mr. repko. >> i start the question with mr. doe dare row. quite honestly, when you take a look at the number of recommendations that have not been addressed at all in government, it's actually surprisingly low. i mean, the fact you have over 50% fully implemented, 30 some% partially implemented and less than 20% not is really testament to, i think, what you've been able to accomplish of getting your recommendations implemented. you said that congress has actually passed laws which the primary reason for doing that and you've got 61 recommendations now. you can give us some kind of sense how many different laws and just kind of in general it took to get that level of implementation and what would -- what would you contemplate with your recommendations right now? would you maybe suggest this committee try and put those 61 recommendations into one piece of legislation and try and get that on to the floor and get it

pass dollars or was this more effectively done kind of individual bill by individual bill? >> the approach that has been taken in the past have mostly been bill by bill and they've taken advantage, for example, in eliminating the direct payments to farmers program which duplicated other programs it was handled through the farm bill, congress let the edgea knoll tax credit lapse so they didn't actually do anything and it went -- it went away. but i think any legislative vehicle that you can come up with would be an appropriate vehicle. some of the ones that we have recommendations to the congress for action yet haven't been addressed for a number of years. and i'm concerned that they could get stuck in the normal legislative process and perhaps having a combined on the books, if you will, or a package of these bills would help. so i think, you know, any legislative vehicle -- would be good.

>> i don't in past congresses they tried and proposed legislation that would have forced agencies to do this but i'd love would work with senator mccaskill and work with the gao and let's craft something that will impose that requirement on the agency to implement these things. >> yeah. i think the past efforts have been focused on like all of our recommendations, they have to respond to. i think if it would be better if you target the specific recommendations that you're comfortable with and that we've included, particular lit ones in the list of the 61 for congress to take action on. and then there's other opportunities for the congress to put some pressure on the administration to implement some of our other suggests. >> so we'll work, you know, bipartisan fashion with your staff, different senators, and we'll figure out what that list is and we'll get a piece of legislation i think leader mcconnell would be very open. he's looking for bipartisan

piece of legislation to move across the goal line. so let's definitely do that. mr. george, i remember, i think it was your 2012 report you listed ten addresses with i believe it was the earned income tax credit where there were multiple filings. and the top address in there 24,000 filings with -- requesting and obtaining $46 million of refundable tax credits. was that the earned income tax credit or was that the child -- >> there is many instances of people taking advantage of the tax system using that scheme, sir, so it may have been the earned income tax credit, it could also have been the first time home buyers credit, or the additional child tax credit. >> my question was, to me, one address were 24,000 claims were $46 million, i know we're not making a whole lot of progress. have we at least closed down that abuse after all these years? is the irs still failed ton that part zblfr i have to give,

again, as i noted in my testimony, the irs some credit as it relates to the earned income tax credit as senator, you and i spoke out in the hall hall and then as you discussed during your opening remarks and my comments, the amount of improper payments for the earned income tax credit was in excess of $20 billion a year a few years ago. and so and even though it's now roughly 16, 17 billion, that's still moving in the right direction. it has even though there was a slight uptake in the last -- >> but again, my question was to me it would be pretty simple to take a look at the address and say, well, we're not going to allow -- if there's more than ten, you know, refundable tax credits claim, we're going to

take a look at that. it is absurd that 24,000 claims went through one address. have they fixed that problem at least? >> they have not fixed it, no. they still have the problem, sir. >> yikes. part of the problem with these is the individual taxpayer identification number, correct rather than social security number? >> that's correct. >> that is just right with abuse. you can describe that. >> yes. congress passed legislation that now requires the use of social security number for -- or if you're a green cardholder the use of that number for the earned income tax credit. however, for the additional child tax credit which, again, is a growing problem, while we at the ig's office believe that

federal law does, i that same restriction, the irs has taken a different position on that issue. and we -- while we, again, have debated this back and forthwith the lawyers at the department. >> lefs tack that on to our gao piece of legislation here. chancellor blank, i do want to give you an opportunity because i thought your written testimony was pretty powerful about other overregulation. as i'm hearing your testimony, what you're asking for is not no regulation, but some common regulation, some uniformity so that you're not trying to comply with umpteen different reporting requirements that could all be grouped together and provide common forms, is that -- can you just talk about some of the other parts of your written testimony? >> yeah, no, that's absolutely correct. right now we have different forms for conflict of interest, different forms for reporting, submitting, saving data and it becomes incredibly complex when your university like wisconsin, like other big research universities that are getting research funding for many, many federal agencies and every one has different requirements. in my written testimony i talk not just about the research issues but the issues relating to students and one of the regulatory issues that i find most compelling relates to the query act which regulates how we deal with crime statistics on our campus. it's a very important act, very, very useful and valuable to us for tracking. but certain interpretations of

what the cleary act -- that the department has put upon us includes such things as any place where our students spend more than two nights we have to collect local crime statistics and report them as if they were on our campus. so whether our students, you know were we had engineering students going off to to an elon musk competition. that takes an enormous amount of time and effort working with local police in those areas and quite honestly results in a reporting of crime statistics that has nothing to do with our students and is simply a misperception about what type of crime is happening on campus. so, you know, that type of interpretation of the law, just

makes life very, very difficult. and increases our expenses in ways that are not helpful. >> i'll come back to this. senator mccaskill. >> thank you. let me first do the v.a. mr. doe dare row, your 2017 report talks about the management of medical facility construction projects and basically what i gather from the report is that you've got an agency within the v.a. that is supposed to be overseeing this at each local site, but there isn't appropriate coordination between the on-site personnel and this part of v.a. that's supposed to be managing all these construction projects, is that a fair summary or you can fill? -- >> there's really not good coordination. v.a., generally speaking, is very decentralized organization with very little oversight and accountability from the central organizations of v.a. and i could say that broadly speaking, that applies to healthcare, that applies to disability as well. you know, in this case, the change orders that were being approved weren't going through a regular timely process and

design changes. and you could see these add to the costs of the projects and so we asked them to put that under a better control process so it could be approved in time so everybody knew what the consequence would be of the change orders and design processes there as well. i think the -- the big change that really congress required is now going forward any project over $100 million is to be run by someone outside v.a. most of the ones right now are run by the army corps of engineers, so you actually have people that are experts in construction projects, the ones under $100 million are still being run by v.a. and some of the ones that were over 100 million that weren't new, some of them were transferred like the denver project that ran into a lot of problem and then the v.a.

now, the only responsibility if the construction's done by the corps of engineers for another organization is for v.a. to come one costs of activating the facility, actually putting the medical equipment in there and preparing it for operations and so that should help a lot by taking the big new construction projects out of the hands of v.a. >> yeah. >> and put them with the corps, army corps or another, you know, competent organization. >> so going forward the army corps will be doing the projects that are as large as cochran. >> anything over 100 million. it will either be the corps or the legislation requires something other than v.a. so far they've gone with the corps. >> yeah. >> they could choose someone else, but the corps is the only one so far. >> i'm proud that we don't have cost overruns with the projects in st. louis, mr. repko i think that's terrific. >> i know we're a little bit behind schedule but a lot of that has to did with how quickly v.a. has decided to request the money. i think one thing that americans need to realize is that congress has been very, very generous to v.a. since fiscal year 2008 we funded 177% of the request of v.a. in fiscal year '09 we funded

183% of the request. fiscal year '10, 106. fiscal year '11, 100. first cal year 12 was the only time since fiscal year '08 that we fund less than 100% of the request that was made by v.a. i don't think there's anybody else in government that has that kind of track record in terms of securing appropriations particularly for capital in even the military doesn't have that kind of success rate as it relates to capital. so i'm glad that we're not your run. i do want to bring to your attention, i have recently learned that there have been some concerns regarding the quality of the ongoing construction at the facility at j.b., and we have been in contact with the v.a.ig about this and we have been assured that they are looking moo it. are you aware of any of these concerns about integrity and quality of the construction that's ongoing there? i know it's not your direct responsibility, but are you aware of any proc lems?

have they been brought to your attention? >> just recently actually working with your staff and preparing for this became aware of some but i can tell what you, we've had a very good relationship from the facility. in fact, we have a team that works for the medical center, so works for my office that interfaces and that's their full job is interface with the construction folks for central office in v.a. and our project is managed by the v.a. office of construction facility management because it was prior to. >> prior. >> prior to that other regulation. i can tell you we have daily conversations, my staff do, with the cfm staff and managing the project. and myself and my associate director have weekly and monthly

meetings with our staff. and at this point we have no -- no concern of any serious issues in this project either moving forward, either in quality, i can tell you i served as chief engineer for 12 years and in that year -- in those years i managed a lot of projects and had staff that managed a lot of projects. i can tell you there's no such thing as 100% perfect contractor or project. >> i would say contractors would say there's no such thing as 100% perfect customer. but i can say in our project cfm is working through any issues and there's, like i said before, there's nothing significant either in quality that i'm aware of or any concern that would jeopardize this project. >> okay. moving on to the tax credit, i tried to take a look at the education tax credit. one of the things that jumped out at me, mr. george, was that of the 3.6 million returns with questionable educational credit claims, 49% of them almost half of them were prepared by a tax preparer.

don't we have something in place that if there is -- there are tax preparers that are doing this, i mean, is that why one address is responsible for all those because that's somebody who's put a shingle out in a community saying let me prepare your tax returns? >> there have been examples of that, senator. but the irs in response to recommendations that we have made and concerns expressed by congress, they have begun outreach to tax preparers who, in all candor are at the frontline in terms of helping to avoid tax fraud. . . . . . .

>> so you think 50% of these questionable education claims, these preparers just didn't know any better or were they trying to get over? >> well, i don't want to impugn everyone's reputation. there's no question that some of it is ignorance and some of it was malfeasance. >> i would be interested if it is possible to know if these tax preparers were individual proprietors or if they were some of the large chains that do tax preparation. obviously if this is something that's endemic it seems to me the basics of making sure a refundable tax credit that your agency is preparing for a client would follow the rules as to the 1098 and as to how long they are in school and the -- you know, the appropriate institutions that qualify, which are the three big ones on that particular credit that always raise the flag. >> we'll endeavor to give you that information. but if i may, senator, i don't want to let the irs completely off the hook here. the irs has not used every avenue that it could to confirm that someone who applies for that credit is entitled to it. so, for example, the department of education has a list of databases which the irs for free, or for a nominal fee at least, could have access to.

>> and they're not doing that? >> they're not doing it. >> okay. that's ridiculous. >> they're not toing it. >> it is totally ridiculous. >> it applies to additional credits, too. i have said it many times before at other hearings, but whenever there is third party reporting of income, it is almost a 99% compliance rate. but once the irs fails to have access to that third party reporting and relies solely on an individual, the compliance rate drops dramatically. >> finally -- i know i'm out of time, but i really would like -- and if you want to, i'll wait for the next round for you to answer it, but i think it is important when you report to this committee or any other committee that you at least give us a sense as to whether or not the lack of staff -- there have been dramatic staff cuts at irs. no question we're leaving money on the table. it was decided around here the way we're going to make points with our constituents is is cutting the irs.

that is like cutting off our nose to spite our face because these are the people we need to bring in the receivables. it doesn't make sense to me -- and i would like for you at some point -- i know i'm two minutes over and the chairman has been indulgent. >> very indulgent. >> we have given the irs the responsibility as well, so it is a problem. i want to be clear the address used on the taxpayer's return is the taxpayer's address, not the preparer's address. 24,000 returns implies there's 24,000 people living at that address which is a simple check with databases. senator langford. >> that's a crowded house is what that is. thanks for being here, y'all, and the work you are doing. we appreciate you bringing these issues to light. we have often talked about a bill claire mccaskill and i worked on and tried to get done in the last session of congress called the taxpayer's right to know. what you have done in

duplication work is phenomenal. what we tried to get accomplished in the last session and what we can accomplish soon is to be able to get the evaluation tools out there. we are missing a tool and you are missing a tool. we wait for the report yearly when it comes out. it is something we should be able to pull immediately with the agencies making that information available. every taxpayer should be able to pull this information. we should be able to see how things are evaluated. we should be able to see the basic spin patterns. should not be a rocket science request of our agencies. they already have that information, just to be able to make it available. so any other comments you want to make as we've talked about before the taxpayers' right to know and that particular bill? >> i would urge congress to complete passage of that bill and send it to the president for signature. i think it would make a huge difference in identifying overlap, duplication, fragmentation in the federal government and provide a better accountability tool to the

congress and the agencies. it is severely languaging. one of the biggest difficults we've had in executing our responsibility under this requirement to produce this report is the lack of information that's available on what it costs for programs, have they ever been evaluated, what has the evaluation shown. this would have that information automatically available and be really, really a very much more efficient way to address this issue. so i would encourage its passage. >> well, we look forward to that. it passed unanimously in the house and it seems to get caught up in the senate. so we'll try to work towards the final passage on that to be able to get that done. you mentioned in your report this year the uncompensated care

issue on hospitals. >> yes. >> which is an incredibly difficult to wrap your head around type issue. i would like you to talk through anything you can can on it. this balances out whether the federal government as they pay hospitals for uncompensated care that comes in, whether they pay on the medicare or medicaid portion, talk us through it because it is a billion dollar savings but a big issue to hospitals. >> yes, and it has been a big issue for years. the problems that we identified is right now in order to determine how to pay uncompensated care, the center for medicaid/medicare studies, cms, uses the medicaid workload of that particular hospital. so they don't have actual numbers on what the uncompensated care has been, so they use a proxy. that proxy is not a good proxy, and, of course, with the

expansion of medicaid under the affordable care act there are more people insured so there should be less uncompensated care in theory and in practice. right now that's not the case. the second part of this that's a problem is when cms goes to give -- the medicare program goes to give money to hospitals for uncompensated care, they don't take into consideration what they have paid under the medicaid program. there's a possibility you could be compensating more than once for the same cost. so we've recommended to cms that they collect the actual cost figures for uncompensated care and reimburse the hospital a certain percentage of the actual uncompensated care. they've agreed with that, but they don't plan to implement it until 2021. they want to give the hospitals time to adjust. i would encourage the congress to encourage them to act more

quickly, given the unsustainable nature of these two programs and the need to reduce their costs. >> i do note you brought to cms an issue you identified before about with the affordable act, in the way the subsidies are done in areas where there's fraud potential there, in areas y'all tested. you brought to them eight recommendations of what to do. cms said they were going to do it and then didn't implement any of those. >> yeah, they're still trying to work through doing the risk assessment. we understand it is almost complete. we are looking at the premium tax credit, the implementation by both cms and irs, and we should have a report available this summer for the congress. that will be our first complete look at that whole process from -- as mr. george mentioned,

russell mentioned, both irs and cms have responsibilities under that credit so we're looking at both. >> thank you. russell, we talked before about this as well, and that's the eitc and all of the refundable tax credits. often the irs will come back and say this falls on preparers. as is mentioned, about half of them actually have a preparer. irs said if we get a certificate he have indication on these preparers, then we'll get fewer mistakes but they attempted to do that about six years ago and failed, and then they're trying to come back at it again. the recommendation has been made to irs before, instead of doing a requirement that's a mandatory requirement for all of your preparers to go through a certification, you just say to preparers, "if you're going to get faster returns, you then have to go through this

certification." if you're going to be a preparer, if you're not certified your return may take three months to come back. if you are certified it may take 21 days. to be able to tell them, if you want to be a certified irs tax preparer and get faster returns to your clients, you've got to do this. that way they get training in eitc. why would that no work? >> senator, before responding, and i neglected to do this at the outset of my comments to questions. since president reagan, every president has issued a directive indicating that tax policy is within the sole discretion of the assistant secretary for tax policy, and so the answers that i'm giving you is not on behalf of the entire department or the administration. >> that's fine. take that into account. >> there's no question that that is an idea that is worthy of consideration. but as you pointed out, there was a sensible proposal to have certification, and for some reason -- again, whether it was the industry or others, it was not accepted. >> mr. chair. >> senator langford could add on to this point. we recommended to irs several years ago that they should regulate the tax preparers. they went ahead with the proposal. it got taken to court.

the court found they didn't have the statutory authority. i think congress could give some authority in this area. it could be a good program, but i think congressional support would be important. we have an outstanding recommendation to do this. it is one of the things that we mentioned. senator mccaskill mentioned there's a high error rate associated with paid preparers. we sent an undercover team into 19 tax preparers to try to see if they would give us the right answer. only two of the 19 gave us the right answer. >> that's not surprising in some ways, but it is stunning. one quick comment on this, mr. chairman, on this for va as well. thank you for stepping up and taking the lead in st. louis va and other areas. we have a new director in the oklahoma city va who is doing a fantastic job trying to help us in turn around. we are the poster child for what gao mentioned on construction

issues. our seventh floor is not usable, our third floor is not usable, we can't get a parking lot finished outside. the elevator doesn't work in the middle of the building. it has been just a chain of issues with contractors that the director is trying to help us unpack and be able to fix, but this issue has been an ongoing issue. it is not new but i appreciate everyone stepping up to be able to take the lead and be able to help us in that as others have done as well. thank you. >> i know -- it is my privilege and honor to serve in this capacity. thank you. >> senator peters. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to each of our witnesses for being here today and for your testimony. we certainly do appreciate it.

dr. blank, i owe you a special debt of gratitude, not solely because of your long track record in public service, which of course is distinguished, but you are the former dean of the jerrold forward school of public policy in michigan. >> it was one of the excellent jobs i had in the past. >> that was an excellent answer, but not my question. >> she is not big blue anymore, my friend. >> point well-taken. i have several on my staff including some folks in the room today that appreciate your service at the university of michigan and at the gerald ford school. thank you. i also want to add to my colleague's comments and thank you and your staff for your tireless work in putting this

report together as well as your other report. i'm encouraged to hear the $75 billion figure we've been given is soon to grow quite rapidly as well and it is because of the tireless work of everybody there. add my thanks to the other thanks you received from my colleagues. before i ask a couple of questions here, mr. chairman and ranking member, i would like to join in your efforts to get greater compliance with these jl recommendations as well. in fact, i am working right now with senator gardner. we have a bill before the committee called the cost savings resolution which would require hearings from the relevant committees on these reports within a time period. so however that may integrate with the work you and senator mccaskill are doing, i think there's a great opportunity for us to come together and make sure what we have seen in performance continues. my first question relates to what we've been talking a fair about today, and this is the payments particularly for the earned income tax credit and other credits as far as compliance. the figures are stunning. the fact you have 20,000 returns

going to one address is stunning. i say that in the fact that i'm the -- really a founding member, i am a founding member of the senate's payment caucus with senator rounds looking at modern payments technology. i had a chance recent to be at one of the payment companies to see the work they're doing in fraud detext. the private sector the has really figured this out because fraud is not just a problem with eitc. any kind of payment you are making as a company, and if you are in the payments business there's a lot of fraud out there. they have made great strides and have limited substantially in the new technologies that are coming on board are really incredibly impressive. to what extent do you think we need to be looking at modern payment technology? it seems as if the irs is not using any of it. >> to mr. russell, mr. george. >> thank you, sir. i will say this. the irs is not in the position to not disclose mistakes that occur or fraud that occurs when it is questioned by congress or the ig or gao. i, worked in the private sector, senator, and i'm not questioning your point directly, but a lot of times banks won't disclose when their systems are breached because they don't want to shock stockholders or regulators, what have you. whereas, again, the irs is not in that position. there is no question that the irs in theory could implement changes in their processes that could make it more difficult for people to engage in unscrupulous behavior, but they are so malleable -- that he being the bad guys, as i call them -- that it is very difficult for the irs to keep up with it. as senator mccaskill pointed out, it is partially a resource issue. as i pointed out before, the irs sometimes simply doesn't implement changes we think would

be simple. i believe you were in the room when i talked about if they shared more information with other departments such as the education department as it relates to the american opportunity tax credit. this is a factoid i wanted to make sure i conveyed to you before the end of this hearing, and this is an opportunity to do so. the irs did on its own make a request to congress for what is called correctable error authority which would allow them to -- if they saw mistakes or different types of information that they have versus what the taxpayer provided, they would be able to change the taxpayer's tax filing form and give the taxpayer the opportunity to contest the information if it hurts the taxpayer in terms of causing more of a tax liability than they think they're entitled to. now, if the irs was given that authority we estimate that it

would cost the irs approximately $1.50 to implement that change. but without that, the only way the irs can do it is through an audit of the tax return, and the audit costs roughly $300 per taxpayer. so there are changes that could be made, but you the irs needs more authority and, there again, they need to be able to cooperate more with other government agencies. >> go ahead. >> actually, just one other question that's important and we can talk further about this issue off line. but i want to draw attention to the issue in the duplication report about the challenges that

we face in maintaining some of our satellite weather monitoring capabilities. i'm the ranking member on the committee that oversees noahh and what we need to do to have these essential capabilities operating. could you speak on how the defense department may need to rely on and collaborate with noaa and other agencies in this issue moving forward? >> it is important to have collaboration between the department of defense and noaa. noaa is the gateway to a lot of international agreements that we have with satellite systems around that world that could be available to provide assistance. just for an example of that, and that's one of the problems that

we identified in defense department. they did an outreach to noaa but didn't have a formal process to be able to do it. they made some inaccurate assumptions about the availability of a european satellite which would dictate what kind of coverage they would have for cloud characterization as well as in defense theaters of imagery of weather situations they would need for combat purposes. as a result, they had to redo their study and come up with different plans in order to do this. this could have been avoided through a more formal process. we suggested they do that. they signed some agreements with the air force, for example, right now with noaa but it doesn't cover the rest of the department of defense and it doesn't focus on the actual

exchange of data that would occur or should occur between the parties. this has been a longstanding problem. >> right. >> as you know, the project before there was supposed to be coordination on the whole development of geostationary and polar orbiting satellites. they were supposed to have combined requirement. they never could come together. after years of effort and billions of dollars they couldn't reach agreement. the obama administration said, fine, develop your own efforts individually. because noaa's responsible for one polar orbiting satellite for the afternoon orbit and the

defense department is responsible for the polar orbiting satellite in the morning, they each have their own activities. what we're saying is if that's the policy decision, fine, but you need to talk to each other and coordinate. they could use spare parts, exchange with each other. it makes imminent sense. for some reason they just are too sluggish in implementing this recommendation. we have broader issues we made recommendations with the space program. there are 60 different entities operating and nobody is in charge. we have made recommendations there needs to be some organizational structure changes. i would be happy to talk to you more about this issue along with our experts in the area. it is very frustrating. billions of dollars get spent here without adequate management coordination. >> well, i would like to have further conversations with you about that. it certainly makes sense to coordinate that, but i'm also concerned about in the president's budget significant cuts to noaa and what that would

mean for weather satellites. those satellites, as you mentioned, are important for the department of defense as well, and a cut on that weather forecasting capability has impact not only with civilian operations but defense operations as well. >> yes. >> we have to think about this in a core designated way, would you agree? >> i definitely agree. in fact, the environmental satellites issue i added to our high risk lists several years ago because of concerns about gaps in environmental satellite data coverage that could have significant consequences, both to do d and their operations but also to weather forecasting in the united states. it could have public safety and economic consequences if we don't get adequate warning that people could take precautionary measures. i am very concerned about this area, and i would be happy to talk to you more about it. >> appreciate it. thank you so much. >> sure. >> thank you, senator peters. i want to pick up two comments you made that makes imminent

sense, for some reason we can't get it done, and go to mr. george, the air correction authority. as a business guy, my controller comes in and says we can correct it for $1.50 or keep doing it the way we are doing it now, it costs $300. again, it makes imminent sense you go the route where it only costs you $1.50. but for some reason -- can you describe why we haven't done this? has there been an attempt to block, is there some reason for not giving them the correction authority? >> i have no idea. this was within congress, but they do need legislative authority to do it and they currently do not have that. >> gene. >> yes, the irs has been given this map authority for very specific types of tax credits and other issues. they haven't been given the broader authority that russell suggested. we have made the same recommendation. and i think with proper safeguards. think it goes to concerns that

congress has about giving irs too much authority, but i think this area makes sense. there's a good case for it, with proper safeguards that should be put in place. nobody wants a disadvantage the taxpayer and the due process they have. >> that would be the resistance, the legitimate resistance about giving the irs more power than it already has, kind of a suspect agency, i got that. i will go right to senator highcamp if you are ready? >> thank you so much. as we look at narrower and narrower spending opportunities, more cuts, making this work right is critical. an area that senator langford and i have been focused on is federal hiring. last congress i introduced the flexible hire act to help the federal government high and retain vibrant and effective federal workers. i think that is absolutely critically important to supporting the work that the government does. this idea came out of the challenges we had during the bachen explosions and looking at the challenges we have hiring border patrol. it would make hiring and human resources more flexible, including recruitment and

retention. gene, my question is for you. ensuring that agencies have the resources they need i think is absolutely critical to addressing the federal hiring challenges, and i was really great to hear opm's launching of hiring excellence campaign. how do we maintain efforts like that? what do you see in terms of federal hiring duplication improvements that we can make in the hiring structure that will get us people who actually pay attention to duplication and come to us with great ideas on how we can save the taxpayers money in. >> one of the things we suggest and recommend in our rot report is we looked at the hiring efforts, and the one year we looked at this there were 105 different hiring authorities that were available to the agencies but there were only 20 authorities that were used really to hire 91% of the people hired during that prior year. so, you know, our suggestion to opm is, you know, why aren't these other authorities helpful? if not, maybe we should

eliminate them, refine them. which ones are effective? have they effectively communicated that across the departments and agencies? so, you know, in a lot of cases there may be a need to give some additional authority, but there's plenty of authority available and agencies aren't using it fully. the question is why not. that's what we've recommended that omb do. so far they've only looked at and evaluated six of the 105 hiring authorities that we suggested they take another examination of. >> when you look at the aging of the federal workforce and you look at how many people theoretically will need to be hired to replace people who are going the retire, i think it is like a third of the people in the next five years. >> yes, right. >> how do we improve that process and how do we encourage, you know, some autonomy on the

part of the agencies but still maintain an overall system the attic approach and how do we avoid duplication and slow-towns in federal hiring? >> well, one of the first things would be to go back to the regularly appropriating the money on time. >> really? >> yes, yes. >> we have to -- >> i hate to bring this up, but operating under continuing resolution that's less than last year's money is effectively -- >> you know the most amazing thing is we all agree with you but somehow it doesn't happen. >> i know, but i'd start there. >> okay. >> and then i think you need to have opm really look at the hiring -- i don't think it is a problem, hiring authorities, to be honest with you.

i think it is a matter of the execution on the part of the agencies to use the hiring authorities. i think there's a cultural problem here that most of the personnel departments and departments and agencies are based and view their responsibilities to make sure nobody does anything wrong as opposed to making sure that they are proactive in helping the managers bring in the people that they need as soon as possible. so i think that you need to force opm and the chief, human capital officer councils, to change that approach. i have no problem with the gao hiring good people. if we have the money and the authority, we can bring them in. but i see other departments and agencies struggling with that process. opm is not providing enough leadership in this area. i think you should look for more leadership out of opm and the

chief human capital officers council and put more pressure on them to be more aggressive and helpful. >> i know that you know this is a major focus of our subcommittee this year, and so i want to close by thanking you and all of you for your service, especially you and your team. gene, you guys, if only we had listened to you, i think we would be better at what we do. thank you so much for the great work that gao does and that you do personally. >> thank you. >> senator carper. >> thank you. i apologize for being in and out. we have a hearing in the public works committee that i serve on as well, so i've been trying to do justice to both groups. we're working on cloning here in the congress to be in two places at one time. we will wait to see what the tax proposal details look like. i understand some steep rate reductions may be in corporate taxes and other taxes and the election budget office would

suggest it is going to make the deficit a lot bigger by maybe trillions of dollars, and the administration says the pay to offset that would be growth. i hope they're right because it is a lot of increase in deficit. but what it does, it makes more important what you are talking to us about, that we find other ways to do our work more cost effectively going forward. i never understood why we were so intent on reducing the amount of resources we provide to the irs to do their job.

we provide the constituent services, all type of constituent services, operations in our offices in home states. we have three counties in delaware, we have offices in all three counties and we get a lot of inquiries about -- they're tax related and pertain to the irs. the irs used to provide reasonably good responses. over time it has degraded, and one of the reasons why is because we make changes in the tax code. we just make them late in the will calendar year and they become effective beginning in the very following calendar year. we don't make the tax code simple or easy to understand and to comply with, and then to add insult to injury we reduce the amount of resources the irs has to ---either through technology or through people to help explain and work through all of this. it is mind boggling to me.

i'm told that for every dollar that we might increase through the resources for the irs there are actually increased revenues by substantial amounts. do you know anything about that? have you heard anything along those lines? >> yes, they do, you know, have a good return on the dollar investment for every dollar that they're given additional money. what we've though noted is they really can't tell you which specific enforcement activity led to a greater return on the investment. so we think that that he ought to collect and use better information to determine what's the most effective way to get the additional bang for the buck and have better roi information in order to do that, and so that they could use whatever resources that congress gives them in a better way. >> okay.

good, thanks. commissioner hodgkin was before the finance committee not long ago and we asked him. he said, we believe for every extra dollar we provided and resource we pay back for, there are estimates higher than that. it sounds like real money to me. this might be a question for russell george. mr. george, nice to see you. one of the things irs has asked for is something called extreme line credit will cal pay authority, which is something that you know a little bit about. would you just take a moment to explain what it is and why you think it might be important and the right thing for us to give them? >> yes, because of the technical nature of many of the responsibilities that they have, they have to compete with private sector entities in order to gain the expertise needed to fill those positions. and because of the disparity

between what the private sector pays and what the public sector pays, that authority allows not a huge pay differential, but enough so that you can attract -- and they have attracted key and very effective officials, government workers. that authority expired recently and they lost every single one of the people who were hired under that authority. so we highly support -- we actually did recommend that that authority be provided once again to the irs. >> are you familiar with the issue of folks who were preparing taxes and getting paid for it, they're not cpas, they're not necessarily accountants, but they're people who routinely prepare millions, maybe tens of millions of tax returns and the work that they do is not always very accurate? >> oh, most definitely. earlier gene spoke about this, but we too at tigda conducted tests where we would tend them people who were acting the role

of people who needed tax returns completed. the outset of that endeavor the response rates were terrible. it was less than 50% accuracy in terms of tax -- >> what would you suggest we do about that? >> well, because of limited resources, as was pointed out, the irs is relying on volunteer tax centers more so. they still have their own tax assistance centers but they're not fully staffed because of resource limitations. the irs directs people to their website which is helpful. if you are computer literal. unfortunately, many people who are senior citizens or who are not financially able to gain access to computers are unable to take advantage of that. but there are ways in which to the address this, sir. >> thank you. >> yes, we have an outstanding recommendation that congress give irs the authority to require some certification of these tax preparers. you know, in participation with them, not an onerous thing, but some minimal educational certification requirements because there are so many tax returns prepared by these preparers. a couple of other things congress could do to help irs --

>> yes, please. >> -- one is to lower the threshold for the requirement to electronically file your tax returns and the w-2 information, for example. right now you have to have 250 employees in order -- and above, then you have to electronically file. if you lowered that to 5% to 10% of returns you would be okay. they receive right now about 18 million paper returns yet. so there's still, you know, somewhat drowning in paper even though more returns come in electronically. that would be a big help. >> okay. >> you would need less people because the paper returns have to be handled, they have to be coded, they have to be converted. also, it would be helpful to give irs the expanded mandate that partnerships and s-corps file electronically as well. having that in an electronic format would be helpful. we talked earlier about giving

irs broader map authority to correct errors when things come in, to have proper safeguards to have taxpayers appeal if they think they've not been treated fairly. that would save them, as russell pointed out before, in order to fix some of those things they could fix right away -- and senator johnson mentioned this -- it would cost them $1.50 if they fix it right there as opposed to launch an audit which costs $300 as russell says, it makes sense to give them that authority. between gao and the irs -- or the ig, russell, we could check to make sure they're using those authorities properly and not disadvantaging taxpayers. >> mr. chairman, the words of my father are ringing in my ears. just use some common sense. i think we've heard about six good ideas here today, and i'm interested in pursuing them. i hope any colleagues will want to join me. >> i know we will have a vote called here at 11:30, so we have

a few more minutes left. i want to go back to chancellor blank real quick because it is duplication hearing. in your testimony, remind me again how many different agencies does the university report to in some way, shape or form? >> 43. >> 43. again, you're not against -- you're not opposed to regulation, but what you would like is some cooperation, coordination, uniform, common types of standards, correct? >> absolutely. >> part of the problem is you're reporting very similar things, but each agency has their own process for developing their little questionnaire. how much do you think you could reduce -- just really talk, if you can give one example of what we're talking about here. >> so, yeah, it is hard to come up with dollar figures on something like this, and i think the real issue is the time of researchers actually going into teaching and research as opposed

to paperwork. so, you know, let me give an example of a particular project where there was a great deal of interest in trying to use a variety of samples that another research project had had collected. these are are medical tissue samples. it took over a year for the researchers to work their way through a variety of approval processes. they were finally simply gave up on the project entirely. it was very closely related to some of the issues around alzheimer's. it had a real potential for, you know, expanding our research in that area. they essentially wasted a year of their time trying to get approval on something that they simply could it not get approval to because enough different agencies and approval processes had to be gone through, all of them required different things, all of them -- so they just said, this isn't worth our time. they gave up on it.

>> can you name some of the agencies, not to point a finger, but according to usda, fda. ig office while it does very good work is also often a problem here and they often have disagree with the agencies on what certain standards should be and so they come in and audit us and hold us accountable for doing things the way the agencies told us to do them and said that that's, you know, and then ding us in various ways for that. so better coordination between the ig and the agency, that means that there's two groups in each agency coming ought us with different standards and beliefs and that type of coordination just has to start occurring. >> in your testimony you used -- we have layer upon layer of different controls, you know, designed to be prevent from us wasting a dollar and we've probably spent billions trying to comply with all the layers of

regulation, would seif got a someway, shape or form figure out how to cut through that, provide some uniform standards on similar types of approvals where you're not having to do -- things -- some of these things conflict, right? you've got one over here, if you comply with this one you're probably out of compliance with something over oj the other -- >> that's part of the problem, yes. >> senator mccaskill, do you have any? >> yeah. first on the do not pay working system, is it true that we are going to have to do something in order to let the irs get the full mastered debt file? >> yes. the social security administration believes there needs to be an amendment to the social security act to get the full debt master file. and this includes about 10% more records and we think this is important and encourage congress --. >> that have you had go in our legislation, the notion that we can't figure out who's died before we pay them, we've talked

about in in this committee many times, we pay and chase and that never has a good ending. we've got to figure out how not to pay up front instead of paying and chasing and it is -- it's just something basic like knowing who's dead seems to me like the federal government can't figure that out then there is no hope. there is no hope. on the -- i wanted to briefly talk to you dr. blank because i care very much about the clary act and i am painfully aware of how laborious that particular requirement is. and i wouldn't mind it being laborious if we were getting data thai loud us to actually get a handle on apples to apples comparison, campus to campus, apples to apples comparison between communities and campuses. but because the clary act does not mirror the uniform crime reporting at the fbi, we, in

fact, your report talked about we don't even -- there's like 16 ditch ways sexual assault is defined against four different agencies that are collecting data. we have no hope of understanding this problem if the data that we are collecting is not done in a way that it can support good public policy. and there's no question that this is a problem here. and would your police department at the university of wisconsin, would they be willing, if we could did it, to did the same standards for clary that they have for ucr? >> we would be delighted to have that type of coordination. i might say it's a further problem on our campus that the state requires us to report in a different format and way as well. so we have three different reporting standards. >> you've got clary, ucr, and you've got state? >> yes. >> well, it would be good if we

could figure out way way to make everybody do ufr and then you're doing all the same definitions and you can compare and all those things. i made the mistake in a public forum of saying i thought clary -- i wasn't as frankly as articulate as you were talking about how important clary is and that you want that data. i just said, clary is messed up. and, of course, somebody came down on my head that oh my gosh you can't quit making campuses report this data which is not what i intended. i want the data to be good and i want police departments to spend most of the their time catching people who are doing bad things to people rather than trying to figure out three different reporting standards. >> i agree completely. >> maybe we can put that in also. and i want to also say that i think if we can't get nih and -- especially if we could just get nih and sa to agree on been

standard for reporting and have it interchangeable, that would be a lot for all of the medical research facilities in this country. >> both the issue of putting in reports of reporting on effort and on conflicts of interest and on steady progress as well as what happens after something is completed, where it gets filed, as you may know there's recent -- recent requirement that it's going to be going into effect asking us to file the date for all research that's federally funded. everybody agency is doing this differently, right. and you get many projects that are funded by ultimate am agencies that creates just an enormous burden. >> the data's not very useful then because somebody comes along and they've got to go to four or five different databases and we end up paying a contractor to make the databases talk to each other when it would be much simpler if we just, i they do one set of data across agencies. >> we add another layer. >> we add another layer.

>> and finally i want to give you a chance, mr. george, to talk about the problem at the irs because we're trying to starve them and make sure that they don't have adequate resources. i mean, right now a taxpayer that has a serious problem that they need addressed, they are the customer of irs, they are sitting on the phone to talk to a real person, they're sitting on the phonetor t for ten hours. this is all under the idea of let's make sure the irs, let's cut it and cut it because we all hate the irs. okay, we all hate the irs. let's have enough people there so they can do their job and serve the taxpayers that deserve to have their questions answered and particularly deserve to catch the people that are trying to get tax credits that they don't deserve. >> senator, the irs is a revenue generating arm of the federal government. it needs the resources necessary to help people comply with their tax obligations. there are studies that show the easier you make it to comply

with your taxes, the more likely people are to do so. but, senator, if i make take one quick minute because i -- in response to a statement by the chairman and by senator peters about multiple refunds going to tens of thousands of addresses, in response to our identitying this, the irs has instituted some changes and they just reported to us that in april of this year they were able to stop over 92,000 of these ill gotten gains almost a half a billion dollars. so. >> i appreciate that. >> some progress is being made there. >> i just wanted to give them credit. >> i've been making this point quite some time, and the real solution here is simplifying the tax code. we can talk about tox, i'd much rather be talking about tax simple if i occasion, tax racial zation. and then i think you actual could have an irs that does the job, responds to the kufts merz, american taxpayer, and can actual dloi it with less money.

but it's about tax simp fa occasion that's the solution here. i want to thank all of you. again, this hearing, again, i think has pointed us in the direction, you'll see this committee work in a bipartisan fashion, we're going to hop on this and work with the agencies and all of you to address the problems that you've highlighted here. this is valuable this will result in i think very positive bipartisan action. so thank you very much. with that the hearing record will remain open for 15 days until may 11th at 5:00 p.m. this hearing is adjourned.

tonight on c-span 3 a hearing on build a wall along the border with mexico. the consumer frags of america's annual food policy conference, then a discussion about sentence policy in the white house. and president trump speaks at this week's holocaust memorial care moan. they look at bimding a wall along the u.s. mexican border. witnesses representing immigrants and border patrol agents testified. this house oversight subcommittee hearing is an hour and