on a bill that would set debt priorities requiring the and at arst, bobby jindal fundraiser. that is live. coverage continues on 8:00 when rand paul speaks at the lincoln day dinner. >> post on 11, a lot more people cared about nasa security -- national security issues than was the case before. all of a sudden there was market for former cia folks. even former national security or

he all of those guys who were used to operating in the shadows saw a market for their services as commentators, book writers. there was the somewhat uncomfortable interaction between the agencies and these former and toy ease. s. former employee >> at september 11 has moved farther into history, i have changed my mind. i think that waterboarding is probably something we should not be in the business of doing. we are americans and we are better than that. >> this is a guy who i think by all accounts meant well. who served his country. al rest is live to take on

qaeda in pakistan. he is going to prison for 30 months, leaving his young family be fine. >> this weekend, scott shane on his feature story from spy to source to convict. on c-span.:00 >> possibly as commissioner edward davis told members of congress today that officials warned the fbi about one of the boston bombing suspects. the information was never passed on to the city. this portion of the homeland security hearing is two hours. >> the committe on homeland security will come to order. the committee is meeting today

for the first in a series of hearings examining the boston bombings of april 15, 2013. i now recognize myself for an opening statement. the attacks in boston shook this nation, and brought back memories of that day in september, 2001, that changed our lives forever. i am confident that we will emerge from this tragedy stronger than ever before. anyone who thinks they can execute an attack on this country and change our way of life, greatly underestimates our spirit and our resolve. it is the responsibility of this committee to provide oversight and investigate what happened, what went wrong and what we can do to better protect american lives. the victims and their families deserve no less. we will never forget april 15th.

but we must do more than remember, we must hold accountable those who did us harm, as well as the terrorists who inspired them. we must also demand more than just answers for any mistakes made. we must find solutions so that it does not happen again. in the chaos following the blasts, the american people, including myself, were amazed at the courage of first responders and civilians who ran towards the explosion, instead of away. these men and women motivate us all to pick up the pieces and move forward. commissioner, we applaud you, as well as the first responders and law enforcement officials who risked their lives to save others. we owe all of you a debt of [applause]

in order to move forward, today we look back. the families who lost loved ones, and the over 260 wounded deserve answers about how this happened, and what can be improved in the future. almost three weeks after the smoke cleared on boylston street, many questions remain. what we know today is that radical islamists still threaten our homeland. while we don't know if this attack was foreign-directed, we certainly know it was foreign- inspired. tamerlan tsarnaev's trip to the chechen region; the radical videos proclaiming the caliphate that he posted when he returned, and the type of bombs he and his younger brother used, all signal an al qaeda-inspired terrorist attack. while mystery continues to

surround what happened on the older brother's trip to dagestan, much can be drawn from what we know about the region. many chechen rebels have forged a bond with the al qaeda jihadist movement. these lethal warriors have fought side-by-side with al qaeda and the taliban against u.s. soldiers in afghanistan and iraq. in fact, my constituent's son, marine sergeant byron norwood, was killed by nine chechen rebels in iraq. perhaps most appalling, are the suspect's reported statements following his capture. these men who hate our values used our freedoms to kill americans. since the bombing, questions have been raised about whether dots were connected before and after the attack. we know that russian intelligence warned the fbi

about tamerlan, and that he may travel outside the united states to meet with extremists. we know he was then investigated and interviewed by the fbi, but when he travelled to the chechen region in 2012, the fbi was unaware. the cia also received an alert from russian intelligence and the agency asked that he be added to a terror watch list. we now know that d.h.s. was alerted to his trip overseas, but nothing was done. in other words, he was on our radar and then he was off. what remains unanswered is whether this information was shared between federal agencies and state and local officials. almost nine months after tamerlan returned, he and his brother dzhokhar, executed the largest terrorist attack on our

soil since 9/11. this demonstrates that the radical jihad movement is alive and well around the world and in the homeland. we learned over a decade ago, the danger in failing to connect the dots. the cornerstone of the 9/11 commission report was that agencies had "stove-piped" intelligence, which prevented us from seeing potential terrorist plots. in fact, the dhs was created in the wake of 9/11 to help fix this problem. my fear is that the boston bombers may have succeeded because our system failed. we can and must do better. equally concerning is the emerging narrative which downplays the spread of the global jihadist movement. from the attack at fort hood, to the tragedy at benghazi, the boston bombings are our most recent reminder that we must call terrorism what it is, in

order to confront it. you cannot defeat an enemy you refuse to acknowledge. i was disturbed in the days following the attack to read that some officials had closed the case on whether there was a foreign connection, when the fbi had just begun its investigation. as a former federal counterterrorism prosecutor, this rush to judgment was both premature and irresponsible. the american people demand and deserve accountability. and while we investigate what may have gone wrong, we must also pay tribute to what went right. just as tragedy often exposes weaknesses, it also reveals our character. the acts of heroism in boston in the minutes and days after the

attack made us all proud to be americans. with that, the chair recognizes the ranking minority member. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you for holding today's hearing. i want to thank our witnesses for appearing. this hearing has been billed as a first look at the boston marathon bombing. while it is appropriate that we examine the events of april 15th, we need to understand and recognize our limitations. first, we must recognize that the events of that day remain under investigation. while we must fulfill our oversight responsibilities under the constitution, we must be careful not to jeopardize an on- going criminal investigation. so we must exercise some discretion in our questioning and our statements about these events, the suspects and

theories about links to others who may not be in custody. despite those limitations, there is much we can discuss regarding the boston marathon bombing. we can and should discuss the incredible response from the police, fire fighters and emergency medical personnel. once again, the first responder community ran toward a catastrophic situation when all others were running away. so, i want to commend the boston first responders for their bravery and heroic actions. but i also must recognize that as first responders, they demonstrate that kind of bravery every day. second, we need to acknowledge the people of boston and the surrounding area. they not only responded with calm and determination on that day, but in the days that followed, they responded to law enforcement's call for help by

sharing their photographs and videos. that kind of community spirit the willingness to pull together and lend a hand is one of the qualities that make this country a great place. additionally, we must recognize the thoughtful and difficult decision by the governor of the commonwealth of massachusetts. requiring residents to remain in their homes for a few days after the bombing and placing an entire city on lockdown was not easy. but given that the exact nature of the threat was unknown, it was a decision which had to be made. and finally, we must acknowledge the decision of the attorney general to immediately refer to the bombing as an act of terror and send the fbi and other federal law enforcement to assist in the effort to locate, arrest, and bring to justice those responsible. as we look at the events of april 15th and the days that followed, we must also look at

what happened before april 15th. as the committee on homeland security, we must acknowledge that the kind of response that occurred on that day would not have been possible without federal grant funds. the effectiveness of the response executed by the first responders is a direct result of over a decade of investment in preparedness and response capabilities and exercises supported by the federal emergency management agency and its targeted homeland security grants. since 2002, the commonwealth of massachusetts and the boston urban area have received over $1.3 billion in funding through federal grant programs. the commonwealth and the boston urban area have used these funds to develop capabilities to prevent, prepare for, mitigate the effect of, respond to, and

recover from natural disasters and terrorist attacks like the boston marathon bombings. anyone who has doubts about the value of federal grant dollars should be reminded of the brave actions of the first responders on april 15th. so, as this congress continues to cut funding for these programs, i hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are members of this committee will oppose those cuts. refusal to support these funding cuts would be the greatest tribute any of us could make to the people of boston. but i also recognize that in addition to the positive effects of federal grant funding, the boston bombing also revealed some negatives that we cannot ignore. we cannot ignore that once again, it has taken a tragedy to reveal problems in our vast, varied and numerous federal databases. we faced a similar problem of a

faulty database in the christmas day bomber incident. now we learn that there were database problems which made it possible for one of the bombing suspects to re-enter the country after a trip to russia. it is time to recognize that we must develop a way to fix and integrate these various databases. but we must also realize that in the federal government, no one agency or entity has the responsibility and the authority to scrub and integrate these vast systems that contain records on millions of people. congress cannot continue to complain about the failure of the databases without giving the authority and the funding to one agency to fix these problems. i guarantee you that if we fail to act, we will be discussing this issue again. but that is not the only issue we must act upon. in response to the events of

september 11th, congress enacted the terrorism risk insurance act of 2002. that measure increased the availability of terrorism risk insurance to at-risk american businesses by guaranteeing that the government would share some of the losses with private insurers should a terrorist attack occur. that act is set to sunset in 2014. today, i am introducing a bill that would not only extend the act, but would add some needed improvements. i urge my colleagues on this committee to co-sponsor this act. we must recognize that small businesses and others that suffer an economic loss due to a terrorist act should not have to shoulder that burden alone and should not have to rely on the kindness of charity. finally, as we take this first look at the boston bombings, i hope we do not fall into a pattern of reaching conclusions

before all the facts are known. at this point in the investigation, speculation about the motivations of the suspects and the role of external influences seems to change daily. we all want to know the answers and are tempted to reach our own conclusions. but somewhere i read to everything there is a time and season. this is not the time and the season has not yet come. but it will arrive shortly. so, i look forward to our second look, where we can receive testimony from representatives of the intelligence and investigative agencies that may serve to answer many of our questions about motivations, the suspects and external influences. again, i want to thank the witnesses for appearing today. >> i thank the ranking member. let me just say as a former federal prosecutor, i always reserve judgement until all the

evidence is in. with respect to grant funding, i met with the boston fire comissioner. he told me if it wasn't for the department of homeland security funding that helped them with response exercises, it could have been a different situation. that helped in saving many american lives. with that, let me just say we are pleased to have the witnesses hear today. the first witness, no stranger to the congress. our friend and colleague, senator joseph lieberman. he represented the state of connecticut and was the distinguished in the united states senate from 1999 to 2013. in the months after september 11, he led the fight to create a department of homeland security. it led to the creation of this committee and the senate

homeland security committee. he chaired it until his retirement from the congress early this year. with that, i would think it appropriate for my fellow colleague and friend from the boston area, one of the best district in the area, he represents waterton, and i thought it would be appropriate for him to introduce of the police commissioner and mr. swartz. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just have the pleasure of introducing boston police commissioner ed davis. in 2006, commissioner davis was appointed by the boston commissioner to be the 40th commissioner. in this role he oversees police

services for over half a million people him along with those visitors that come into the great city. mr. davis, i knew him before he was commissioner. he is a leader in using a position to bring different layers of law enforcement to gather, working in a task force of major cities. he he is the superintendent of the office in 1994. during this, he brought -- he was recognized for reducing the crime rate lower than any other superintendent in america. over 100,000 residents. most recently, he led the police department response to the boston marathon bombings and the quick thinking of the men and women under mr. davis'leadership, and civilians in boston led to the survival of

17 critically injured civilians. i want to note during this leadership he led first and foremost in his mind the four victims that lost their lives, lindsay lou, martin richard, christian campbell, and chuck alere. i want to thank you for that. we are pleased to have you here today. another friend of mine, the under-secretary of the committee in massachusetts. he is a person who has just done extraordinary work in so many different regards. he was an emt himself. he was a police officer. he has served so many different and important positions in

massachusetts at times of crisis and emergency. homeland security and emergency management in executive office in 2007. he was the leader. he also serves as the director of our agency, as well as the homeland security adviser to governor patrick. a long history of service in the commonwealth. he has been under-secretary for fire services under governor patrick as well. he has worked for eight years under the attorney general where he worked with district attorneys and law-enforcement officials like myself for the five years as chief of the criminal bureau. he expanded a resume that is rich and deserve. this does not really include the full picture of kurt swartz. he brought people together. most recently, he played a critical role in emergency planning and response to the

boston marathon attacks. he participated in many of the training exercises which aid in the response so successfully on april 15. he further managed shelter for the city of boston. this aid to the successful apprehension of the suspect, and saved possible damage for their other actions that they had contemplated. i want to thank both of these gentlemen for being here. i've been proud to work with you personally. you are to be both saint for what you have done to save lives in this terrible tragedy. thank you. >> i think the gentleman from massachusetts. our final witnesses erroll southers. he is the associate director of the national homeland security center for risk and economic analysis of the terrorism events at the university of southern california. they key for being here today.

he is formally served as to b.d. corrector in california at the office of homeland security. the witness. as we made any record. -- their full statement will be made into the record. the chair recognizes senator lieberman's opening statement. chairman mccaul, ranking member thompson, thank you for inviting me to testify and for giving me the honor of doing so alongside boston police commissioner edward davis and massachusetts undersecretary for homeland security kurt schwartz. after the terrorist attacks on america on 9-11-01, i was privileged to work with colleagues in both houses, both parties, and the executive branch to enact the most comprehensive reforms of our national security architecture since the beginning of the cold war in the late 1940s.

i am grateful that the reforms we adopted and new organizations we created have worked well to protect the american people from terrorist attacks but, as we saw in boston, they are not perfect. since 9-11, no terrorist plot planned or launched from abroad against our homeland has succeeded. that is a remarkable record and is a testament to the commitment of the men and women both civilian and military who have devoted their lives to keeping us safe. at least 65 homegrown terrorist plots planned and launched right here in the united states have been stopped. but three have succeeded in that at least one american was killed, carlos bledsoe killed an

army recruiter in little rock in 2009, nidal hasan killed 13 at fort hood later that same year, and now the tzarnaev brothers killed four and severely wounded many more in boston during the week of april 15, 2013. the boston attack was the first successful terrorist attack either homegrown or launched from abroad on a non-military target in america since 9-11. could it have been prevented? from what i know of the facts and what i know about homegrown islamist terrorism and our efforts to prevent it, i believe -- it would have been possible to prevent the attacks in boston. that it acknowledge failed to stop the brothers.

with your help, we must find out why and fix it.ira member a leader who want said to me the terrace to keep coming at us, they'll have to succeed once. we have to stop them every time. that is almost impossible. that is the standard our defenders hold themselves to, and we have to as well. i am grateful you begun this investigation. you to go step-by-step, pull couldand ask what more the public and private individuals involved here have done to prevent this area did -- this area. whenever there is a governmental failure, the ministration power will become defensive and not share information and that congress will be divided by

politics and lose sight of overriding missions, which is to protect the american people from the next planned terrorist attack. i hope and believe that this congress and this administration will not let that happen this time. second, the boston marathon attacks should again teach us that the enemy we face is violent extremism, not just al qaeda. all some of bin laden is dead. -- osama bin laden is dead. the remaining leadership is on the run. the ideology of violent extremism is rapidly spreading. we do not know yet whether the brothers were involved with foreign groups. the adopted the outrageously false narrative of violent islamist extremism. that they are in a struggle to the death of each other. that compels us to ask again how this ideology and radicalization can be countered

and ultimately stop. the leaders and members of the world community, including our own fellow americans, probably have the greatest capacity to do the most important work on counter radicalization. the rest of us have a responsibility to help. there wasor to 9/11, too little sharing of information about terrorist threats. therefore the so-called dots cannot be connected because they were not on the same board. aim tot on 11 reforms overcome that serious problem and to us it -- and to a significant degree they did. there is a much information being shared on the same metaphorical boards by governmental agencies that the larger problems for personnel may be being able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

that may have been the big part of the problem. i urge you to try to determine whether it was. whether lingering failures to share information, in this case by the fbi and the department of homeless security, made it more difficult to prevent the boston attacks. it may be that the most damaging failure to share information was committed to the russian intelligence service. their original inquiries to the fbi and cia were quite vague and apparently whose knowledge of what he did was not really convey to our government until after the boston marathon attacks. however, we have got to ask. i hope you will, shouldn't the fact that the first notice of his possible radicalization came to us from a very uncommon the case forarked

special handling by our government, to guarantee this file not be close. with the original fbi interviews adequate to determine whether he was lucky to radicalize? was the fbi investigation curtailed by existing attorney general guidelines, which go back to previous administrations. did the fbi enlist the help of state and local law enforcement am a -- enforcement, to continue , and monitorrlan his inner activities or the purpose of assessing whether he was radicalizing even further. why did the department of homeland security notify the fbi in the boston phd f when it system pained that he had returned?

finally, when it comes to preventing homegrown terrorists from attacking us, our homeland security agents cannot do it alone. the government needs the help of the american people. if people see something suspicious, they must say something to our government. in this case, there are people who clearly could've prevented the massacre by just saying something. most obvious are the friends of tamerlan hua been arrested. they have -- they should have told police instead of objecting -- obstruct injustice. the leaders of the boston mosque that threw him out because of his extreme views could have said something to the police. ,ven members of the family

including his wife, could have lives, including tamerlan if they said something. the cost of silence as we learned can be an norma's, as enormous as the -- can be an norma's. enormous. i thank you for that. i will do anything i can to help you with this investigation, beginning with answering your questions this morning. >> thank you for your service to our nation. we look forward to working with you. we open your -- we are always open to your advice and counsel. the chair now recognizes commissioner davis. let me just say that your actions and the people of boston made us all proud to be americans. they recognize you for an opening statement.

-- i recognize you for opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman. chairman mccaul, ranking member thompson, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the tragedy that occurred in boston on patriots day, april 15 when two cowardly brothers laid siege to one of massachusetts? most venerated traditions, the boston marathon. i am here as the commissioner of the boston police department, but i also speak on behalf of mayor thomas menino, the mayor's emergency management staff and law enforcement from across the state and across the nation, when i describe our cooperative response to these attacks and what they did to our community.i would like to point to the four people who were killed in this attack. they are indicative of who was there at that event that day. we have eight-year-old martin

richard, who was there with his mother and sister. his father had just run by completing the marathon. we have a boston university graduate student. she was finishing her studies and was there with friends right next to martin when that bomb went off. we have a restaurant manager, krystle campbell. she was at the finish line when the first motion occurred and lost her life there. sean days later, we had collier. these brothers assassinated him. a young man that had committed his life to law enforcement and was going to go into the police department.

these individuals turn the city upside down. lastmpact on boston will for years. the boston marathon will come back stronger next year. it will never happen again without the memory of this tragic event. herbalthat tragedy, that experience, -- that terrible experience, comes strength on the part of the community. , buts alluded to earlier the medical people boost -- who staffed the tent at the end of the finish line, a were there to treat people with blisters and exhaustion. instead, they ended up being thrown into a battlefield scenario with injuries that were her rent is. if it wasn't for the actions of my police officers, firefighters, ems people who were at the scene, and those

medical people in the tents, the death toll would be much higher. oft response is indicative what happened in the city of boston. it underlies this whole conversation of boston strong. .t involved the baa it involves spectators to my businesses -- it involves spectators and businesses. the amount of charitable giving that occurred there was spectacular. the city and resident of boston .o-op or a with us that was the right decision to make based on the information we had. ,he residents full cooperated which was astounding.

boston is a stronger city because of this. i hope the pity you -- people who commit these acts understand that there is a futility in their efforts. the city is back on its feet. we will never forget the people you see to my left. i will tell you that they had no effect on the city of boston, except to make us a stronger community. one of the things that has been much discussed here is the information sharing that occurred before and after this incident. i can't tell you how much i appreciate the cooperation of the fbi, atf, massachusetts a police, and all of the help that they gave us when this happened. in the seconds after i was notified, the first phone call i --e was to rid the laurier,

him and the state police were my go to people because we needed ,wat assets in the downtown expecting a further incident. they responded immediately and gave us all the equipment available in massachusetts. they were there within 30 minutes. the first victims were evacuated within 22 minutes. we had every swat team in the commonwealth. we were on-site -- where we had our first meeting of the command post. the information sharing that we did before hand to prepare for the marathon was good. we certainly need to look at everything we did. the senator's comments are well taken. everything that we did has to be reviewed so that would make sure this does not happen again. until the facts on the table,

it is hard to say what we could've done differently. i am satisfied with the preparation that we put in place. after 9/11, i met with the director of the fbi after the incident. he committed to including us. he has been good to his word. we are real members of that organization. i have three detectives and a sergeant that are there everyday day and working closely with the bureau. we certainly need to enlist the community better. identifyingbout radical extremism and ferreting that out, the first thing that we need to do is go to our community and explain to them that they have a responsibility to their community and their nation, into what is right to report the kind of activity that these brothers were involved in. i think that is the first line

of defense. there is going to be conversation about cameras and technical him -- and technical means. there is no computer that is going to spit out a terrorist name. involved inmmunity the come -- in the conversation and being appropriately open to medicating with law enforcement when something awry is identified. that needs to happen. that should be our first step. we have to look at cameras, sure we do. do we have to look at more bomb dogs? andizing homeland security the federal government? we do have to do that. it is important. the training you alluded to is important. people are alive today because of the terrorism training that

homeland security provided to us. further investment has to be made. moving forward, the help of the federal government was critical to our response here. we need to look at how it happened and why it happened. the truth of the matter is, nobody messes with boston. we need to comes -- we need to recognize that intelligent analysis and joint terrorism task force are part of our future. boston is an international city. we derive an enormous benefit from the people who come to boston for school him and for hospital care, and just to be a part of our community. the world is a dangerous place. we need to recognize that and be prepared for it. they key. -- thank you.

>> on behalf of the committee, we thank you for your efforts. your department, our hearts go out to the victims and their families. both of those killed and the 260 that were wounded. many of whom your department saved on that day. let me just say thank you for that. the chair recognizes under- secretary schwartz for a statement. >> thank you. governor patrick, i thank you for this opportunity to share thoughts and insights as you take your first look at the tragic events related to the boston marathon bombings. the week of april 15 demonstrated the value of our investments in money, and our local: security enterprise. within seconds of the bomb an array of personnel

resources and capello -- capabilities, many funded with homeland security grant dollars, or bought two bear and triaged to care for the wounded, communicate with the public, provide situational awareness or decision-makers, ensure the safety and security of the public and critical infrastructure, set up a joint command center, and identify and apprehend the suspect it terrorists. the speed with which boston responded supported by the is a testament to the homeland security spending and investments and preparedness, training, and exercises, coordinated response systems, and outstanding leadership. i speak with firsthand knowledge of the baroque work done by our safety team on april

15, and in the following days. i arrived on boylston street only minutes after the blasts where i joined city and state command level public safety officials, including commissioner ed davis of the boston police department and colonel timothy alben of the massachusetts state police. and i was still with this team five days later when the last of the suspected terrorists was captured in watertown. i commend governor patrick and ,embers of his administration commissioner davis, and the many women he commands, the first responders, and the many other local, state, and federal agencies that responded for their extraordinary performance. as you all know, april 15 mark the 117th running of the boston marathon. one of the most prestigious

marathons in the world. the marathon is a big deal. public safety for the mass -- massacre -- marathon is a big deal. the boston marathon is one of our largest annual events. we have had substantial planning and operational resources to protect as best we can the runners and spectators, and the towns that host the race. the playbook safety committee was prepared. as the public safety committee was prepared. on race day, an 80 person multiagency coordination center

was operational. representatives from boston police, ems, and public safety risen now on the other seven cities along the 26 mile course .ere present -- along the 26 mile course, local, regional, and state technical teams, hazardous materials response teams, eod teams, the national guard civil support team, mobile command post, and state police helicopters were deployed as part of an all hazards operational plan. in short, when 27,000 runners started the race in hopkinton, we were prepared from the starting line

in hopkinton to the finish line twooston.as we well know, powerful bombs were intentionally detonated 12 seconds a point -- a part within a short distance of the finish line. the results were catastrophic. three people killed and over 250 injured, dozens of them seriously. the response by the public -- by bystanders, witnesses, and volunteers in those moments was nothing short of remarkable. the public safety response was equally incredible. the response that eyewitness speaks volumes about the investments that we have made in the commonwealth to enhance our homeland security. from a high-level view, seven several-- seven -- things stand out. there is a clear correlation between the effectiveness of our

spot operations in the aftermath of the bombings and our homeland security investments. the response of the bombings relied heavily on specialized capabilities that have been built and sustained through our homeland security program. the response of the bombings was augmented through three existing agreements that have been built on regional response strategies and plans. interoperability was a success story. over the years, millions of dollars have been invested under local, regional and state interoperability plans, and our investments in mutual aid channels, tactical channel plans, radio towers, new radios, and specialized training allowed first responders, as well as command level personnel, to effectively communicate by radio between agencies, between disciplines, and between -- to activate our

specialized response teams, to stay familiar with the technology-based systems we rely on during emergencies, and to strengthen personal and professional relationships amongst people, agencies, disciplines, and jurisdictions that otherwise may not have opportunities to work together. we benefited from our investment in regional exercise programs that allow for -- first responders with honed skills and gave the military from other areas and may be called in to support under mutual aid agreements. the cooperation and collaboration across agencies, disciplines, and jurisdictions was immediate and extraordinary. there was unity of focus and purpose at the command level and through the ranks all the way down to the first responders on april 15, and the thousand plus police officers that participated in the state's

largest manhunt on april 18 and 19. the relation between public safety leaders and public officials at all times was open, positive, and constructive. governor patrick and mayor mean menino or- mayor regularly communicated with and briefed. their decisions were informed by and reflect the public safety concerns, needs, and object to this. this fostered constructive decision-making and opportunities for bolds, out of the box decisions. the support from the federal government was immediate and effective. , need to personally thank fema the department, security, executive office and human services, all of whom had been on the ground and with us and

supported us throughout this event. finally, local and state emergency agencies effectively communicated with the public or social media, reversed on one systems, smart phone apps, and for the first time massachusetts, and emergency notification with the new wireless alert system. the response by the public to the bombings and ensuing hunt for the suspected terrorists with nothing set -- was nothing short of incredible. on april 15, people do not panic or act out of a sense of anger or frustration. these tragic and shocking events brought out the best in our communities. a supported our first responders and heeded requests and directions from governor patrick and public safety leaders, including the unprecedented request that residents of boston, watertown, and for others running cities remain indoors.

the community has responded to these tragic events with compassion, with strength, and with support for the survivors of the bombings. the families of the victims, and the impacted communities. boston and watertown, all of our impacted communities have shown us what it means to be resilient. in the days ahead, we will conduct a comprehensive local, regional, and state review of the bombings, including mitigation strategies and are responsive the recovery efforts. an event oftify -- what mightude and -- not have worked, and if there are various improvements. finally, it is important to and by stating that governor patrick and i have to mend his pride in our of public safety

professionals come who demonstrated so well its commitment to public safety, even under the most difficult of circumstances. these were trying times, and we were able to look back upon them with admiration for the collaboration and that truly made a difference. thank you. >> please express to the mayor and governor our appreciation and thanks. the chair now recognizes professor -- professors others -- professor southers for a statement. >> members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. it is extremely unfortunate and saddening that our gathering and important conversations were precipitated by the tragic events in boston, but this hearing, and those to follow, offer valuable opportunities to discuss the methods and strategies that can best address and disrupt the ever-present threat of terrorism and violent extremism. my deepest condolences, thoughts and prayers go to the victims of this cowardly act. the boston marathon bombing was conducted by terrorists who grew

up within miles of where they committed their tragedy. they were locals, educated, living and working in the area. because of this, they knew the target environment and did not require training to familiarize themselves with the area and its protective measures. put simply, tamerlan and dzhokhar tsarnaev were homegrown violent extremists, and because of them, boston joined a fraternity of cities around the world that have endured terrorist attacks plotted and conducted by their own residents. much like the madrid train bombings in march 2004, as well as the july 2005 bombings in london, the terrorists' familiarity with the target area afforded them critical situational awareness that facilitated their ability to plan and execute local attacks, -- well as the capacity to

in the context of our country, homegrown extremism describes a terrorist or plots targeting the night states -- united states by residents who have embraced their expressed their ideology within this country. the concept of radicalization is widely referenced but remains poorly defined. the term is not limited to any one racial, issue, group. it is a process. is a process. the final element, engagement, is one part of the indoctrination continuum which has potential to yield violent activity.

an examination of radicalization brought questions regarding how a person becomes engaged, stays engaged, or may disengage from a group or extremes ideology. the requires a commendation of three things. and an enabling environment. of the three, it is the environment that is most susceptible to positive influences that support can reduce the extremism. as officials analyze the boston marathon attacks, we should resist the urge to fix something absence of specific evidence until all the facts are in. security is comprised of policies, processes, and technology. as a relates to environments like sporting events, it should

be on emphasis of policies that are risk-based, focusing on threats that resent the most danger, and are most likely to occur. we had the apply research citizen awareness, intelligence, and interdisciplinary management round the country, edition two other new cutting edge technology being tested in the united states, in brazil and in cooperation with the 2014 world cup, will continue to hold significant -- significance. at the same time, recognizing that the global goal is to contain terrorism. we should seek to prioritize opportunities to engage communities to take part in disrupting the radicalization process that can also mentally -- ultimately lead to violent

action. the challenge in this case is the role of online media in fostering extremism. the internet in some ways is the virtual community, and future attacks against the united states will likely involve adversaries who have traversed the process at least in part online. securing a democratic society is a formidable challenge and will never be completely free of the terrorist threat. but setting the countries ongoing efforts must remain versatile in the face of adaptable adversaries. every step towards a security is met with a would-be terrorist of atation of an -- vulnerability. there is no finish line and that -- there's no finish line

in in home security. thank you professor. the chair now recognizes himself chair recognizes himselr five minutes for questions. commissioner davis, i would like to start with you. post-bombing, the actions of the police department and all of law-enforcement, federal, state, and local, it was unparalleled. i commend that. you a fewke to ask questions about before the bombing. were you aware of the russian intelligence warning regarding tamerlan and the fact that he might travel overseas to meet with extremists. ? ande have three detectives a sergeant. we have access to the databases but we were not informed of that

particular development. >> it is fair to say that your police officers did not know this information? >> that is correct. >> did you want to know? >> in hindsight, certainly. the fbiu aware that opened an investigation into tamerlan? >> we did not know. >> would you like to have known? >> yes. >> were you aware that he traveled to the chechnya regi ion? >> no. >> would you like to have known? yes. >> were you told that he posted stuff online?ist

>> we were not aware of the brothers, but we knew of tamerlan's activities. chair and task force that was alerted of the were youtrips, how aware of that information below the bombing? >> they received no word on that individual. >> were you aware of this information? >> yes. information started to comment immediately on the identification of the older brother on the morning of the watertown arrest.

the shootout occurred late in the evening on thursday and friday. friday in the early morning hours, we started to get information about the identity of the individuals. >> if you had this information before the bombing? haveld your force and you done anything differently? >> that is very hard to say. we would certainly work at the information and talk to the individual. the fbi did that and closed the case out. i can't say i would have come to a different conclusion based on the information. >> of the russian intelligence warning that he might travel overseas and that he did and came back to the united states, would that not have caused you to give this individual a second look? >> absolutely. >> the department of homeland

security fund and fusion center, i asked the commissioner -- has sevente police troopers assigned on a full-time basis to the jttf. my understanding is that at no time prior to the bombings, did any member of the massachusetts state police or the center have any information or knowledge about the tsarnaev brothers. is a shared point information. i used to work with the joint terrorism task force. statenot shared with the why weals, it defies created the department in the

first place. through a litany of shooting --or the fort hood shooting, but the gatt when the dots were not connected. -- looking at when the dots were not connected. why are we still having problems connecting the dots? questioning you have just carried out with commissioner davis had their answers are very important. this might be one of the most significant and painful take away lessons from the boston marathon terrorist attacks. particularly when you are dealing with homegrown radicals , the community are around that is probably going to be your

first line of defense. state and local law enforcement will always have a better knowledge of the neighborhood and the institutions that might be involved. fbi or the customs agent notified of the local members of the joint terrorism task force. that is a serious and aggravating omission. nobodycommissioner said, bats 1000%. i am currently one of their biggest fans and admirers. here is a case, and they have to look back at it. why didn't they involve the local law enforcers that could have stayed on this case and pick up signals from the

students that interacted with them, from the people that threw him out because he was such an extremist. or seen the videos that he posted that could have prevented all this from happening. how do you explain it? people are not perfect. information is being shared. they did involved, before the event, the state authorities that could have talked prevent the attack on the marathon. >> in closing, i completely agree with you. so many of these cases, there are very difficult to stop. i applaud the department of

homeland security, state, and locals. i am concerned and troubled by the fact that may be in this shared -- itas not was not shared with the state have localand locals. they are the eyes and ears. going on his youtube website, they may have seen that this person had radicalized. >> for the purpose of witnesses at today's hearing.

one of the responses we have as whatmittee is to look at actually happens. the money that we have provided to your ,epartment were not available and the training that went with the money as well as the equipment, how would you have been able to respond to that situation? >> it would have been much less comprehensive than it was. we received funding to foot the

trucks and equipment for our offices. done something on a bunch of parcels left by people running away at the instrument. hundreds ofing dangerous works, that we could not have done without help from the federal government. it has given us the opportunity to test these systems. we have discovered gas in radio communication that were closed because of the training. us to bes caused responding -- we were not aware we have the problem until we did the scenario trading.

the response would have been much less. >> it would have been an integral part of your department's ability to respond like it has been. >> that funding has set up response and the operation that has been put together for the funding. also with the threat of homicide, that money is critical to our operation of the police department. >> you are a former fbi agent. the immigrant communities being engaged in this total process

for identifying potential terrorists in our community. can you share with me ha your experience on the community engagement aspect of what we are talking about? >> with all due respect to intelligence that comes in, the most valuable information we will obtain is from community members and family members, they could have shared some information that the joint terrorism task force cut of work done. could have worked on. that werectivities going on. adam, with al qaeda and was thrown out of the moscque in orange county, california but not before the fbi was aware of what was going on down there.

a magazine has been referred to a number of times. he was an american and editor in hief of esquire magazine, engaged by members of the mosque. it would have been very valuable. another has left the country but was engaged by his family about the fact that he was taking got a form of islam that was not appropriate and is now engaged in an al qaeda affiliate in so malia. it is important that we don't engage in any activities. >> thank you.

>> the set refers to it as the afterlife. [laughter] i hope you and the others will stay here. >> getting resources and communities and states where they can respond as the commission has said. i heard you expressed concern that the government oppose the proposal to eliminate grants for states and localities. >> great to be with you again.

we are in a war and it is against the ideology that is not receding. it is spreading and it is taking a very difficult turn. only three attacks against the terrorist attacks that have succeeded cents 9/11 are homegrown terrorists. war with fight this our resources. created and funded a critically important version of this battle. homegrownly with terrorists, they are in the best position to create the relationships within the allow them that will and have allowed them in numerous cases to stop terrorist attacks before they occur.

they are simply not going to do it without funding. every level of government is pinched. are police departments that spend the lot of money funding counter-terrorism programs and a lot of those programs are out reach to the committee. that is why a they have been so effective. this newo rely more in rism, andwar with terro they can't do it without financial help from the federal government. >> i yield back. >> mr. king. >> let me thank you for scheduling this, it is vital and i thank you for it. commissioner davis, thank you for your leadership.

let me ask you, from the time of the attack on monday afternoon until the issue out on friday morning, did the fbi bring to your attention the fact that the older brother had been under investigation? >> we did not start to look at that until after the shoot out. >> 3 and 1/2 days that they did not make you aware of it? was anould stress there ongoing investigation and a lot of information coming from different sources. we did not look at the brothers until after the shoot out. the photos were posted, did anyone from the local area come forward to identify the brothers? that.m not certain of i don't know of anyone that did, but i know there was conversation with a group.

i am not quite sure what their role was in the conversation. photos were all over television, somebody should have recognized them. come forward to identify the younger brother? >> they did not. >> senator lieberman, it is wonderful to see you today. the conference committee, the joint hearing and the radicalization, let me thank you for that. you mentioned any number of times violent islamist extremism and i have not heard one administration official use the term is law vest -- islamist. enemy if weght the

don't identify the enemy? >> there are other sources of terrorism that violent islamist extremism. we know it from the oklahoma city bombing and the unabomber. ledent islamist extremism 9/11. attacks on osama bin laden declared that to be the purpose. they wanted to bring out america and our civilization. theold chinese wisdom, first thing you have to know is who your enemy is. call it by its name. i understand the sensitivity here, but in some sense, it is not fair to the overwhelming to leave it unspoken as

, it is art of this very small minority in the community. the law-abiding and patriotic. we are looking for the right words to distinguish this. the overwhelming number of muslims, maybe we have not found the right words. i gather is very instructive. backtamerlan tsarnaev came from his trip overseas, he was

clearly radicalized. people ask them to leave. thes representative of mainstream muslim communities. >> we talked about the lack of information sharing and i think it is absolutely indefensible that there was a planned attack against times square and never notified of the nypd. give theefused to information. we went public and they criticized us as if we were somehow compromising the investigation. ways andt have it both the failure to share intimation is absolutely indefensible. they owe everyone an explanation as to why they would withhold information.

explain it or understand it. >> that is certainly something to be explained. much, mr.ou very chairman. i find this to be an overwhelming experience. i think it is important to call , we should always take a moment to recognize them. i want to proceed with enormous thanks, commissioner davis, for the leadership and heroics of

everybody in boston. many of us have worked with officers. we thank you and we think the people of boston and your great state, the commonwealth of massachusetts. pursue, senator lieberman, we are limited in this time frame, but the russian contact. in spites all of us, of diplomacy, why if nothing else, it was not a trigger and the joint terrorism center. withare that information local law enforcement. what do you think happened? >> i agree with you. .indsight is always clearer

this was an unusual circumstance to notify us. includes the mother of originally. we understand that we are operating in the context of and there is cooperation in some areas. factems to me that the that this a original notification, you investigate what went wrong. at what point could somebody have acted to stop this? it really should have raised this case to a very high profile internally because of where it came from. that the most consequential failure was the failure of russian intelligence were more why they interested in tamerlan tsarnaev.

back andu will go speak to the fbi had and take another look at those guidelines to see if in any way they constrain the fbi from acting more aggressively. >> i ask unanimous consent to put a number of questions in the record. -- an put a number article from the washington journal today in the record. let me say that this approach has to continue. in the course of information coming to you, did the homeland's security department provide you with information about the visa or any of the individuals that were arrested earlier?

about themoncern dealing with the senior brother and the others? a homeland security analyst. >> you feel confident you could have acted on that information or have a structure in your operation that would have looked at that? is there any mass labeling of the muslim community in boston? concern ofalways a ours. about it.cerned >> what about the number of muslims that, in essence, pay their taxes, and call this country of country that they love? how do we work with this

community? important thing we can do is build a bridge instead of a wall. we want to engage in community and what that feels comfortable and confident sharing information as we have seen time and time again. a number of thwarted plots have come because we had engaged community. >> i think that you made a very good point. this tragedy, for those of us that started on the homeland security committee, this is not divide to raise partisan between congress and the

administration. this is a place to stand against this ever happening again. >> that is most important. >> i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the vice chair of the committee, ms. miller. >> we have all said thank you and we can say thank you enough. our eternal gratitude and admiration for what all of you have done on that terrible day. represent county's i hadhe annual breakfast, we 700 people. it was almost the entire topic of conversation in michigan and how well you reacted.

anybody watching tv, watching ,he people on the sidelines people applauding the first responders. it is something none of us will never forget. that senatorings lieberman mentioned, you mentioned the christmas day bomber. we are facing a new type of enemy, something our country has not faced in the past that sees the battlefield asymmetrically. the battlefield that day was seat 19a of that flight. the endlefield then was of the boston marathon. there is a lot of talk of the information sharing and i am

very appreciative of questions and comments about that. my question, as we go forward, how can we better resource in utilize existing resources for first responders? those first9/11, responders that first responded. we had the national guard that was we had the national guard that was a force multiplier. i think that in these days and economic times, perhaps there is a way, and i would ask for some comment on that, how did the national guard melvin to what you were doing here? i as -- meld into what you were doing here? the role of the national guard has really changed and expanded since 9-11. they have joint training exercises with our first responders, all kinds of various things that they may be able to utilize, that you could utilize

as well. i mean, just outside of detroit, we have the big national guard bank base. they are everywhere, really. i think there's a lot of application of things that we are already resources in through the department of defense to the national guard that maybe we could utilize better through the training exercises in etc. with the first responders. what you think of that, commissioner, if you have any comments on that? >> and don't know what the national standard is, but i can tell you that in the city of boston, the national guard has been of the table for all of our training exercises, going back to 9/11. one of the big roles they played immediately after was detection and monitoring of chemicals or other things we had to be concerned about in the environment. the day of the marathon, they

were an integral part of our protection. they had already been deployed to assist us in traffic control and security operations. there were several hundred national guard people at the , engine the general -- and the general was one of the first people to arrive. at the end of the day, with 1500 people a available to us, assisting our officers with what was the most complex crime scene we have ever processed in the city of boston. those troops stayed on the ground for seven days until the scene was shut down. but more than just perimeter security, they arrived at the scene of the pursuit and brought equipment in. at one point, we needed three of our swat teams to deploy up to dartmouth, mass., and they

brought in helicopters to make int happen, black hawks came and took the teams out. the state helicopters were nowhere near as large as what we ,eeded to move people around general reis played a critical role in not only crime prevention, but also in the response afterward. >> i asked that question and i am so delighted to hear all of that because i think that is an area where we as a congress can think about melding some of the things happening with the national guard with the first responders. in my own area, on our national anrd base, we have operational integration center where all of the information is vetted by all of the stakeholders in used principally for border security. i think that is something congress needs to think about more. i am appreciative of your

answer. thank you. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from massachusetts. >> thank you. i was just going to delve quickly into, while everything was going on after the is anion, the big picture extraordinary coordination. the amazing how. -- amazing. but i think we want to look at the information sharing during that time. you mentioned, commissioner, a that you first learned of the individual terrorists friday morning. killing of officer collier. at the moment, can you share with us who links that in first to the terrorist attack, how

that information was conveyed to you, how quickly you were able to get the identities of these people and connected to that atrocity as well? >> i can certainly speak about the pursuit of this -- of these individuals. i hesitate to get too far into who knew what when because it is part of the ongoing criminal case. but let me do the best i can to answer your question. we received word of officer within 30murder minutes of the incident occurring. i received a call at my home. >> from home? >> from superintendent thegerald, who was at command post at that time. the informations we received was that it was associated with an armed robbery that had occurred prior. they were not establishing a

link to our investigation that up when in time, but we were highly suspicious of the -- at that point in time, but we were highly suspicious of it and everybody was concerned about it. we send officers to assist. my chief of department went to conversation had a with the lieutenant colonel in charge of investigations, who was running the scene. our first indication was that it was not related. but after a carjacking occurred, it was clear that there was something going on. we deployed more officers to the area at that point. certainly, as soon as the water tower officer engaged the suspect and there were reports of fire power and bombs being involved, there was no doubt in my mind. that is the way that progress. werere you -- when you informed friday morning about

the identities, who conveyed that to you? >> the fbi. they were very quick to identify who the individual was the was killed in the shootout. manyis is going on so levels. the area i think is worth pursuing, which was mentioned here, is the message is received from russia. i'm curious about people's thoughts. i do not think there is anyone who would have an answer, but when the fbi tried to get more information, if they were so , whensted in this person the fbi tried to get more information, they did not give them any. there is such a history of mistrust, but there is such an opportunity for mutual benefit for both countries security.

but it is clear that the insurgents in the region are now focusing not only on russia but western europe and the u.s. now. communication is going to be so important. or perhapsprofessor senator lieberman can shed some light on how we can better improve communication when it is so in our benefit to do that? >> thank you, congressmen. i think you are onto something important. particularly, in the aftermath of 9/11, a remarkable transformation has occurred in the fbi. it has become a first-rate domestic intelligence counterterrorism agency. as part of that, offices have been opened around the world, including in moscow, to create the relationships that will lead

to information that will enable them to better protect us here at home. again, this is all part of an ongoing investigation. i urge you to bring in the folks from the fbi and the cia to talk about this, but from what we know now, the notice from russian intelligence to the fbi and the cia was very vague. and of course, most significantly, as much as i know now, nothing was shared with us about what the russian intelligence found out about what tamerlan sarnia was doing in chechnya. there -- a a tamerlan tsarnaev was doing in chechnya. we know that he was meeting with the radical leader. we know that when he came back he showed much greater signs of over-extremism, as in the mosque that pushed him out. president who unmade a

statement, along, i believe, with president obama and maybe it was with secretary carry when he was there, that we of a common enemy. and it is true. we should be working together better, but that did not happen in this case, and that was very consequential. >> quick question. , they have cameras systems. they're all synchronized and coordinated. is that unique to new york? is that a pilot? they're trying to make the cameras there more efficient with the coordination. we had someone from new york here last week talking about that. could that be helpful in other cities? it is certainly not unique to new york. when we look across massachusetts and our investment of homeland security grand dollars, weather is a state

grant dollars -- whether it is state grant dollars, we certainly have a history of investing in cameras and video surveillance. i have visited a quite complex system. we have capabilities to tie into transit system cameras, highway system cameras. i think in the days, weeks, months ahead, as we begin to process what we have been through and begin to think with how we're going to do with security in the future, we're going to have to spend more time looking at and probably investing in, not just cameras, but we really need to also focus on the analysis capability, the ,echnology behind the cameras civil liberties also being

important. we have to balance. much.nk you very >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. >> thank you. i think each of the distinguished panelists. let me start with secretary shorts and commissioner davis. and commissioner davis. you have done us a great service. i think boston presented the best of what america is all about. i also think the theme of communication has come through here. i want to credit you with an important thing during the process. the ability for your entire group to communicate regularly through the media created a sense of cohesion and an ability for america to follow along during a very difficult time. i think that was critical. the second factor, you have noted in your written testimony, the ability to

communicate amongst each other, which included as well the ability of a separate capacity for law enforcement across jurisdictions. it is a great story of steps that have not been done. the last thing is we talk about communications. you did not receive from the -- and iher words know, nobody wants to go through this event, but we encourage you as you watch the films to be critical and help us all learn together. but i congratulate you on your wonderful work. the issue of communication is an aspect of this and how people are doing it today. one out of the thing -- one of the things that bothers me is that tamerlan tsarnaev is watcheded as having extremists on line. you have been discussing the

idea that the ideology is what we're focused on. who has the responsibility to identify places where the ideology is being centralized and serving as the place where people gravitate to? is it internet companies? is it law enforcement? how do we look at that location as the place we can monitor, and what is the appropriate level of monitoring? >> it is a very important question and not an easy one to answer. i can tell you, as you probably know, that there is a lot of monitoring going on now by american law enforcement of a violent the a, g hottest area of violent or the a -- violent or jihad ist web sites.

tamerlan tsarnaev, as we know, started a youtube channel in which he was putting on violent extremist advocates. i forget the number, but tens of thousands of such channels go up every hour on youtube. google youtube has community standards which are quite admirable. they cannot pre-screen everything goes up. for a time, i had someone on my homeland security staff trying to follow these web sites. when he would see one that was violent, he would make a complaint to youtube. they would submit it to a board, and they pulled a lot of them down. it is very hard to do this. i do not want to go on too long, say two things. in this case, one of the things

i am agitated about is why no one was particularly looking for the name tamerlan tsarnaev. when he came back from chechnya and put up at channel, somebody should have been on him. and most important, the responders to this ideology are in the muslim community. again, the majority do not share this ideology, but there are allies. the muslim american community is probably one of our greatest allies in the effort to stop the ideology. it is not as easy as stopping an enemy. forgive me, but as thrilled as i was when we took down osama bin ladin, and as hard as that was, that was a direct target. it is a lot harder to confront an ideology and to overwhelm it. >> do we have to change justice

department guidelines with respect to how far they can hold investigations open? do we have to go back and revisit whether people have visited these websites once we have had some kind of predisposition, when there has ari ben the report, as you said? i am disturbed that the fbi would have had information which we have already identified which made him a suspect or at least a person of concern. they closed the book, but subsequently, we discovered what you just talked about, which is his participation in the violent web sites. quick orot have sap easy answer to that, but i have learned from this case, and i appreciate your question, but i feel very strongly that the justice department has to review

the existing attorney general guidelines for investigations by the fbi, and most importantly and directly to determine whether those guidelines constrain the fbi to stop prematurely the investigation of tamerlan tsarnaev after they were notified by the russians, and did they in any way send a notice to the fbi agents that they should not share this information with local law enforcement until they had a greater level of proof that a crime was about to be committed? that is a very high standard. it is so high that it probably will not allow law enforcement to act before the crime, or in this case, the terrorist attack occurs. >> that is my time, but i hope we can use that as a launching point. >> that is an excellent point. the attorney general guidelines need to be looked at. with that, i recognize the

gentleman from texas, mr. orgs. >> thank you. .r. davis -- mr. 0 rourke >> thank you. mr. davis, i also want to thank you and the responders that responded so heroically and efficiently after the attack. i also want to respond to your comments about the difficulty in balancing a a greater scrutiny with the community policing you must do in order to be successful. i live in an international community in el paso, texas, one whose success is predicated on our relationship with mexico, our ability to welcome immigrants. and i think our chief of police and sheriff would agree with me in saying that we have routinely been named one of the safest if not the safest city over the last 10 years in large part because of our immigrant community and not decided.

following on the chairman's remarks about terrorists who would seek to force us to change our way of life, in el paso, our way of life has already been changed following this boston attack. now, students who are coming across our international bridges to attend school and at the university of texas, el paso, are going through secondary inspection. some are being held up to eight hours as they try to reconcile data being shown on their visas and the computer system the school is using. what advice do you have for cities like ours to enable positive relations with the large immigrant communities there so that immigrants and their families feel comfortable coming to you with information that will help you in enforcing the law and keeping those

communities safe? and at the same time balance the need for greater scrutiny and vigilance in insuring that something like this does not happen again? questionat is a great -- >> that is a great question, and there is a complex answer to it. it starts off with developing relationships in immigrant communities, something we have paid particular attention to in boston over the last 10 years since community policing has been put into place. in minoritych communities by doing community policing training in spanish. we tried to do specific our reach to the latino community -- we tried to do specific outreach to the latino community because there has been such an influx in our neighborhoods. i go to those glasses.

i listen in and i have an opportunity to talk to people who are newly emigrated to the united states. they're incredibly thankful for the work we're doing in our reach to them. we have developed information, but not because -- not through infiltration, but through appealing to their sense of community and nation. i think that is the answer to this. in large part. you cannot develop a relationship with someone in a crisis. it has to be developed before the crisis. there has to be real attention paid to who is in our community and what are we doing to talk to them? we have to outreach classis, but we have also had great success with social media recently. social media is a dialogue between the police and the community the plays an important

role in our ability to do our .each to people peppe as it relates to stops at the border, it is really important that the bureaucracy does not guide the whole interaction. i think that is the key to it. the horror stories that we hear are usually result of someone following a script that has rules and regulations but no logic. i think there is a combination of both the needs to happen. but again, we are shooting for perfection and it is difficult to achieve. as you said earlier, no one 1000.ts i am concerned that we try to fix something before all the risks are in or that we compromise our way of life to

gain intelligence or to gain the cooperation of these immigrant communities. i want to make sure, as someone who represents one of the largest immigrant communities in the united states, that that is not what we do going forward. it will compromise our abilities to make our communities safer. again, i appreciate your answers, your comments, and the work that you and your people have done to make this country safer. thank you. >> we have six and a half minutes. to going to allow mr. duncan ask his line of questioning. then we will recess. witnesses are willing to remain available. we will be back around 11:35 a.m. with that, mr. duncan. king needs an apology from mainstream media. he was vilified and demonized for holding radicalization hearings, and we saw the radicalization of muslim views happen with regard to boston.

i just want to throw that out there. i appreciate german king's leadership on this issue, -- chairman kim's leadership on this issue, as well as yours. we know that tamerlan tsarnaev was in an fbi database. he was possibly in a screening data base and a text file. multiple different hits in different databases that may have alerted someone in law enforcement that he was a danger. has knownl government about information sharing challenges for years. we talked about that in the last congress and pursuing some of that and this congress, i.t. systems, a information sharing, cross referencing. i could do a google search on

senator lieberman and find out a line because the search engines in the private sector are able to interact, share and cross reference that kind of information. since 2005, the gao has sent out alarms about information. according to the gao, the federal government has made no substantial progress to strengthen the sharing of information among all of its stakeholders including federal, state, local, tribal, international and private sector partners. we just heard that the local and state law enforcement, as part jttf, were not notified of information the federal government might have had. if the dot had formed a picture or the intelligence had been shared more effectively, do you believe we could have prevented the attack?

in onennot answer that word. i think the answer is it is hard to say. someone looked at this initial information and closed the case. assessment that there was not enough there to do anything more than an initial interview. that all has to be reviewed as to what factors occurred during the interview, and i do not see that information. there has been other information coming in that there were further databases that may have had wrong information. all of that has to be looked at very closely. i guess in hindsight, if you were to be able to connect all the dots on that first -- during thereirst interview -- might have been an open case there that would have caused everyone in the fbi to briefly , and we would figure

out what each agency wanted to do with that information. you have to look at a time line of who knew what when to make a determination. i do not have that now. if we knew everything we know blast, if wehe knew all of the things that have come out since then, we would have taken a hard look these individuals. at this point and time, i cannot say that when we knew things we would have done anything differently. >> i am just amazed that files were closed on someone that we were notified by a foreign country may have had ties to terrorism. his name was not put into a system. once we realize that this gentleman -- well, let me back up and say i am amazed that the american people, the general public in boston had to identify this guy, that somebody at the

fbi or the joint terrorism task force did not say wait a minute, didn't we identify him a couple of years ago? they had to wait for the folks in the boston community to identify him. one of the things we talk about thatis committee is everybody has a system, and if you want to research information about certain individuals, you have to go into one system with a separate password, if you want to go into another system, year after come out, maybe put in new information, and your new password, over and over, of screening orvisa an act of terrorism suspect. this is partly why dhs was set up, so it would be the hub and the wheel to share all that information so we would not have the mistakes made that we saw leading up to boston that we are starting to discover now. i think this hearing is very

timely to raise that awareness in the eyes of the american people. dhs is the hub and the wheel. we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars to do this, and i do not think it has been effective, as seen by boston. thank >> we thank him for his comments. we stand in recess and we'll conclude after the votes at about 11:35. thank you. >> the senate judiciary committee has been marking up the immigration bill. thursday's meeting included comments from senator schumer. you can see the entire hearing nline at c-span.org. >> the group of eight of us,

four of whom are on this committee, along with senator einstein and senator hatch spent a great deal of time on this legislation. we believe it is sound, balanced, sturdy ship that we will now begin its voyage. we believe we have taken all the consideration into account. and we have come up with a fair bill where no one gets everything they want but at the end of the day, it will mean dramatic improvement for the american economy, for the american people, and will make our immigration policy much more in sync with what is good for jobs and america. i would ask my colleagues here, what we do is founded on a

fundamental premise that americans will support common sense solutions to both future immigration and the 11 million who are living here in the shadows. only if -- only if they are convinced there will not be future waves of illegal immigration in this country. this bill is the strongest bill that has been put together that has a chance of passing in terms of stopping future flows of illegal immigration. on the border alone, senator mccain and i had an amendment a w years ago that spend about $600-$800 million on the board enand the effectiveness went up to 82. we spent much more than that. the border will effectively be closed with these expenditures

and the way they will be done. we take future immigration and make sure that we deal with the industries that desperately need help. google moved 400 engineers as art of google's map to van cover. buzz the canadian policy allowed them to come there and ours didn't and they could not get the workers here. in new york state, the leading cabbage grower did not plant his thousands of acres of cabbage this year because he couldn't get people to pick the crops. we will change our policy so that people who are needed to help our economy grow can finally come into this country. at the same time, we will note that when families are divided the humane thing to do is bring those families back together. because we so dramatically stop

immigration llegal e can do both and we do it fairly. we know the present system is broken. we know the status quo is unacceptable. but we also know that there are many who will want to kill this bill. i would ask my colleagues, if you don't agree with everything, no one does. be constructive, we're open to changes. don't make an effort to kill a bill that is the best hope for immigration reform, i believe that we've had in this country and frankly the best hope to help break the partisan gridlock that has strangled the senate, the congress, and the country. >> in a few moments air force officials make their budget request on capitol hill. questions about sexual assaults in the military and the performance of officers at a

nuclear missile site in north dakota. health debate on the bill that will set priorities, requiring the treasury to pay bondholder if the debt ceiling is reached. then the first congressional hearing looking into the bombings at the boston marathon. several live events to tell you about tomorrow morning. the center for strategic and budgetary seaments at 9:30 eastern on c-span2. arrives 3 prince harry at the arlington national spokesman tarry. here on c-span we'll be live ith the discussions on the

guantanamo bay prison. that's at 10:00 a.m. eastern. 1:30, the institute for korean peninsula and national security and what happens on the orean peninsula. >> she's the first, first lady to earn a college degree. during the civil war soldiers serving under her husband called her the mother of the regime. she influenced her party to switch to the anti-slavery party. meet lucy hays wife of the 19th president as we continue our series on first ladies. monday night live at 9:00 eastern on c-span and c-span3. also, on c-span radio and c-span.org. now a hearing on the 2014 budget

request for the air force. a house appropriation committee heard from chief of staff mark welsh for two hours. they answered questions about automatic spending cuts, they were asked about sexual assaults in the military and a negative report on officers who operate nuclear missiles in north dakota. topic is the he and yourar 2014 budget posture for the budget of 2014. the air force is the only ones to receive an increase but much of this is to attempt to maintain readiness with the threat of the continuing sequestration. in the meantime, the air force is aging, and shrinking and

modernizing needs across the fleet. we're anxious to hear how the air force will meet this challenge. this will be secretary donnelly's final appearance before this sub committee. mr. secretary, since you announced you will be stepping down from this important post in june, i would say on behalf of the committee we have appreciated your service and your years of testimony before the committee. thank you for being here today. thank you for all of your service. 35 years working in one part of the national defense is a pretty important challenge and pretty important accomplishment so thank you for that, sir. general welsh is making his second appearance before the sub committee but this is his first budget hearing. the general comes before us as a

1976 air force academy graduate with over 36 years of military service. he became the chief of staff of the air force last august, having previously served as commander of the u.s. forces in europe. thank you for appearing before us today. enter atements will be into the record. before i turn the mic over, i must advise those, the members and the witnesses there will be a series of votes at about 10:30. so we're trying to structure the hearing so that part of us will be able to go make the votes while the others remain to continue to hearing and when those return, the rest of us will go. turn said that, i will

over any opening statement. >> chairman, thank you very much. as in past, i appreciate you having the hearing, gentleman for your service, particularly mr. secretary anticipating your retirement from your office and i look forward to your testimony. thank you very much. >> there are several concerns that we have. one of the major issues is some of the unfortunate stories that we're getting on sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the air force. we will be pursuing that today, this morning. something that caught my attention was a story in "the washington post" the highlight said air force sidelines 17 icbm launch officers, commander sites "rot" within the system.

at heat alone is really -- headline alone is really worrisome. tell us what is going on here. he is the chairman of the energy committee has serious interest in this issue as well. so i think what we'll do at this point, mr. secretary, we're anxious to hear your statement. your entire statement will be placed in the record. you presented us any way you like. >> thank you, mr. chairman. if i could indulge the committee, i will read the statement and both the general and i are prepared to address the two issues that you raised among others this morning. members of the committee, it is a pleasure to be here representing our active duty guard and reserve and airmen.

i'm honored to be here with my partner in this work and a great air force leader. for fiscal year 2014, the air force is requesting $114 billion in our base line budget. our request represents a snapshot in time. our best analysis of our air force needs based on available information. given the budget turmoil over the past year, if i could indulge the committee this morning's discussion on the f.y. 2014 budget needs to begin with where we stand this year in f.y. 2013. i would like to highlight that throughout the budget turmoil. we're aligned with the january 2012 strategic guidance. this includes supporting commanders in the current fight in afghanistan, maintaining a strong and stable presence in

e pacific and korea, supporting counter terror and other operations. there is demand for air power and your airmen are busy around the world. more than 35,000 airmen are deployed. more than 132,000 are providing support to commanders every day. as the fiscal constraints get tighter, we need to tighten our alignment with the new strategy, trengthen the duty to face the challenges. you have heard many times that the implications of sequestration are dire and they are. that is why the president has put together a balanced deficit reduction proposal that would allow congress to repeal sequestration in f.y. 2013. while the department is working full out to adapt to these realities, it was not possibly

given the necessary timelines to turn around a new budget based on new assumptions derived from march 1 sequestration and the final defense appropriation act that was approved in march, nearly six months into the fiscal year. we need to stipulate up front, our 2013 budget request does not provide funding to recover from the damage of a partial year of f.y. 2013 of sequestration much less the full impacts that will hit the air force if the president's proposal to replace sequestration is not enacted. this morning i will summarize the state of our air force in three board categories. first, forestructure, that is the size of the force. readiness, the training and the prepareness of our equipment and

modernization. the aging aircraft and our future capabilities. fore structure, last year in our efforts to meet the requirements of the first half of the budget control act amounting to $487 billion of reductions in 10 years. the air force f.y. 2013 budget had changes such as retirements, changes in unit admissions that was the subject of much germsversy with the state and congressional delegations. thanks to the work of this committee we were able to fashion a compromise, which was approved in the national defense act. i can report that the budget proposes no major changes in fore structure. as compared to levels enacted in ndaa it will

reduce air force reserve by 480 and the international guard by 300. as directed 30 through f.y. 2013. our nuclear forces remain at current level. we're on track to achieve 65 air patrol wours remotely piloted aircraft fleet. we'll focus on implementing the retirements, transfers, and mission changes outlined. we provided two reports to congress outlining implementation plans for each unit and low case. looking ahead, it has never been more important for our air force to maximize the strength of our total force, our active guard and reserve components they are integrated. they are training and conducting

missions together as a total force. we must continue to ensure that our active mix balances the strengths of each component meets our strategic requirements and fiscal demands. we've made progress over the past year in our intergovernmental relationships working with d.o.d. and the council of governors to formalize a process between d.o.d. and the states to provide more transparentcy. within the air force, working with our guard and reserve leaders, we have established the task force to provide strategic options on the appropriate mix of total force capabilities and to inform our strategic planning for fiscal year 2015 and beyond. this task force will also serve s a resource to the congressly directed national commission on the fore structure of the air force, which held its first

meeting last week. in summary, our forestructure is stable for now. beyond f.y. 2014 is depended on decisions yet to be made and special on achieving a plan on deficit reduction to avoid sequestration. turning to readiness. while the air force has met the demands and support of today's fight it has taken a toll on the weapons and people. readiness has declined from 2003 onward. despite significant investments in the past few years, only half our combat air force has met acceptable standards of readiness. with the rebalance to asia pacific and the continued presence in middle east and africa we expect demands will remain constant, perhaps increase over the next decade. we must improve air force readiness to prevent a hollow

force. with respect to f.y. 2013, the joints of staff and air force leaders have encountered the impacts this year as a result of the sequestration. the continuing resolution, which included defense appropriations was helpful to d.o.d. overall but did not improve the active air forces operation and maintenance budget. overseas ortages in contingency accounts and did not it investigate the impactses of sequestration, which required $10 billion in reductions to be taken in the last seven months of f.y. 2013. we took steps to cut back normal operations, including a civilian hiring freeze for permanent, temporary vacancies. we canceled travel, redoesed command in the budget business

10% and by deferring facilities and modernization projects. these steps alone are not sufficient to absorb the full impacts of sequestration without affecting readiness. collectively the sequestration reductions and readiness impacts are now being felt across the air force. currently, nine combat fighter units and three combat coded bomber yutes have stood down and ceased flying operations. seven combat coded units are flying at capability levels and only will return to combat mission ready status if funding becomes available. we'll halt training for the rest of the year in my units and will take up to six months to restore pilot profincy. other impacts will delay necessary maintenance, increase costs and take two to three

cover from repair backlogs. there is the potential furlough of our valued civilian work force, significantly reducing civilian pay and devastating moral and slowing productivity. our main objective in the budget mirrors or objective for three years running to slow and reverse the erosion of air force readiness. to that end, our 2014 budget requests is aimed to set the air force back on the course to full spectrum readiness. the budget prioritizes funding for flying hours an increase er last year to ensure pilot proficient centurycy. it restores deteriorating infrastructure. it adds $1.5 billion over the defense plan to system weapons

sustainment to keep our aircraft and space systems ready. unfortunately, f.y. 2014 sequestration jeopardizes the gains that we hoped to achieve next year. even assuming this budget is approved as proposed and if the congress acts some time this summer to repeal or replace sequestration for f.y. 2013, we ill certainly begin 2014 degraded. we are working on a programming request to cover the shortfalls and the worst effects of sequestration. however, the transfer authority available to d.o.d. is not enough to address all our short falls. we do not have sufficient internal resources to pay for these short falls without digging far too deeply into

modernization programs. there may not be sufficient time left in 2013 to repair the damage immediately ahead. to sum up the readiness situation, we've been consuming air force readiness for several years. we'll continue to focus our resources available to meet commander requirements but with the steep and late f.y. 2013 budget reductions brought on by sequestration, the readiness hole we have been trying to climb out of just got deeper. the full readiness and budgetary implications of this situation could not by accounted for in the f.y. 2014 budget request are still under review. we'll continue to work with d.o.d. and congress to fashion a practical way forward. modernization, as i previously testified this is per veyive and if unaddressed will seriously undermine the missions that this

nation asks us to under take. the average age of our fighter fore structure is 23 years. rescue helicopters 23 years. bombers, 36 years. tankers, nearly 50 years. satellites for missile warning, navigation, secure communications and other needs are also aging. replacements must be built and launched on a schedule consist ept the life expectancy. the fifth generation f-35, the bomber are and the on track. the existing fleets like the f-16, f-17 to

extend their service lives is key. we request funding for emissions and satellite assets such as the lobal positions system and other satellite programs. we intend to maintain our science and technology funding in order to stay on the cutting-edge of technologyal innovation. we often face major challenges with action situation programs as have -- acquisition rograms. questions 2014 conclude includes to save over $500 million over the next five years. we'll need for successes like

these because there is still significant pressure on our modernization programs. last year in programming the air force share of $487 billion in defense reductions in 10 years the cancelization or delay of modernization programs accounted for 65% of reductions. this year, each program was reduced by more than 7% in sequestration. in the years ahead, major programs like the f-35 and the bomber are scheduled to grow as the overall d.o.d. budget declines. some long standing needs such as new trainer aircraft and a replacement for others remain unfunded. looking ahead, if there continues to be resistance to base closures or changes in compensation and given the focus on our readiness, it is likely

that the budget control act will require further disproportionate cuts to our modernization programs. as advanced technologies are around the globe, these cut backs would put at risk the air force capabilities this nation will need in the decade ahead. he decisions ahead of us are extraordinaryly difficult but congress has the power to help the air force and the department of defense to maneuver from these challenges. in recent years, congress has placed limits on the air force's -- air force. and has rejected some of the d.o.d.'s proposals to slow down the compensation. these congressional actions if sustained will add billions to our costs over the next five years. we hope that in view of the

serious economic problems facing the nation congress will allow us to implement these eastern important changes. mr. chairman, it is now more critical than ever that we get your support in infrastructure. the air force executed brac on time and irned budget. those adjustments are generating savings at about $1 billion per year. we're looking at european basing requirements and we're ready to begin next steps in the continental u.s. we estimate more than 20% of our infrastructure is excess to need. it is a tool that we need to allow d.o.d. to invest in infrastructure and to meet other critical needs, including readiness, modernization, and taking care of our people. in the area of compensation, we're committed, as you are to

take care of our airmen. but the impact of personnel cost continues to be a serious concern and can no long per ignored. therefore, we support d.o.d.'s efforts to slow the growth of perm nell cost. e support the 1% pay raise and copay changes included in the f.y. 2014 budget proposals. these are the broad outlines of the budget but clearly there is more work to do as we assess the rolling implications of sequestration in f.y. 2013 and beyond. we will need your help to make necessary adjustments in our fore structure, to keep us ready to avoid a hollow force, and to equip this air force with the modern capabilities it needs for the future. perhaps one of the most helpful things congress can do is return to regular order and approve the annual defense measures in a

timely way. throughout history our nation has effectively dealt with both strategic and fiscal challenges. our recent track record of repeated delay and uncertainty, continuing resolutions that disrupt programs and budget planning and mid-year cuts that impair readiness and threaten civilian furloughs must not become the new normal. we appreciate the ongoing commitment of this committee and its professional staff to return to regular order. today's world is a dangerous place and it is counter productive to generate problems of our own making while there are so many serious threats beyond our control demand attention. we must do better for our men and women in uniform their families and our national security. the american people have the world's best airmen and the world's finest air force. your air force leadership team

remains committed in getting the most capability possibility for whatever level of resource you provide. remain grateful that this committee provides to the men and women of the armed forces. we are prepared to address the two issues you raised and we stand ready to assist in any way we can and we look forward to addressing your questions. >> mr. secretary, thank you very much. now, germ we're happy to take your statement at this time. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it is a privilege to be here, it always will be. i will enter most of my comments into the record if that is ok with you, sir? >> it is sir. >> i want to address two if i may. one is a negative note.

we were appalled, i believe that is the right word, about the sexual battery charges that were charged last week. this officer was responsible for programs and policies in this area. the charges, if true, are incomp prehencible. as the secretary and i have said over and over again, sexual assault prevention is critically format the united states air rce and to our people i will be happy to answer any questions that you have about that. we remain committed to supporting victims and holding those who commit this horrible crime accountable for their actions. we will continue to strive work environments that are safe. we will dweeve leaders of character. we develop innovation and the selfless approach to lead america's sons and daughters.

we continue to do everything we can to care for the airmen and heir families. no part of that primary job is more important than the nuclear enterprise. in march, the missile wing under went an inspection you referred to from the article in "washington post." it em compassed 22 areas. it was rated excellent in 14 and ing satisfactory in seven and marginal in one. that marginal was missile crews operations. it is unusual for a missile wing to be graded marginal. to be clear, it is passing. it meets the minimal standards but it is not the level we would expect. the wing commander and the group

commander at the facility started an investigation into what caused the lower than expected performance by the crew members. they expanded from those and looked at during the inspection to the entire crew force of the wing. they conducted a comprehensive top to bottom asset of training, routine testing, simulations, etc. when they were complete they found 17 members of the wing, not from one unit who they felt were not demonstrating the proper attitude and effort to stay up to speed on everything necessary to be perfect in business. they took those 17 crew members and put them in into a training program that takes 60 days to complete. those 17 crew members is about 10% of the missile wing. we had an inspection process that is robust, the inspections are difficult and an indication from this inspection was there was something for the wing

commander to pay attention to. with great diligence tried to figure out what the problem was and what the right solution would be. in my view, he did exactly what i would expect. he did it before there was a mission impact. this wing met all standards in the inspection that was conducted. he did it even though he knew it would draw negative attention and in doing sew so he reinforced the pride of the great missile crews who came through with flying colors. he set clear expectations for and is in a not training program. i'm confident they will do that. i'm proud of the wing commander. i think he did the right thing. my job is to help secretary donnelly to help the most capable air force as possible. the budget does improve

readiness and helps to eliminate fore structure costs. finally, i am privileged to be here sitting next to secretary mike donnelly for five years has led our air force with great dignity and we're happy to answer your questions about the budget submission. >> general, i think we share that last comment -- that last comment you made i think we all share that. thank you for the positive statement you just presented to the committee. on one of the issues i mentioned n my opening comments, i think i want to yield because i think he has serious follow-ups on that issue. >> first of all, i join the chairman in thanking you for your service and the men and women you represent that are on duty each and every day.

r my part and others we're interested, obviously, in the reliability of the nuclear stockpile. that is what we do on the energy and water committee. a lot of people do not know that is a defense responsible. you two gentlemen are responsible for the delivery. when we read this article in "the washington post" and it has made its rounds. i respect the fact that you have addressed it. there this is not the first time there has been inspection problems. is that true? i have served on this committee with several members and there were several issues that were related back in 2007. weren't some of these same issues occurring back then? >> there were but i would say the inspection process that the chief described for you has gotten more difficult and much more focused over the last five years. >> with all due respect, if this

were the nuclear navy someone would be cashed out. i understand that -- is it 10% of the officers assigned to these sites, what has happened to them? are they decertified? how did they get into this position to begin with? >> they went through all the necessary training to be qualified but in the view of the commander they needed to go back for refresher training. they were decertified, taken offline. >> what does that mean exactly? >> it means the commander no longer has confident that are -- >> wouldn't have the commander known this last year? isn't this a review on an annual basis at these missile sites? >> they have multiple inspections that occur on cycles. they have had multiple inspections since 2007. >> have all of those inspections

been passed with flying colors? >> yes, sir. this inspection was passed. they did not fail. >> it's passed but you have to have some degree of unhappiness f you stripped 17 people who are responsible for this work -- were they stripped of their authorities or not? >> they are not allowed to serve as missile crew members, yes sir. >> there must be a reason for it. host: the commander is concerned that they are not taking the job seriously enough. the force is a very young force. he was concerned mostly about an attitude or unwillingness or lack of understanding how hard you need to work. >> respectfully, that is what we heard in 2007 before this committee. inheriting the job, you have a young work force and we obviously, love the air force

but in reality, obviously, there are other jobs in the air force that perhaps more attractive being down underground taking on this responsible 24 hours a day. isn't that true? isn't that one of the issues here? >> congressman, i don't know what the issue is for these 17 individuals. i can tell you that is what the commander is trying to prevent in being a problem. >> there's a view and we discussed it a couple of year ace, go these are critical because you are the part of the deter rapt that some of these jobs are viewed as a dead end job. they are not as attractive as other jobs in the air force. do you argue with with that point? >> i do. i think that the pride that goes with this work, the level of national importance that goes with this work, the high

standards that are set for this rk reflect a real commitment to the best standards of excellence and performance in our air force. >> i understand that. but this didn't happen overnight. is there something inheritly in this work force because of its youth that there hasn't been enough direction from above on how important this mission is. god forbid we ever have to use the bombers that might deliver nuclear weapons but is there something inherit in the work force there where now we're going to get a substantial wake-up call? >> as the chief outlined, the unit has gone through a number of inspections in the last five years and has passed at much higher levels of competence than

what they generated in this recent inspection. but they are being tested and retested on a recurring basis not only in this job but across the air force. our airmen are held to high standards and they are tested to ensure the quality of their work meets our expectations. >> i'm sure the quality of work is excellence across the air force. but in this particular area, there's been some inherit problems, which haven't apparently -- they have resurfaceed since 2007. we had the same conversation back in the this committee several years ago. >> i think it was a different conversation back in that period. i think there's been substantial progress made in the last five years in tightening up. this is what commanders we want to be doing. happened d not have

in the first place but we're glad that someone noticed it. i appreciate your responses. quite honestly, i think this is an area where the i.t. needs to take a look. i yield back. >> if i could follow up on that. the question in my mind in view of this conversation, this so-called rot, is this a people issue or does it go to the equipment? the state of the weapon, the state of the delivery capability? is that all intact 100% or does the rot extend to that? i think it is important we know exactly. beside the people problem, what about the technology, what about the hardware? >> chairman, the rot that was referred to in the e-mail is a term that, i think he and other

regrets. he was talking about this attitude among a few of the crew members he heard about who he did not think were committed enough to stay fully aware of all the responsibilities of their job all the time and getting better continuously. they can do the job but they did not have the attitude and the drive that he expected to see from his crew members. that is what he was referring to, nothing else. congressman, by the way, we share a concern of the crew force feeling they are important. my first visits in this job were to the missile field, to the missile wings to talk to them about how important this is and how valuable they should feel. anything we can do to make sure we don't see issues like this arise is something we should do every day. >> would the gentleman yield? >> of course. >> i understand these crews are down there basically alone. do they have adult supervision down there?

or does the supervision come from a commander above? they are down there alone or not? >> the crew members are alone. i would not say they are not adults. >> they are adults but i'm saying is there a commander. you make a point in your statement about command and control. it appears there is not as much command oversight as there should be. >> the activity of the command system has a lot of checks and balances. >> obviously, not in some of those underground locations. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. ust one final comment on that. this capability that we've had since the weekend of world war ii has been important to this country. if there's any flaws in this system we have to far rest them faret them sure --

out and make sure they are fixed. i yield. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thetopic that was raised of personnel and the one you raised, mr. chairman, rightfully on sexual assault i know will be revisited. i think it is fair to say he is loaded on those issues so i'm going to address another couple of issues. i have to explain that my staff person who is a graduate of u.s.c. has requested that since secretary donnelly is also a u.s.c. trojan but i only direct my abusive questions to the general. it is not the way things are supposed to be done but that is what we'll do.

so general, in f.y. 2012, this committee provided funds to purchase the three remaining global aircraft but the air force never obligated those dollars. ignored the intent of the sub committee and so in this current fiscal year we directed you to purchase the three aircraft and yet you have decided to shrug your shoulders and not to do so. we just got a report that required you to do on this program and despite repeated claims when you have come before this sub committee, the report shows that the committee was right and you were wrong, frankly.

the piloted aircraft is more expensive to operate than the global hawk. per hour ising cost basic the same but the global hawk is cheaper to operate overall because use need fewer aircraft. i suspect that is the real issue here. the pilot versus the piloted craft even though the u2 has been around longer than some of these members of this committee have been alive. now, even when you reduce the rage that you required -- range that you required by 2/3, we still find there is an advantage to the global hawk. now i'm going to anticipate what you're going to tell us that the

centuriers than the global hawk. censors than the global hawk. the contractor has offered to do it for the air force for a fixed rice of $75 million to put the u2 sensors under the global hawk yet the air force hasn't responded. ow i've got pages of data here comparing the two programs. they are pretty conclusive that the committee was right and the air force continues to insist on an ircraft that is largely outdated but i suspect it is because it is piloted and there's an understandable bias. but this committee, not only one, expects you to do what is

instructed. two, to take advantage of the progress of technology so that we have the largest range and we can most effectively present this information to the people in the field. given you a few minutes to construct a response general do you want to do so? >> thank you, congressman. let me try to keep this in order. the cost is based on the platforms. i believe the cost is the same. the difference is how we use the two. the u2 is a great example. we put it closer to where the i.v. track is going to be located. -- i.s.r. track is going to be located. the longer endurance flights of the global hawk cost more money. cost is a trade in my mind. cost is not a factor.

the century sources we replaced six on the aircraft. we're looking at 18. product quality is a real issue for our commanders. the sensor products and the intelligence arena nahs are not as good on the global hawk as they are on the u2 and our mansion eshessters and commanders will tell you that. we've talked about this in the past and they understand the concern. the commanders would prefer a u2 product in many issues than the global hawk. the range is longer on the u2 as well. you're using it in the areas that you can't cross the border. pilot being in the airplane has nothing to do with it. i couldn't care less. we want the best equipment to do

the mission, man or manned -- or unmanned. rerequested relief from buying the global hawks because we think they are an excess. we don't think we need them to do the job. if we're unable to get the relief we knee need to obligate the the funds. we would love to have both. we just don't have the resources to do both. >> well, ok. i hear your response and i don't ant to take any issue with the sincerity and the objectivity of your response. but we have data that shows this global hawk has a larger range.

it operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 1,200 mile range to only 400 for the u2 and the operational costs are 19% lower than the u2. the global hawk costs are declining while the u2 costs are increasing. we'll repeat that. i'm not going to get repetitive in the hearing here. i do think it is an issue that needs to continued to be addressed. we need to move forward and it is consist went the authorizing meet. this -- aois system with the f-35, i'm told we need to pay for seven

contractors for the squadron and that is not affordable. can you share with us why you feel that is absolutely necessary to have the seven contractors with each f-35 squadron and this information system? >> sir, i don't have the for fic data on contracter each location but i will be happy to get that for you for the record. it is an important part of the program. it is the support system, if you will for this aircraft. it is going to be used across the services and with international partners as well. it is a big program and has lots of management attention and we're working on trying to get the cost down on the program. by itself, it would be an a-cat

one program. it is significant. we're working to get the cost wn and to work out smart logistics and support strategies with our d.o.d. partners. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i'm sorry i was late and you may have covered some of what i'm going to ask you about. if you have, mr. chairman, just tell me that. of course it concerns sexual assault and the report that says 26,000 people in the armed services were sexually assaulted in one year. the head of your department that concerns that was then arrested. what are you going to do? what your doing isn't working. no doubt about it. it isn't working. what are you going to do? what is your planle? i don't want another study or

another report. are you going to let congress change your rules, which we're certainly willing to do? >> this is a concern to all of us. all of the services, including the air force has been focused on improving both the climate and the environment in which our airmen live and work. >> may i interrupt you? it's not working. >> we understand. >> you are going to do more of the same? >> we need to find the game chearnings in this work. we're working -- changers in this work. we're training investigator, we're training lawyers to be more effective to uncover this problem, we're working with victims so they will come forward and get support through a process, a legal process, which can be lengthy and frustrating and even traumatic

to the victims. we have established a victim's council program to help support the victims. >> that is after they have been assaulted. >> it is. we're working every part of this. we just have not yet found the game changer. >> most assaults are they on women? >> ma'am? >> are most assaults having to do with women? >> i think most of the victims are women but not all. >> maybe you want to put a woman in charge of it. >> right now, the officer responsible for the sexual assault prevention is not the luent colonel. he is charge of a four-person branch. a female is the officer who i consider the lead in the air force. >> i'm just saying -- the congress will take actions. it may or may not work but we're so fed up with this.

while we talk a protecting our military and we're not protecting those women who are serving the military. stopping it from happening. that's all i have to say. what you're doing is doing more of the same. we'll get the same results. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for being here today. i want to ask you a little bit about the space launch capabilities. when you represent a state like florida, mr. young and i do. you learn the impact of space has on everyday life and you learn about space having an impact on every aspect of our national security. the space launch capabilities are provided by one particular alliance. they do that in an excellent way

and a near her pect record but it is very expensive as you know. one of the reasons it is expensive is because you have demanded a zero risk situation, which is, i think is appropriate. if you do a cost analysis if you want zero risk then exponentially the cost will increase. i think it is important for the sub committee to understand about that, about why we have that zero risk demand and, therefore, the expensive part. it is my understanding that you intent to open up the launch capabilities to other certified interests. i think that is a good idea if they have the proven reliabilities. so maybe you can talk a little bit about your plan to do that and how you're going to make sure they are as reliable as who is doing it now. at the end, who are you going to decide if you have more than one

that is capability how are you going to decide who has the launch capabilities? >> this is a good news >> this is a good news stories for our taxpayers. ddlp's whichs the you described as the primary source for space launch. this is a big deal because space launch is 40% of the cost of our space and a prize. we have high standards because we are putting hundred million dollar plus satellites into orbit. and this is the most dangerous part of the mission is access to space.nch to on the eeld side, we have done extensive work. we have entered into deep discussions with ula, the

manufacturer. and we have arrived at a block by decision that allows us to buy 36 cores over five years. approach, wek buy are reducing the cost of eelv. at the same time, working with the national reconnaissance office and nasa, we put together a program for satisfying new entrants, new companies that want to get certified for national security space launch. and working with nasa we published the new criteria. i think it was in november, 2011, which outlines what companies need to do to demonstrate proficiency and reliability in space luanch aunch. and to support that work, we have isolated two payloads, maybe more, but i can correct

that for the record, we have identified payloads that would be available to those new entrants to help them demonstrate their proficiency and reliability for excess to space. when they get service by it and we think the first company or companies will likely get timeframe,n f.y. 15 we have space launch slots for which both ula and the new entrants will compete. so we believe there is a competitive environment that starts at thatf.y. 15 that will drive down costs further. i think we have a good strategy, both on the eelv side and the new entrance side. we have got good results already. we anticipate better results going forward. >> this is a critical capability for the future. so if there are things that we can help, we would like to be

aware of that. thank you very much. >> mr. tell bert? -- talbert? >> thank you. going back to north dakota for a moment, just for the record. what proportion of the top 10% of the air force academy graduates are assigned to that specialty? do you know? just ton't know -- clarify the question, the top 10% of air force academy graduates are assigned there? i did not know the answer. >> could we get that for the record? >> yes, sir. >> what is the military occupational selection process for officers for that purpose? >> we have changed the process recently. we used to combine them with the space career field. the intent was to try to provide a more defers set of options for people who come into either career field. they are related.

and the missions are interconnected. what we found recently is that we felt we needed more expertise at the mid and senior levels. we are starting to people -- starting people to mako late. careerwe split the two fields, so now we have a missile force that is going back to the past, where they come in as a missile officer. there will grow with the missile career field. >> what percentage throughout the air force are officers working at specialty? do you have an idea? >> i do not know the exact percentage, sir, but there are 44 others -- 40,000 people working the nuclear business. >> do you know the number? >> i did not know. this is about 5% of total air force resources in the nuclear enterprise. >> i also want to talk about on manned aircraft systems.

i think it has been talked about, mr. moran mentioned it. the air force was slow in capturing that technology as the unmanned vehicles came aboard, and i know today that certainly there were trying to catch up. now we have this perforation of unmanned aircraft systems throughout the dod, that the air force is not necessarily control, whether it is the army or other agencies. getting to the reapers for a second, air force has requested funds to purchase 12 m9 reapers in f.y. 2014 and i am glad to see continued support for the program, but the efficient production rate is about 24 aircraft per year to maintain a low was cost per unit. i know there are budget considerations, but the per unit

cost of his light on those aircraft go up considerably because of the inefficiency of the system. >we are talking about the training units which are critical to the air force. and these so-called ftu's are costly. due to personnel costs. we have existing facilities. and i understand the air force is looking at expanding those facilities throughout the united states. senset it make more to use facilities to already have, rather than expand these facilities to other locations? >> yes, sir. i know no plans to expand beyond the facilities in syracuse or the national guard base. >> we understand that if you are looking at expanding that beyond

, for instance, on the air guard, beyond the california, arizona, north dakota, texas and flyinghe existing are m-1 aircraft. i understand that the m-9 will not be provided to those existing units. >> our intent is to replace be mq1 with mq9. but we do not intend to stand up new flying training units in those areas. they are controlling aircraft or around the world, but they will not be additional training. >> ok. thank you. >> mr. mcconnell? >> thank you, mr. chair. many of usonley,

have been sitting in hearings all week on the other side of the capital and in the policy committee, that military bridges up to work to end military assault crisis. we have been told over the years that you are. increase.aw a 32% the marines had a 30% increase. air force had a 33% increase. the army showed only a 16% -- decrease. so maybe the army's figured it out, and maybe we should not be paying for all of these different programs. assault this assault. rape is rape. we are not tolerating it. so one of the things i have been speaking to folks and congresswoman granger, i wanted to catch you as working with some of our other colleagues that have been putting together a special committee. this is going to stop.

and to the air force, you know it your best is not good enough. when i was appointing young women to the military academy 12 years ago, i gave them my personal cell phone number. and said, you do not have to take this. you call me. i have got your back. do not have to call your mother. you do not have to report -- you call me. who in mye women congressional district in minnesota and around the country who enlisted, they did not have them myself phone number. they did that have anybody tell them you do not have to tolerate this. the air force academy scandal. and then we had lackland. and now we have what happened this weekend. so you talk about changing the culture, and i am reading from

"the new york times." reviewel said he would the decision by lieutenant general franklin the commander of the air force to do this -- dismiss the sexual assault conviction. you couldn't even change it at the top? a court martial would come down. that is pretty serious. and it got overturned. what did that say to women who actually did report and go all the way through as victims? and what did that say to that jury who had the tough job of weighing the evidence and coming down on one of their around? stroke of a pen, doesn't count. it doesn't matter. so i have a question for you. way i understand things and i am not an attorney.

the air force spokesman confirmed the air force can bring its own case, regardless of what arlington county does. god bless them for taking up the charge. but the secretary of the air force must approve a dual prosecution and cannot do so until after the virginia case concludes. so that means, if virginia guilty, my question to you is -- are you going to charge him? because the buck stops someplace. >> it does. in cases like this, we will wait for the local jurisdiction to reach its conclusion. and then we will figure out what the air force can and should proceed with separately. >> i did see that if he was found guilty. so let's take it away from him. let's not talk about this case

in particular. if civilian courts have the opportunity to pursue some of these, i am telling them, do not turn it over. it is going to be up to the secretaries to say, if a court of law, if a jury found this person guilty, we are going to do the dual track and hold them accountable. i have said this before -- everybody is victimized by this. the woman who has been assaulted or the man who has been the salt that are the primary victims. but everybody who wears a uniform, every veteran in this country is victimized by this. you graciously offered to do a hearing on this and i know we are wrapping up, and you have spent -- i do not want to say we have spent more time. we spent the time we needed. i have many more questions about this massive budget to talk

about. but if we do not get this right, nothing we do with equipment matters, because we are saying you're not even safe to be enlisted in the united states military. and i spoke with military leaders that are here on the war college exchange, and they were asking me about this. and they are looking to us for leadership. ms. grangerr, appeared interested in working on this committee -- i have a draft ready to go. whether we do it jointly with the policy committee or with the briefing or something like this, and of time has been spent on this and the appropriations that go to this, programs that do not work. we have an oversight responsibility. and you have been very, very supportive of this issue and i look forward to the briefing or hearing in the upcoming months.

thank you. >> thank you, gentlelady. >> in the interests of time, i understand we might be voting in the next few minutes, i will assess get my comments with mr. moran and others about global hawk. general, there are additional questions that we have got that we have not gone answers from. i will also share my comments with mr. crenshaw about space launch. we have additional questions on that as well. i am going to ask a question on tanker, because it is something that is critically important especially since we just lost one and lost that crew on the kc 135. before i go there, as you are giving us the permission, i asked the army yesterday for our record of the sexual assaults since 1992. if we could see, to try to glean additional information about

whether there is a tendency when we are surging or drawing down, what some additional intermission, not just over the last decade we have been in afghanistan and iraq, but the last 20 years, to try to get additional information. so as we are trying to come up with some ideas and constructive suggestions, maybe we can get something from that. though,like to, associate this one comment about social projects sexual assault. granger, mccollum, many have spoken about this, but it does become personal because i am going to be nominating one of my daughters very best friends. she is going to be appointed to the air force academy. i am having dinner with her and her family on monday night. and i want to be able to look

her parents in the eyes and i want to be able to look her in the eyes and i want to let them know that the highest levels, the problems that we have been discussing are not going to be ignored. -- so a lot has been said, and we look forward to working with you on this to ensure that this problem ceases. let me mention briefly about the tanker, because this is an important program. this certainly the secretary and general low. -- know. mr. secretary, the discrepancy between the contractors' estimates and the current government estimates has grown to $500 million. even though the program is operating under a fixed-price

development contract, and the contractor we understand will have to absorb the overrun, does this committee have any reason to be concerned about the growing discrepancy? and secondly, have you made any engineering changes to the aircraft or the subsystems at this time? >> to answer the second question, first, the answer is no. i am required to sign a report to congress on a regular basis on this subject, and it has been consistent over the last couple of years. no engineering changes have been made to the program to which you referred. it is true that the contractors, the estimated completion is above the ceiling that we have set, but it is a fixed price contract. so the taxpayer's exposure is limited at $4.90 billion. and anything above that is on

the contractor. concernsf no schedule at this point on the program. so far it seems to be on track. >> and we do not anticipate any additional issues as it relates to sequestration, having an impact on haven't these -- on having these planes. >> main thing for the air force is to make sure the programs is funded at the levels necessary to support the contract we agreed to, and the schedule we agreed to. if the air force has the support of congress, we will be able to do that. back. chairman, i yield >> mr. kohl. >> thank you. gentlemen, thank you for your service. thank you for being here. i had not intended to say anything about the sexual assault issue because i knew it was going to be fully covered by others and probably more

knowledgeably, but i do want to add one thing. my dad was career non commissioned officer in the united states air force. my brother served honorably in the vietnam era in the air force. and my favorite first cousin just retired after 20 odd colonel a lieutenant and served in afghanistan and iraq. and i know what kind of guys those three people are. and they would not tolerate this, and they would look on this -- and they do look on this as a reflection on them, because they were very proud of their service and very proud to be associated with the air force. so when you hear what ms. granger and ms. mccollum have said, they are speaking for those gentleman, too. said that congress

will probably do something -- it may not be the right thing, but it will. so please take this -- i know both of you do. i do not have any doubt about either one of you, but we cannot collectively, this committee, this congress cannot allows the sort of behavior across the services, certainly not unique to the air force. it has got to change. -- i wasld suggest impressed by what he said about your missile crew and the commander and the actions he took. some people need to get kicked out or you need to do something. i think we have almost got too much judicial process here for the perpetrators and not nearly enough for the victims. and if there have to be some examples made, then they need to get made, because it is just not tolerable. to be in this situation. you can respond if you want, but

i know, again, i do not doubt your sincerity and where you are coming from on this. >> sir, i would like to briefly respond. the down men and women in our air force have been entrusted to the secretary and i. nobody, nobody cares more about them than we do. there is no magic that is going to solve this problem. it is going to take a lot of hard work, new ideas, partnership with the congress, with agencies and experts. we are trying to do as much of that in all those areas as weekend. i would be happy to discuss the details of that with any member who would like to know more. but we understand the problem and agree with everything you have said. >> i appreciate that. i have a lot of confidence in you. my dad joined the old army air corps and lived to the integration of the services. he said it was the best thing he had ever seen happen in his service. and he was always very proud of

the military for having led in that regard when the rest of the country was awful slow in dealing with this. this is that kind of situation. it is probably not fair to you, but -- because it is not unique to the military services. we have this problem across the board. we are dealing with the violence against women act up here, and it happens a lot. but i guess because you guys and ladies are our brightest and our best, we expect you to figure out a way. i think it will have incredible support, but you do end up being held to a higher standard. you have always come through and i know you will again, but this one is a big, big deal for the country and long term for the service, because it is so counter to what the value structure of the men and women you lead -- 99 out of a hundred, who they are and what they stand for. anyway. let me move to something else,

if i may, quickly. i want to ask some things about the civilian work force in full disclosure -- i have a very large civilian work force in my forcect at tinker air base. they are concerned about the furlough situation. i know you have to deal with sequester. i am concerned in what your thoughts -- we talked about this a little bit with the secretary who i admire tremendously. he talked about, we want to be fair to everybody. i understand that. but i do not think all civilian work is of comparable importance of quality as you wrestle with this. particularly my good friend from alabama talked about tankers. we maintained the kc135 from fleet. my dad spent several years working on them in the air force. as my brother did. and they are still coming through. those are 50-year-old airplanes.

and they are funded differently. that work force is funded out of the working capital fund. so i would just ask, as you wrestle with this problem, that was not of your making, please focus on making sure that those maintainers, that those aircraft get the kind of attention they need. i wish we did not have a 50- year-old tanker -- although we are proud that we can keep planes of that age going. it tells of the quality of the work force, uniformed and non- uniformed. they are remarkable people. what are you doing -- and again, if all things are not equal, you are. to have to make value judgments as to what you keep going to make sure we do not have accidents or loss capability. first of all that

that the decision on civilian furloughs has not yet been made. this is that the secretary level. he is in the process of making that decision. we have had extensive discussion about the issues you have race. but we know there is an impact on weapon systems sustainment from sequestration, and there is an impact already to what you referred, which involves the delay and creation of a backlog in repair for probably 60 aircraft and 35 engines, is roughly the current estimate. but this is complex work. so we know that there is an impact on inductions. there is the issue of the working capital fund and its fiscal health and how to keep it solvent through this period. then there is the additional issue of the civilian workforce

management challenges on top of that. the issue of furloughs and how that will be managed. so all those three things, weapons systems sustainment, working capital fund, and furloughs, are being addressed collectively and we are doing our best to minimize the impacts and to maximize the betting is that we can get out of our depo work force with the funds available. >> i know that you are, and i appreciate that those furloughs came down seven days. i'm not telling you anything and did not tell the secretary of defense, i would hope, again, it is admirable to want to be perfectly fair and treat every employed the same way, but i think where we can, particularly if there is an issue of safety and maintenance of assets here, that some discrimination might be appropriate. in making sure.

so i know you will continue to work to minimize those furloughed days. i know this committee did not like sequestration any more than you did. most of this committee would hope we can arrive at some larger deal. and i suspect people on both sides of the aisle are the kind of people that tend to vote for things like that to make them happen. given you awe have tough task. please give it a lot of attention, because i do not want airplanes that to not fly. let alone airplanes that come down with crews and them. we want to give -- maintain those assets with the kind of work it takes to do it. thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> before i yield to mr. owens, i would say that the vote that is on presently is the camp amendment. then there will be followed by a vote -- 10 minutes of debate on the motion to recommit. the next vote will be on that motion to recommit.

then the third vote will be final passage, which will be a five minute votes. and then the possible a fourth vote, approval of the journal. yieldens, i am happy to to you now, sir. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. m was here,mccoluum officer, theag regulations provided that in the event of a commissioned a lieutenant colonel, he would be subject to administrative discharge proceedings. it was unfortunate when that discussion was going on that that was not shared with her, because i think it may have given her some, for the basis for understanding the process you were going through relative to the potential for a dual prosecution versus allowing the prosecution to proceed in the civil arena followed by an

administrative action in the military. do those rules still exist? >> i believe they do. >> and depending upon the degree of that conviction, a misdemeanor or felony, then that would move -- that is a potential that you could move to eliminate that officer from the military? >> well, that is a decision that would be initially looked at by the wing commander who supervises him and has ucmj responsibilities. bollingthe 11th wing at air force base. they are getting legal counsel, of course. we will let that process play out. >> thank you. now to the business at hand. youre taken a look at budget request. it is fairly clear when you look at this that you are looking for relatively marginal increase, about 2%. however

, sequestration continues into the next year, the next fiscal year. in effect, you will have a further reduction. and my question is -- have you established a prioritization of actions you will take to meet sequestration? so that you are starting with a list and corssing them off -- as the dollarsff are eliminated? enmeshede are deeply in the process and the department of defense right now. it is consuming a lot of time and attention. saye is no set-- i would that we understand the requirements of the budget control act and the potential this sequestration might continue. the congress that and the president might reach an agreement to change the budget control act. >> so do i.

>> to relieve us from the burdens of sequestration which are on the books now. but we are going through multiple budget alternatives internal to the department to assess the impacts going forward and to prioritize our work, absolutely. >> and are you looking broad brush, are you looking up personnel, equipment, are you looking at o & m? >> we are looking at everything. the secretary, as you know, right after he came in established a strategic chioces aoices review. it is referred to in the department as the skimmer, which is a 75 day review top to bottom on strategic fiscal resources and issues on all of the matters that you asked about. so it is really a complete soup

to nuts review of our defense priorities and resurfaciourcing. and that will play out further into june, we will get the secretary's direction on how to proceed for planning purposes through 2014 and 2015. but i will say that you cannot take $1 trillion of the defense budget over 10 years without having a devastating impact on our military capability. so it is not a matter of just choices or strategic choices, which of course, we will make. as i tried to assure every committee i have addressed this year, we will make the best use and get the most out of the resources that you provide. your military will do that. but at $1 trillion over the next 10 years, every part of our military will be affected.

nothing will be protected. so it will affect the force structure, it will affect rate of modernization as i described for the air force. all of our military forces will be smaller. we will have less capacity. it is my hope that we would be a ready force, even if we are smaller, but that cannot be guaranteed at these levels of reductions. so i am just saying, $1 trillion is going to have a huge impact on our military. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you for your patience. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my thanks to the secretary. i wish you well when your tenure is over. goodal welsh, it is always to see you. as the secretary said, it has been a long time ago he said this -- we covered a lot of material here.

but i want to associate myself with his remarks about regular order. and i think that is one of the true challenges facing this congress. i know there are a lot of things that are challenging our defense department and the services, but we have to get back to regular order and i could not agree more, and i appreciate you so much saying that in your opening comments. i also want to associate myself with remarks that have been provided regarding the critical issue of sexual assault and going on within our services. and i know has been a difficult issue. i think mr. kohl said it pretty well when he said he had absolute confidence in the leadership of the air force to deal with this issue. but it obviously is something that has spiraled out of

control. i would just chief of to as the new staff of the air force to call on your days as the commandant at the air force academy, where leadership ofture the air force, many of those men moving through the ranks in our air forces, call on those days when you were dealing with leadership issues there, because this is a true leadership issue for our department of defense. but i have confidence that we'll the answers and solutions to the challenge. mr. secretary? >> sir, i would just like to make sure the committee is aware of how much work that the chief has put into this matter pick it has been a growing concern to

our military leadership. it was a subject that came up in the chief's confirmation hearing. it is one he has focused on absolutely since day one. one of his first acts was to bring in all of the wing commanders from across the air force for a focused day and have a discussion on this issue. every wing commander in the united states air force was there to hear and understand the importance of this issue to the chief and to our air force leadership. and the expectations from them as commanders, for not only good order and discipline, but a unit climate that promotes the dignity and respect of every airmen, the respect for the work that every airmen brings to their job. and so i think we have a chief that understands this and is working very hard. >> i look toward to the results.

i have a couple of questions. one is somewhat parochial in nature. knows, one of the air bases -- the national guard air bases -- has been rem issioned in my district. there was a line of questioning that came up in a senate hearing, and general i will give you an opportunity to for the record to help me reassure the people there that the remissioning into the remote split operational platform for fort smith, ark., it is still the plan. and that the appropriate steps are being taken to ensure that the proper budget and what have you are in place to ensure that it has, i guess what we call initial operating capacity. just a thought or two on that.

>> thank you, congressman. the plans are still in place. the plan is to start drawing down the a-10 unit this summer. that will continue at about two aircraft through next summer. in the spring or summer of 2014, we will move people who are interested from the unit to the new targeting squadron that will be at fort smith. and we will start to look for training opportunities. the intent is to have initial operational capability of of the mq9.q -- we are working the budgetary issues to go with that. >> is it your initial opinion that these kinds of missions are the most enduring that we have in the force right now? >> that's right. i do not know about most enduring, but clearly, this is at the leading edge of what our combat commanders expect. that is what these units do.

the targeting group can work both in that or arena and in the cyber arena, both of which are clearly growth areas for the future for the air force could >> my last question is about the total force task force and the thatmony on march 1, that task force was stood up. having been involved -- i'm sorry, mr. chairman -- having been involved in military planning throughout my military career, i know that anytime we look into future planning for these kinds of issues, that many thes we introduce into equations certain facts or assumptions that may be in play, initial guidance, for the people that will be coming out with these kinds of reports. what kind of facts and assumptions have we made as we start looking at the proper

force mix over the next decade or so? mr. secretary, this may be -- or the chief, either one. >> our total force task force has been working for the last several months and consultation with a couple of the great tags or around the country who are overseeing the activity and offering suggestions. the next step for the total force task force is to come together next week. i believe the first input is tomorrow. next week, we will sit down and they will get me there update on what they see as potential models for the force mix. should it be a percentage, by mission or by overall force structure? is it better to put emissions into the guard or the active component? we are going to look at that modeled first. we know the cost drivers. and we know the operational effectiveness. and we're going to start talking to the options. the best part about this discussion so far has been its honesty. all of the myths are on the

table. we have been able to come to agreement on what the components see as the problem versus what they do not agree to. the total force task force will also be our principal point of contact and information generating advice offering body for the senate's force structure task force that is standing upright know as well. so lots of activity going on. the intent is to streamline it so that in the 2015 budget, the air force has a proposal. >> mr. secretary? >> chie'f on top of it. i would add is we ago forward, and potentially as the services potentially get smaller, depending on the budget outcomes, we are destined to work more closely together. and this is already recognized across our forces. we have made bed downs.

and for the kc46 tanker. there are associate units planned for all of these locations. tighter integration at critical locations around the country is going to be more and more important to ensuring that we have already forced and the most capable force that we can generate across the total force, not just active or not just guard, but working together as a total force. that is where we are focused -- give us the most efficient but most effective combination of forces and try to do that as efficiently as possible around key locations. >> thank you, gentlemen. thank you for your service. mr. chairman? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your service to our country and the most trying

time for the nation and for the air force. something to you that i said to navy and army and that this in terms of the personnel that are now and listing in our services, based on behavioral studies, we know that a much higher percentage of those who are prone to violence because they experienced a violent in their own lives with a volunteer military are investing in the services. in addition to the behavior work being done to address the sexual assault and other issues we deal with inside the military, during deployment and post-deployment, what i would encourage you to look at screening. because it expresses itself in many forms. as individuals attempt to carry forward with the tasks that the nation asks them that to do. that is only in the way of the suggestion. inber two, i wanted to ask assessing my remarks with the

congresswomen and mr. bonner, what can we as members say to our constituents, our immediate actions that you have taken it as air force? if there is any individual out there who attended the academy and left because of sexual assault. or believes that this has occurred today with in the ranks. is there a hot line we can tell them to go to? is there some person they should report disinformation to? what can we do. we are asked in our districts. what has their force done to create a special place where people can take these concerns? >> there is a special sexual assault response coordinator at every air force location. so individuals who thinks, who want to report or need to report tither a recent or past even can do so through that channel or through their inspector

general. >> i hear what you're saying. i know we ran into the problem -- wetsd, or agent orange created a special place. we created another platform with in the department of veterans affairs, within the dod. i would ask you to consider some place where if a congresswoman wanted to allow information to come forward to you, that there is a special place. if he could think about that, if he could get back to us, a 1- .00 number people can call it is at that level of public concern. i had a young woman i appointed to the air force academy who was beaten up and went through all existed atesses that that time, and it really changed the way i looked at the academy's forever. and i am surely not the only

member that experience that. so i would like to see your personal involvement at some level as a secretary. because it is that serious. so think about that. if he could get back to me on that. my third question, third, it relates to energy independence. thank you, general, for mentioning it. i would be a very interested in more detail from air force as to focus has beenur in terms of fuel consumption, in, so thatg, are we can exceed the standards that have been adapted. you have already exceeded them on an annual basis. but air force is the largest user of fuel in the military. and any additional detail you could provide so i could see your policy focus on how you are

going to move toward air force energy independence and helping the nation get there, i would appreciate more detail. now i want to move and associate myself with the remarks of congressmen -- and that is, i myna int happened at conceivable. there have been statements in the press regarding various individuals in charge, calling the situation a crisis. the grade level was d in in terms of oversight. term,l, you used the turmoil in the ranks. us andn you do to assure assure the american people that this situation has been dealt our aggressively, and that missile capability is being properly shepherded and

confidence restored? >> congresswoman, that phrase is not one that i would use. it may have been in the press. that is not a quote from me. to my recollection at all. >> perhaps it is colonel -- >> i think most of the comments in the press came from an email that colonel folds wrote. he is very passionate about his job. there is terminology i would have used differently. if he was here, he would tell you that he would use it differently as well. but the bottom line of this was, the only thing we can tell the american people, because this is the fact -- there was an indication of a problem highlighted by inspection that is there to do exactly that, and the leadership team took aggressive action to ensure the standard never slipped below the minimum required to get the job done. >> is that what -- >> a marginal as a passing

grade. these inspections are extremely difficult. wouldandard is very high be graded that low. that is why the wing commander way.ted that there is nothing good about the fact this happened. the response was a proper. i would be more upset if they had not responded. >> where people reemed out? >> i do not know what the 17 people are thinking. i have talked to the commanders. their belief is that this is just a matter of getting, refocusing the work force on the standard expected every single day in their job. that is the way that characterize it to me. i can understand that. this is a difficult job. the congressman alluded to that. you have to be focused. there is no room for error and there is no room for it commanders accepting less than expected performance.

that is why they took this action. >> what about the term used "rot." bythe term "rot" was used the same individual in the e- mail. in view of his commanders is that he was trying to get the attention of the work force and a way that they would not avoid paying attention. he was very passionate about the fact that he wants his team to perform better. >> can you replace members of the team? >> all members of the team have been decertified. they are going through a retraining program and they will re-earn the right to go back into the missionary or not. gom confident they will not back and if they do not meet the required expectation. >> how long did you -- when the evaluation was done, did you react immediately? actionwing took immediately. we hear about the inspection

results within 24 hours of the inspection. we get a report, the secretary and i both, as did the commanders in the chain of wing. the global strike commander told me immediately that the wing was taking action. they were concerned with that kind of a score of their inspection report. we knew this was going on. >> in terms of what occurred at that site, did that alert you to attend and you should pay at other sites? >> yes, ma'am. >> will the gentleman yield? >> windy secretary hagel find out -- when did secretary hagel find out. because there had been problems here once before, one would assume after a problem was identified and reported, as the commander did at that base, that something that would be another that eye on the same unit the potential for high profile

-- the secretary would be informed in person. when did the secretary find out? >> i found out when secretary donley found out. i do not know if he knows when secretary hagel heard. the grade on the report, i heard after the inspection. i do not consider that a black eye. there was corrective action and they took it. >> sir, i am a former teacher. a d is not a good grade. >> the e-mail that we received, the one you are quoting from, we became aware of this past friday evening. we becameday morning, aware that they had taken the 70 officers at the end of their review and put them into this grounding status. we found out on monday this week. ef wasot know when secd informed. >> how often are these

inspections done? >> this particular inspection is done every two years. but there are three major inspections. they overlap. they get every -- one major inspection every year. >> i think we will have follow- up questions for the record, but this is really -- it is an astounding development. i know my time is up. mr. chairman, i wanted to ask the secretary or the general could provide for the record on another topic. how you are looking at sequestration and cost savings over the next five years, transferring some of the active duty responsibilities to air guard and reserve forces. how is that influencing your thinking to meet budget requirements as you look at air force? i am very interested in the enhanced role of the guard and reserve and the years ahead as a way of meeting our mission, but

also saving money. thank you very much. for your testimony. thank you, mr. chairman. secretary, early in your comments you talked about the issue of bases in europe. we are also having conversations about another round of brac. who hasabout -- ownership of our presidents in a place like loges? >> i'll ask the chief to speak to these issues as well, since he was our former commander of u.s. air force in europe. but it is, to answer your question directly, loges is under usafes command.

>> while there is an air force presence, you are not the owner of the presence? >> the air force is it is a portuguese base as well. >> i understand that. the conversation i am hearing from a number of our colleagues as well as some of our friends in portugal, that they are concerned we might be diminishing our presence there, reducing our footprint to the effect that it might be not a very good investment for them and they may be looking around for be lookingtenant. tenant. different the chinese have been present resence there. their chance that we would be leaving a major presence there?

i understand we would retain some presence, but it looks to me like this is a tremendously valuable facility right out there in the ocean, that has a commanding presence in europe, africa, and i am just wondering if we are seriously considering just basically moving out, except for a small presence. >> i will let the chief amplify, but we do plan on reducing our footprint at loges and cutting back on the hours. we are not talking about departing altogether, but reducing the hours of operation at that location. >> chairman, in response to the overseas for structure and the department response, the u.s. air forces in europe and other components along with u.s. european command looked at all optionsnstallations for

for closure, realignment, anything we can do to save money in europe, because we consider that a precursor to the congress agreeing to look at anything in the states where we think we have excess capacity. as part of that, but there was an assessment done. force the u.s. air installations in europe, loges is one of the ones that has no immediate operational requirement to support activity in the middle east or africa. the type of airplanes we move across the ocean means that we do not use that facility at anywhere near the rate we did 10 or 15 or 20 years ago. so the intent is to downsize from an airbase wing to a squadron. to maintain custody of the fuel facility there, which is very large and it is strategic. but other than that, there is no operational requirement that drives continued large-scale investment in loges. if we are talking $1 trillion,

it has to come from somewhere, sir. this is a tough decision. >> what i am wondering about -- if there to become operational requirement for something like replacehat would we loges with? we do not have enough aircraft carriers. >> i think they are doing excellent job of planning for the future. in some of these contingency locations where we have not been utilizing our forces and our presence there as much as we did 10, 15 or 20 years ago, it makes sense to cut back. but we still think we will have access to locations like loges and other parts of europe if we maintain a residual presence there. and we are doing that at loges. this has been a matter of great focus and a lot of work on the

part of the defense department, and including state department leadership over the last few years. it is a matter of concern to the local residents on this area, the island and inside the portuguese government. so we have had a number of conversations -- i talked to the ambassador. i talked to their minister of defense on these issues. it has been an ongoing dialogue. the portuguese want to be good and effective partners in nato. >> sir, we are pretty convinced that our presence or our influence or our control there will not be replaced by some other foreign interest in view activityeducing our there? >> sir, i cannot speak to what the portuguese government's plans might be for that base going forward. that has

>> it seems an awfully good asset. having had a chance to visit there a number of times, it is an impressive location and it has impressive capabilities. -- the next series of votes will come very quick. there will be three votes. .e are getting fairly close -- youst been advised have the final time. >> mr. secretary-general, relative to the issue of sexual misconduct, i would urge

persistence. i cannot imagine how many distractions you have at a given moment on the given the budgetary concerns you have, given the responsibilities you have, and i would urge persistence for those recruits, for those sergeants, lieutenants. in another century when i started practicing law, it was against the law to drive a car drunk, but it happened. it was kind of acceptable. not much happen to you when you went to court if you had a conviction. , andersistence paid off people understand you can hurt yourself and you can hurt somebody else. i would urge persistence, everyday, so people know nothing is going to let up until that culture has changed. --ondly,, i would associate

secondly, i would associate myself with the concerns with the issue of launching nuclear weapons is probably the most critical moment in your military. again, i would urge you to continue the -- continue the good work on that. i time is very limited and i have a series of questions, that they really relate to nsa. the air force and navy are critical partners. we'veten in the past -- had dual membership in the past on this committee -- the costs involved, one of the questions i would like to act -- ask, on the 61 61 -- on the b- refurbishment, the cost now has

been evaluated at $10 billion. mnsa is saying $8 billion. it started off as less of a robust change. the question for the record is, are you concerned about those costs? the second question i have is the nuclear weapons council recently developed a long-term strategy to essentially take seven ballistic and five air delivered systems and reduce them to essentially three ballistic and to air delivered. whether you are in concurrence with that and whether or not again you might have cost concerns, specifically relative to the air force -- do you have strategic concerns with mnsa's push for a common 78 and 88 warhead and the cost issues involved? finally, because it is all human if you could point out any improvements or changes

you would like to see related to your interaction with mnsa, because i'm wanting to make sure that one, we are doing the right thing as far as strategy on the weapons, and stockpile, but that there is good communication going on between the service in the agency and we're doing it as cost-effectively as possible and i would've cruciate your response for the record and your serious -- i would appreciate a response for the record and serious consideration. 2013 congressional directory has updated listings for each member of the house and senate, including contact information, district maps, and committee assignments. so information about cabinet members, supreme court justices, and the nation's governors. it is $12.95 plus shipping and handling. you can order online at c- span.org/shop. c-span's wrote to the white house 2016 is in new hampshire

and iowa tomorrow. first up, louisiana governor bobby jindal at a new hampshire state senate fundraiser. that is live from manchester at 6:00 p.m. eastern. our live coverage into news at 8:00 p.m. eastern when kentucky senator rand paul speaks at the iowa republican party begin day dinner cedar rapids. rapids.dar lot more/11, awful people cared about national security issues than was the case before. so all of a sudden, formeras a market for cia folks, former defense intelligence agency, even former national security agency, all those guys who were used to operating in the shadows saw a market for their services as commentators, as book writers. there was this somewhat uncomfortable interaction between the agencies and these

usual former employees read -- employees. >> at the time, i thought that waterboarding was something we needed to do. as time has passed, september 11 has moved farther back into history, i think i've changed my mind. i think that waterboarding is probably something we should not be in the business of doing. >> why do you say that now? >> we are americans and we are better than that. >> this is a guy who i think by all accounts meant well, who served his country well by most accounts for 15 years and some very dangerous situations, who risked his life to take on al qaeda in pakistan, and to take on terrorism before that. he's going off to prison for months leaving his young family behind. scotts weekend on "q&a" shane on his feature story from

spy to source to convict, the story. sunday at 8:00 p.m. on c-span. >> in a few moments, house debate on a bill that would set debt priorities, requiring the treasury to pay bondholders as well as social security's -- recipients -- social security recipients if the debt limit is breached. an hour later, the first congressional hearing into the boston marathon bombings. then we will hear a hearing on the 2014 air force budget request. >> on the next "washington journal," we will focus on the senate judiciary committees markup of the immigration legislation with fawn johnson of the national journal. we will discuss the political, social, and economic repercussions. sangay.sang and we will discuss this week's report on firearm violence.

"washington journal" is live on c-span everyday at 7:00 a.m. eastern. the house today passed a bill that would require the u.s. treasury to pay bondholders as well as social security recipients if the debt ceiling is reached. the debate was little more than .n hour before the 221-207 vote quites bill is really simple. it requires the treasury department to issue debt, not subject to the statutory limit, to make principal and interest payments. here are the facts about who holds that that -- american families and businesses polled the overwhelming majority of

u.s. debt. ,eacher pension funds individual americans, our military retirement fund, and the list goes on and on. by ensuring the treasury has the ability to honor our debt obligations, the are in fact insuring americans will be paid. this legislation is the first step in protecting our credit rating and two major credit rating agencies, standard and poor's, and moody's, have indicated that they differentiate between debt and other payments in determining whether or not to review our credit rating. to that end, this bill specifically addresses the default on u.s. debt obligations that these agencies have identified. additionally, standard and pours was crystal clear as to to why it downgraded the u.s. credit rating following -- following the debt negotiations in summer 2011. "the downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what in our view would be necessary to stabilize the

governments medium-term debt dynamics." in plain english, they downgraded the u.s. credit rating it as we have not addressed the primary drivers of our debt and deficits. it is nearly two years later that neither the president nor congressional democrats have offered a serious plan that would address the problems that caused the downgrade in the first place. this legislation faces that responsibility on the obama administration and encourages the president to be more involved in taming our debt, something republicans have long called for. some critics of this legislation clean that it opens the door for treasury to open new debt for new spending or that it simply raises the debt limit by another means. this is categorically false. this bill does not increase the debt limit. instead, under this legislation, treasury loses the authority to issue debt above the limit if doing so creates any room under the existing old debt limit. treasury may not issue new debt above the statutory limit again

until the limit is breached. additionally, any new debt issued to pay principal or interest is not exempt from the limit unless issuing the new debt would cause treasury to exceed the statutory limit. the american people agree in that support transcends party lines, and a majority 55% support requiring the government to pay principal and interest on debt before it pays for other government expenses. support for the proposal is strong among republicans, 60 five percent, independents, 63%, while democrat voters are split 47%.y between 46% and clearly we cannot default on our debt. the consequences could be serious. a default would at the very least hinder a staggering economic recovery and in the worst-case scenario leave the country back into recession. failure to make a debt payment will increase our borrowing costs and threaten our ability to make any of the other payments we owe. if signed into law, this

legislation would prevent such an unacceptable situation. the president and congress must burden tame the growing of our growing debt and deficits. we should do so without imposing tax increases on hard-working families and job creators. there are bipartisan policies we can connect -- enact. committee haseans already begun to examine those policies and will continue to do so over the course of the coming months. in the meantime, we must act to make it clear to the american people and the world economy that the u.s. will not a fault on a debt payment. the legislation before us accomplish is that important goal. i would urge my colleagues to join me in voting for its passage today. enqueued, madam speaker. >> the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin, is recognized. >> i yield myself so much time as i may consume. i want to state the facts here so everybody understands them.

we have called this -- the speaker has, in essence -- the chinahina first -- paying first, while social security beneficiaries come next, come last. , of thethe reason prioritized that covered by this bill, 47% is foreign-owned. china's bondholders are the largest portion of that foreign ownership. e sensually, what this bill says is -- essentially, what this bill says is, ok, let's pay china and other foreign bondholders first, not american troops, not disabled veterans, not physicians, providers who

will treat medicare patients, not small businesses holding contract obligations from the united states, school lunch programs, secondary, medical taxpayer held grants, refunds, and interestingly, other federal trust funds holding treasury bonds, medicare, deposit insurance, etc., etc. that is the fact. that is the fact. why do this? well, it said let's do this because of the importance of paying the bonds in terms of our economy and in terms of our bond rating. let me just say a word about bond rating -- here is what fitch has said -- "it is not

assured that the treasury would or legally could prioritize over its myriad of other obligations, including social security payments come a tax rebates, and payments to contractors and employees. arrears on such obligations would not constitute a default event from a sovereign rating perspective, but very likely prompt downgrade even as debt obligations continued to be met ." it was interesting, s&p has already downgraded us, and they said this, "still sudden cuts to shave off 6% of the gdp-two- spending ratio could cause economic panic and could affect ratings." why is this being done when a former bush administration economist said, the result is a

bloody mess? or another bush administration official who said, "prioritization is impossible. is the government really going to be in the position of withholding benefits, salaries, rent, contract payments in order to pay off treasury bondholders ?" why is this being done? it is not going anywhere in the senate. the president opposes it. think the reason apparently it is being done is to satisfy some within the republican caucus or maybe to try to provide some leverage in terms of bargaining with the democrats. this is playing with fire though. with the economy of this country. those who vote for it, lane with this fire emma they're going to

bring themselves. -- playing with this fire, they're going to burn themselves. most importantly, they will burn united states of america. i've been trying to figure out who is the hide piper in this legislation. it is hard to figure it out. those who follow the pied piper and those who vote for it in the republican ranks are moving towards the cliff following that pied piper. worse off, it places this country once again and its economy in danger of going over the cliff. this is not only a mistaken idea. it is really a rotten one. let's vote no. i reserve the balance of my time. from michigan,n

mr. levin, reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan, mr. kamp, is recognized. 15 seconds.yself since the gentleman raised the question of who holds our debt, to start shows that the vast majority of our debt is held by americans. it is a fact. held byhe debt is citizens, pension funds, and you go down the list -- two thirds of our debt is held by americans. we need to make sure that americans are paid first. with that, i would yield three minutes to the distinguished gentleman from texas, the chairman of the social security subcommittee, esther johnson. -- mr. johnson. >> the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. speaker, as i meet with my constituents back home. loudck home, they tell me

and clear they are concerned about our record debt and deficits. your nearly $17 trillion in debt. $53,000es out to about per person. i constituents back home get it. they have had to make tough choices to live within their means and they expect washington to do the same. i republican colleagues and i have been committed to getting our fiscal house in order, growing our economy, and getting america back to work. a budget thatssed balances in 10 years, and on the other hand, the president and the senate's budgets never balance ever. hard-working taxpayers and their children and grandchildren deserve better. we need to leave them stronger and more secure america, not a mountain of debt. mr. speaker, the bill we are considering today, the full faith and credit act, would be

requiring treasury to make good on debt payments. the bill also enables treasury to pay social security benefits , and those survivors with disabilities and their families. mr. speaker, let me say that again -- under this bill, --iors will get her checks their checks. those on disabilities will get their checks. back in 1996, we passed similar legislation. then social security was getting more in revenues than it was paying out in benefits. full social security benefits could be paid without hitting the debt limit. today, there are not enough revenues to pay social security benefits to make up the difference -- benefits. to make up the difference, treasury has to redeem the debt it owes social security by borrowing from the public. this may cause a small increase in debt it is when treasury

readings social security i.o.u.'s, it must pay any interest accrued on that debt. our bill exempts that interest from counting against the debt limit. mr. speaker, according to cbo, social security cash shortfall $77rojected to reach billion this year. over 10 years, social security's shortfall will total on $.3 trillion. these cash shortfalls are permanent and growing each and every year. mr. speaker, in closing, we owe it to the american people. in fact, we must come together to preserve and protect social security. i yield back. .> the gentleman yield back the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin, is recognized. >> it is now my pleasure to yield three minutes to our distinguished gentleman from

maryland, mr. hoyer. >> the gentleman from maryland is recognized for three minutes. >> i think my friend, the ranking member. , holy partly in sadness in disappointment, that we are playing this game. how sad. i tell my other friend from michigan, his amendment is said to, i want to say. it is a device to try to get people to vote for a bill that has no merit by making members pay somehow. we should consider things on their merit, not political gamesmanship. mr. speaker, for the second time, house republicans have decided to put our country at risk by defaulting on its obligations. they know this bill is not going anywhere. in of the president would veto it. they know republican econ honest think this bill makes no sense.

i will not ask the gentleman, the chairman of the ways and means committee, his real view on this bill. the so-called debt prioritization don't -- bill mandates that we will pay china first. not our federal employees, not our contractors, not veterans -- yes social security is taking care of -- not our military -- we will pay china first. no major creditor in this country would have a debt prioritization. , tertiaryary lenders lenders, yes, they have prioritization, but no major lender, no big corporation. they say, we have a debt? we will pay it. not you first, you second. you've made an exemption for social security. not in the original bill.

hottically, that was too to handle. you added social security. yesterday, speaker boehner admitted that this bill means the united states of america will voluntarily act like a bankrupt corporation and pay china before he pay our troops. how sad. how blatantly political. how transparent we are trying to give a fig leaf so we can play around with the national debt. ronald reagan would be deeply disappointed, and he expressed that. boehner said those who have loaned us money like in any other proceeding, the bondholders usually get paid first. same thing here. this partisan bill is not a feasible solution to our debt problem. even republicans recognize this will not work. a former bus bush -- bush administration spokesman for economic policy said, "privatization is impossible.

is the government going to be in the position of withholding salaries, benefits, rent, contract payments in order to pay off treasury bondholders? that would be a clinical catastrophe." can i have one additional minute? former bush economic chief , "if the legalis -- u.s. government legally agrees to pay a benefit, the u.s. government should fulfill that agreement in a timely fashion. to do otherwise, is taking the first step toward becoming a banana republic." that is hennessey, not hoyer, not a democrat. that is a bush economic advisor. esther speaker, we should not be admitting defeat and ranking the losers. instead of choosing to pay china or any other holder of our debt before we pay our troops --

and we ought to pay them, and we -- theo pay them on time issue is the united states of america, the most credit worthy nation on earth, ought to pay all of its debt in a timely fashion. , all,ot prioritized across the board. our wounded veterans, the seniors, we should be working to fix the problem by coming to an -- a consensus on a big and balanced deal to reduce our deficit including tax reform, which attacks -- the chairman is looking for. playing political games with the creditworthiness of united states will only risk another downgrade, and i yield back the balance of my time. the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan, mr. kamp, is recognized. >> at this time, the yield to minutes to the gentleman from indiana, mr. young. >> the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. >> i rise in support of the full faith and credit act. much has been said about how ridiculous it is that we find

ourselves going through this debt limit routine so darn often. this limit exists in order to induce this body to reflect on our mindless borrow and spend practice. such a reflection ought to lead us to serious debate. even cooperation. it presents an opportunity for public servants to engage in thoughtful, respectful dialogue and to craft long-term solutions. as we approach the limit for the third time in my two and a half years here, have an opportunity to work together and finally mac -- make our largest programs of government sustainable. we have an opportunity to work together and finally tackle long neglected issues like tax reform so that jobs and personal incomes can grow more quickly. the full faith and credit act advances such opportunities for congress to a combo shake things. it does this simply, by removing the specter of default altogether. nobody is contemplating default

of our nation's obligations. americans will always and forever pay our bills. the full faith and credit act makes this crystal clear by making default impossible. our support for this act simply cannot and should not be regarded as ideological or partisan. i respect fully call on everyone of my good colleagues, republican and democrat, to support this common sense bill, to take default off the table, and to put the focus on dealing with our real challenges. let's harness this opportunity of an approaching car women it to come together as problem solvers. i yield back. >> the gentleman from indiana yields back. the gentleman from michigan. >> i yield myself and second. this bill not only contemplates default. it plans for it. default is default is default. i now yield a minute and a half to the distinguished former chairman of our committee, mr. rangel of new york. >> the gentleman from new york

is recognized. >> i heard the last speaker -- there is no question in my mind that when a person from the other side said that the republicans first priorities is not the salvation of our country but to stop barack obama -- i do not take into serious -- too seriously after the election, but i see the campaign a politicalnd as veteran, i understand that. let me make it clear what we are doing today. i had a friend that was deeply in debt. that heso much money knew he could not pay all of his creditors. it was nowhere near $14 trillion, but it was a lot. him day inrs harass

and day out telling him he had to make these payments. finally he got annoyed, he got angry, and he called his creditors and told them -- if you keep arresting me, -- harassing me, i will not put your name in a hat, because every month i put all of my bills into a hat, but the way you are treating me and harassing me at home, your name will not go into the hat. that is pretty poor policy, i would think, but if i understand this correctly, we are telling our creditors that certain ands will be in that hat other people will not be in that hat. could i have an additional minute? >> we are running out of time. 30 seconds. >> what names go into the hat? communist china goes into the hat.

iran, venezuela go into the hat. saudi arabia goes into the hat. russia goes into the hat. was outside the hat? disabled veterans, health providers, and a lot of people that deserve to be considered as creditors to protect the full faith and credit are out of the hat. this is bad, my friends. this is worse for our country. this is not the way that those people should be treated. america is redder than that. >> the gentleman's time is expired. mr. kamp is recognized. to the gentleman from tennessee for the purposes of unanimous consent request. >> the gentleman from tennessee is recognized. >> i rise in support of this legislation and ask unanimous consent to commend chairman cap and mr. mcclintock to revise and extend my marked -- my remarks. the yield five minutes to

sponsor of the bill, the distinguished gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock. >> the gentleman from california is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madam speaker. i had hoped that amidst all the controversies that gripped congress, certainly we should at least be able to agree that the full, -- full faith and credit of the united states should not hang in the balance every time there is a fiscal controversy in washington. i want to thank the chairman and his ways and means committee for revisions that make this solution much simpler and more practical than the original draft. madam speaker, this bill simply guarantees that the sovereign debt of the united states government will be paid in full and on time under any circumstance. most states have had similar provisions to guarantee their debt, and their laws and constitutions -- in their laws and constitutions for generations. praisedr, ben bernanke

the state provisions for maintaining confidence in their bonds. he told our house budget committee that a similar measure at the federal lover of would help protect us against a sovereign default. yet this president and his followers in congress who have taken our nation on the biggest borrowing binge in its history, who have run up or debt than almost all of his predecessors put together, oppose this commonsense measure to strengthen the credit upon which that that depends. tells credit markets that even in the event of an impasse on the debt limit, their loans to the government are absolutely safe. the democrats have raised three arguments in opposition. first, the with just said that guaranteeing the nations sovereign debt is just an excuse for not paying our other bills. what utter nonsense! toallenge him to and --

name one measure -- one member of congress who has said that this is an acceptable substitute for not paying our other bills. do they suggest that all these other states that guaranteed their sovereign debt for generations have ever used these guarantees as an excuse not to pay their other bills? on the contrary, by providing clear and unambiguous mandates to protect their credit first, they actually support and maintain their ability to pay for all of their other obligations. the second argument that we have heard at naseem is that this bill would pay china before it pays our troops. that i would remind him more than half of our debt is actually held by americans, often by american pension funds. china holds the 11%. his measure actually protects americans far more than the chinese. whether our loans come from china or from grandma's pension fund, without the nation's, we

cannot pay our troops or any of our up -- other obligations. -- borrowing one quarter of every dollar we spend. we have amassed a debt that is larger than our nation's entire economy. our nations credit now carries a greater strain and burden than it ever has before. this measure strengthens our credit by guaranteeing that our sovereign debt will be paid in full and on time. perhaps a most bizarre argument that we have heard is that by guaranteeing the nations credit, we actually undermine it and risk another downgrade in our credit rating. after all, as the ranking member said, a downgrade followed the last debt debate in congress. here are the facts here standard & poor's officials had warned had toths that congress reduce the projected ten-year deficit i four dollars trillion in order to maintain its aaa credit rating.

because of democratic intransigence, this congress could only reduce it by $1.2 trillion. we lost the rating. facts are indeed stubborn things. oneopponents are correct in point, that several officials did express a concern that the impasse could have caused the default in the nation sovereign debt. nation cost sovereign debt. that is precisely what this measure would protect us from in the future. nobody advocates that the government delay paying any of our bills. this legislation does no such thing. indeed, this legislation protects our ability to pay all of our other bills because paying those bills depends on maintaining the nations credit. given the precarious state of our nation's finances, rentable disputes over how the debt limit is addressed are going to happen from time to time. a few years ago, then senator barack obama vigorously opposed an increase in the debt limit that was sought by the bush administration. erupt, asontroversies

they inevitably do in a free society, it is imperative that credit markets are supremely confident that their loans to the united states are secure. that is what this bill does. for once, let us set aside all this partisan posturing and act in the nation's interests. the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin, is recognized. >> i yield myself 15 seconds. i want the record to be clear -- of the public debt prioritized by this bill, foreign holders owned 47% and china holds 22% of that. i now yield a minute and a half to another distinguished colleague of the ways and means committee -- committee, mr. mcdermott. >> the gentleman from washington is recognized for one of the half minutes. without objection. >> madam speaker, we haven't

done anything in this house all week, and here we are working on a plan on how the government can default on its debts. that is what this is really all about. it reminds me of the derivation of the word bedlam. bedlam was a large mental hospital in the middle of london. .t was really called bethlehem people local -- local he called it bedlam. this is a policy that came out of bedlam and will create bedlam. our debts, weay are going to create problems in our own country, as well as in the world economic system. the united to lose states dollar as the currency that is used by the world, start by not paying your debts rate everybody will say, i do we want to dollar? those folks do not pay. that is what you are creating. that loan. i urge everybody to vote no. >> the gentleman from michigan

is recognized. >> at this time, i yield two minutes to dr. pisani. -- bustani/ the very origins of this country, this country has always made good on its sovereign debt. let me be clear what this bill does -- it ensures, it makes sure that united states will never, shall never default on its sovereign debt. what does it not do? thes not a solution to debt problem. we have a serious long-term liability problem in this country. a failure by our colleagues on the other side to recognize that we have to deal with this without simply raising taxes had nauseum is notad a solution. we have to come up with a real solution so that social security is taking care of. it is not a pay china first built.

china's holdings are less than 8%. the ranking members figures were wrong. he failed to account for the social security trust fund in that calculation. what we have used our the accurate figures from the u.s. department of treasury. what does it not to? it does not authorize new spending and new debt. this bill simply says, the united states shall always make good on its sovereign debt. it does not provide a solution to the long-term problem. we've got to solve those problems. you need to cut -- come together and come up with solutions for the long-term liabilities like medicare and other spending programs that are bankrupting this country. it is said that the national debt is a threat to our national security in the long run. we need real long-term solutions and not demagoguery and disingenuous arguments. the argument about the downgrade is simply -- it is clear, we have seen what the language is in these credit

rating agencies, as they did the downgrade. it was basically a failure of congress to come together and work with the administration to come up with a real long-term plan. that is the issue. the united states on not default on its debt ridden this provides an extra tool for treasury. i'm happy to yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman yield back. the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin, is recognized. >> thank you. if you want to yield us some time, we will take it. i will not give another minute and a half to mr. lewis of georgia. >> the gentleman of georgia is recognized for one in the half minutes. >> madam speaker, i want to thank my friend, mr. levin, for yielding. madam speaker, i rise in strong opposition to the pay china first act. we are the united states of america.

.e pay our bills madam speaker, i cannot believe that this body would even entertain or consider a bill that put the social security checks of 56 million seniors and people after china. how can we justify putting 2 million american military , many whom are in harms way, after china? that is not right. it is not fair. as a congress, we can do better, much better. -- me be crystal clear default is not an option. the united states of america pays all of its bills as they come due. this is the american way. let's stop playing games.

let's do what is right. do what is just. do what is fair. let's do it every american citizen has to do, pay our debts. i urge each and every one of my colleagues to vote no on the page-china-first act. we have a moral obligation to do what is right. i yield back. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> i yield two minutes to distinguished member of the ways and means committee, the gentleman from arkansas, esther griffin. >> thank you madam speaker. i think it is important to say first and foremost that no matter how passionate you are, no matter how large you scream, it doesn't convert nonsense the fact. china's debt holdings are less than 8%.

it makes for a great talking point. i will not yield. madam speaker, nobody wants to get the debt ceiling. in fact, nobody wants to get anywhere near it. on the contrary, we are the ones that are trying to get washington's spending under control so it will live within its means. that is why we talk about budgets and spending and living within our means because house republicans fight that fight. if we were not doing it, we wouldn't even know that there are limits to our spending. the house budget does just that trip balancing the federal budget in 10 years. we understand that we must take precautions to protect the creditworthiness of the united states. we can hope for the best, but we must prepare for the worst. the worst that can happen with the debt ceiling is a government

default. the bill before us today takes default off the table. no more, no less. we have been told by the credit rating agencies that the greatest factor affecting our national credit rating is the government's ability to pay its debt holders. this bill makes sure that it will. this bill requires, not allows, requires treasury to continue to pave -- a principle on existing debt if and only if we hit the debt ceiling before a deal is reached. this is a backstop that takes default off the table. the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. >> with that, we can focus on the other issues of debt and spending that created the problem in the first place. we can have an honest debate about what is driving government that and how to deal with it. i hope we do not get anywhere near the debt ceiling limit. i hope we use the next few

months to negotiate and reach an agreement that avoids any risk of hitting the debt ceiling. until then, we should agree, it is our duty to protect americans credit rating. i will look forward to voting for this measure, and i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin, is recognized. >> i now yield another minute and a half to another disk image member of our committee. >> the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. madam speaker, i stand in opposition to the republican proposal to pay china worst. i think that there is another way which we might describe this legislation from our republican friends. it would go like this -- let's balance the budget when bill clinton was president, and let's balance the budget and barack obama is president, but in the intervening eight years, let's go on a reckless spending spree

and cut taxes by $2.3 trillion. engaged to wars internationally, embrace a prescription drug spend the country into oblivion, and cut taxes for the wealthiest people. balance the budget when bill clinton is president and balance the budget when barack obama is president. , not whent the debt george bush as president, but only when you have democratic presidents. this is a reckless proposal today. everybody knows it. speaker boehner is quoted in one of the dailies this morning as saying, "of course we pay the bond holders first. -- first." they emphasize to the american people, foreign debt is held by the chinese and japanese, and everybody knows it. it is austerity for the american but make sure bondholders

are paid. cut taxes by $2.3 trillion, and not to worry about the austerity of the american people. recall, alex a budget when bill clinton is president. balance the budget when barack obama is president. the gentleman's time has expired. >> the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from louisiana. >> the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. >> thank you, madam speaker. i think the gentleman from michigan for yielding in bringing this bill forward. the full faith and credit act, i'm proud to be a cosponsor of the bill, a cousin what the bill does is clearly take default off the table as an option. people would say, why is this even an issue? unfortunately it is an issue

because the only people in town that had been threatening default our president obama and liberals in congress. buford some speakers against this poll today talking about the threat of default. what is so good about this bill is it takes default off the table. it takes away their develop -- their ability to default. in fact, president obama in the last debt ceiling negotiation two years ago was running around the country threatening to default on our credit, so much so that it stirred the markets and hurt our economy and in fact it is one of the things that led to a downgrade, the first time in our nation's history that a credit rating downgraded us. to theblem that gets us debt ceiling is that washington has a spending problem. it is spending that continues to force us to hit the debt ceiling. when we are negotiating, we should not be worried about the president running around and threatening default. he should be focused on fixing the spending problem. americans sent us here to tackle the tough issues, not to

be clouded confused by the president's threats of default. gao has even said the president can prioritize. he should. it would be responsible. the president himself has said he would consider defaulting if we hit the debt ceiling. what this bill says is, you pay americans first, as the chairman pointed out. owns american citizens who the bulk of our debt. they would be paid, social security would be paid, but then we could focus on the spending problem. the negotiations would be about solving the spending problem in washington that continues to force us to hit the debt ceiling so we can stop living from crisis to crisis and finally get our economy moving again. i urge passage. gentleman's time is expired. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> i yield a minute and a half to another distinguished member of our committee, mr. larson of connecticut. >> the gentlemen of connecticut is recognized for one of the

half minutes. >> i think a gentleman. i rise today to oppose the pay- china-first act. i do this with a heavy heart because i know a number of the talented individuals that we have on this committee and a process we've been through where we were working together -- it astounds me that somehow the ideological tale of the tea party-- tail of the tea wags the republican effort in this area. the ideological reach of the tea party exceeds the certainty that we should be bringing to the american people. instead, we are playing hostage politics again, holding up the american people, creating all the uncertainty that we do not ,eed in this kind of a climate instead of demonstrating that we can sit down and work together trade -- together. i get the politics. i understand you have to exceed to a group that takes us to the

precipice and then pull back. the american people are through with it. let's sit down, deal with this, and then move on, create a certainty that will create the jobs here. let's not find ourselves in a situation that becomes almost oxymoron where we are paying china first at the expense of americans when there is no good reason why we should be dealing with this issue whatsoever other than the hostage politics that it creates to deal with an ideological minority that drives the other side. the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from california. >> the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. my colleaguete

from michigan allowing me to speak your today. my colleague from california, i am proud to be a cosponsor of this measure. we'll faith and credit, what does that mean? what does it mean to the american people? when we asked for them to send us to washington, to send us to this august place, we are asking for their faith in what we do with our money, their tax dollars, and so when we report back to them, what does that look like to them? have we uphold their faith -- upheld their faith? have we done everything to keep the credit worthiness of this nation online? giant step tos a keeping that faith in paying our bills on time, to paying the types of things that keep our credit rating in the best possible fashion for our country. we default on that, he put our in peril.omic system

we drive up the cost of doing business for our government and more tax dollars that cost to run our government. hear talk about pay china first. that is funny. if we did not do that business with china, if we paid attention to our own levels of spending and growing the economy instead of having to do things that caused that to go up higher, we would not be having to contract with them are more debt. that comes back to this place here, reforming the way we do business. you do not need to run up more debt. you do not need to put ourselves in a position where we cannot get together on getting the budget done, adding the debt ceiling adjusted, so we do not fall into this the fault position. i think this is a giant step in the right direction. i commend my colleagues for making this happen. let's uphold the faith that we've asked of the people of this country by paying our bills on time, by paying the debt, the interest that it takes to keep our credit in line as best as

possible we can in this country. that deservesure support, that puts priorities first, and i asked for support for it. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> i now yield a minute and a half to another distinguished theer of our committee, gentleman from oregon. >> the gentleman is recognized. the rise in opposition to pay-china-first act. simply by putting this legislation on the floor, it does real damage in terms of putting questions in the minds of people around the world who to this point have been giving billions of dollars to the united states government to be able to pay for past spending, at record low rates. i listened to the last speaker opine that i need to do everything to justify the faith in the american people.

the reckless threats that we saw two years ago, where for the first time we really were scaring -- staring into the face of the abyss, and it was a real possibility that they would withhold votes, denying an increase in the debt ceiling, and for the first time in our history, not pay for spending already incurred -- in fact, ironically, the rhine budget would've required a massive increase in the debt ceiling -- the american people know this, and no amount of subterfuge here is going to eliminate that doubt, that concern, that apprehension. it may give the illusion of a few more days' reading room with the debt ceiling. what we need to do is set this aside and get to business. i would note with no small amount of irony that my friends on the other side of the aisle who has been so interested in a budget now refuse to appoint

members for a conference that the house and senate can come together and do that. that would be a lot more productive than this charade. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> i reserve, madam speaker. .> the gentleman reserves the gentleman from michigan, mr. levin, is recognized. >> i now yield a minute and a half to mr. kind, another distinguished member of our committee. >> thank you, madam speaker. i to rise in opposition to the pay-china-first act. adam speaker, to the life -- for the life of me, i do not understand why we are seriously considering us legislation which would call for the default on our nations on its obligations for the very first time in our history, completely jeopardize full faith and credit of the united states of america, jeopardize the economic recovery, which still needs help