than 5,000 doctors. locally in my area of pennsylvania, the children's hospital of philadelphia participates in the program, and i've had the privilege of visiting the hospital a number of times and meeting with the young patients and the doctors learning how to treat them. and i'm proud to have worked on this legislation with energy and commerce health subcommittee ranking member frank pallone. we originally introduced this bill in the 112th congress. it's been a long road, and i'm glad we can finally send this bill to the president for his signature. this is yet another bipartisan bill that we've successfully moved through the health subcommittee. it's proof that despite our differences we can find common ground and work together on legislation in a bipartisan way to help americans stay healthy. and i'd like to thank especially monica on my staff as well as the staff of health subcommittee, especially brenda and katie who worked tirelessly

on this legislation. . i urge all of my colleagues to support this bill and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. >> thank you, mr. speaker. ask unanimous consent to submit a full statement. i rise today in support of the children's hospital g.m.e. support re-authorization act which would re-authorize children's hospital graduate and medical education program through 2018. mr. green: the children's hospital graduate medical education program provides vital funding to support training of pediatricians, pediatric specialists in our children's hospitals. is inued strong for chgme essential. re-authorizing the children's hospital graduate medical education represents a commitment to ensuring children

throughout the country have access to the quality care they need. since its creation in 1999, this program has increased the number of pediatric health care providers, addressed critical charges in pediatric specialty care and improved access to specialty care. the recipient hospitals represent less than 1% of all hospitals, yet train half the nation '-- nation's pediatricians and pediatric specialists. as a co-sponsored bill that passed in 2013 and a long advocate for children's hospital graduate medical program, i applaud the bipartisan, bicameral effort to preserve and strengthen the important program. i'm going to recognize and applaud the leadership of our ranking member, frank pallone, our chairman pitts, on this legislation in the house. i also want to acknowledge the sponsor of the measure we are considering today, senators kasey and senator isaacson, and i also commend chairman upton, chairman harkin and ranking member alexander for making

this possible, for the house to consider this bipartisan legislation today. i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting senate resolution 1557 and sending its legislation to the president for his signature and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. pitts: mr. speaker, i'm very pleased to ask all members to support s. 1557, a very important legislation, with bipartisan support, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass senate bill 1557. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and, without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule

1, the chair declares the house in recess until approxim

give the president some wide latitude in terms of sanctions on officials that are deemed to be destabilizing. econd one is a

counterpropaganda. sort of countermessaging bill that would increase funding for broadcasting in ukraine, crimea and the region and the idea there, according to the bill text itself is that television ations in crimea have been switched to the 24/7 russian propaganda. so the idea is there would be additional broadcast in anguages native to the ukranians and that would somehow be able to try and counter what congress is doing to call russian propaganda. the majority leader in the senate removed some language dealing with the international monetary fund, something the white house wanted, correct? >> very much. the white house said this was

completely necessary for the ukraine aid deal, had said that if you brought about these changes which are the result of a deal from a couple of years ago that changes the way the i.m.f. would operate and increase quota funding which is how much your share of funding the i.m.f. the president has said it would open up more money for them but ran headlong into republican objections. republicans said the white house was trying to attach just like they tried in the omnibus. it didn't work then either. so this provision, while it does actually apply to ukraine was widely received in the house as something, well, maybe ukraine is just an excuse to get the i.m.f. done and republicans

insisted on it not being in and eventually prevailed. >> there was a gas plant in louisiana and texas and the terminal you are hearing in ukraine that are under construction and how it might elate to energy for ukraine? >> there is an l.n.g. terminal on the texas-louisiana border down by the gulf of mexico. sabine ing called the waterway. that photo was taken from an overpass just on the louisiana side looking at it. there are cranes over the facility. it was planned to be an import terminal originally and what happened is you got a gas berm

in the united states and turned around and said let's export. that is going to be one of the first ones that could be part of this l.n.g. push and why it's important in the ukraine context is because russia is gas dominant in europe. it is a major supplier and one of the economic sources that is holding ukraine economically hostage. this is something house speaker boehner has identified repeatedly as something they want to do. now if the house and senate were to increase l.n.g. exporting in the united states, there are many ways they can do it through regulatory changes, et cetera. it would take a couple of years for the gas to actually get over to europe. but the hope is as expressed that it would send a signal to europe that it could rely on

additional market action and the idea is that by increasing supply to the area, you will cut prices. and that will force some change in strategy from russia or at least give countries in the region another option. reporting for bloomberg news. thanks. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- in e will be live at 6:30 the house. iscussion on unemployment from today's "washington journal." host: for those who don't know, what is compete america? guest: a coalition that has been

in existence for two decades and made up of tech companies, intel. microsoft, hp, it's not exclusively about immigration but immigration has been the squeaky wheel for a long time. we do work in the workforce development area and we spend time thinking about retraining and trying to get people -- some of the skills, how to get them and find jobs and what is a growing technology. host: when you say imgation is the squeaky wheel, what do you mean? guest: make america a global leader in innovation, there are lots of pieces that fit into it. we want the best talent no matter where they are born. we are a wealthy country and spend a lot of money on education and it seems that

we're losing some of the interest in students who have choices when they are leaving high school or going into college. some of the jobs we are talking about in the technology space, there is a myth that you have to be in a lab coat or crazy hair like einstein. those jobs could be done by people who are choosing to become lawyers or m.b.a.'s. why aren't we attracting more of those students into those fields? the ones we are a tracting say they are having a time competing in the classroom with foreign students. probably around 7th grade, but something is happening to our tudents here that is hindering their ability to pursue a particular career path. host: the jobs at your industry

requires, requires something 16r7b visa. guest: there are several pieces that add to the pool we need to create, invent and maintain. used the s and j visas in order to bring foreign talent here that mixes. they make up our student body. half of the people graduating with computer science degrees are foreign. and the recruitment starts that at the college level. once they finish with that tudent visa, we move them to h 1b. the other piece in terms of problematic but bigger in terms

of permanent work force is the green card. we don't have enough employment-based green cards to meet the demand. we have folks who want to come here, want to be educated here, and want to remain here and don't have visas to allow them to do so permanently and we end up with huge backlogs and they contribute greatly to the dissatisfaction in the work force here. they keep people on that visa which is a temporary visa. it's not for people to live on on for a long period and has deep impacts on their families, quality of life. ost: how many of those are granted? guest: april 1, 85,000. what ends up happening is because everyone knows the number resets, everyone files on

april 1 and two, three days from now, we find out they ran out for the entire allotment. that is for april 1 for a person to start in october. to give you an idea, processing speed will have doubled for a lot of different types of technology before these companies will have a chance to hire someone again to do critical jobs in technology in the u.s. and that's a very important distinction. host: the student gets a visa and they come here and how long does it last? guest: forever. and the problem with that is there are some people who we want here temporarily but we don't want here permanently, that's how that advisea was designed to be used. a lot of the companies i represent, they house their employees. and so to give you an idea, the

visa is given for a very specific job. not only can these individuals not only start another job but change jobs in the company within they work. imagine you have an upcoming person here at c-span and start them at a lower position and learn the business. h1b u were to hire them on and were from india or china, that individual would be stuck in the original job that you hired them for 10 years. no many people will put their career on hold for 10 years even as great as our country is, it's a growing sense of dissatisfaction. not only are we running out of those on day one in order to recruit these individuals, once we get them in, we don't have enough green cards to push them out the other side. we are sandwiching these individuals.

host: the visa process and high-skilled worker needs, you want to ask him questions, four ines this morning. if you are in the united states with your visa and talk about your experience, here's your chance to call in. twitter and email available to you. north dakota, independent line, you are with scott. go ahead. caller: everybody talks about bringing people in on visas, this and that, costs us money to bring people into the country, why don't these big expensive companies spend more money on americans and educate them to do the jobs? is it because it will cost them more money to educate people and it's cheaper to bring immigrants

in? it's seems that is what big businesses are doing. cheaper to bring them in than it is to train americans. guest: that is a good question and really at the center of debate around highly skilled immigration. there are a couple of things going on, companies need to move quickly. in 18 months, any company that is working on processors will double the power of that processor. we are doing in dealing with a time-sensitive industry. we do training for employees and do training as companies even before they enter our work force but we need the people that know and have the skills today to do work that we need done today. it's not about avoiding american workers. the companies i represent, 80% to 90% of their work force is

american. and these are folks for companies like microsoft and google, these are come could plea meanting and augmenting. they are not taking large number of jobs. where we can find americans we hire them and if we can't, we turf overseas. only other point i would make why foreign workers and how does it not hurt american workers? we know for every one of these foreign workers, they bring skills that combined with the u.s. work force they have, they create jobs. if you look on our web site you will see a jobs calculator. since last april 1 to this april 1, 500,000 jobs were not created in the united states which would have gone to american workers because we did not have enough visas to america to create

opportunities for other u.s. workers to have jobs here in america. host: cameron from washington state, republican line. caller: great program. i wanted to comment on this because i have been doing software development for just about a quarter century. our wages have been stagnant for a long time. i don't believe your representative is telling both sides of the story by saying that a corporation needs more developers. what needs to be talked about is what the wages are as developers. as long as corporations can pull in foreign workers from europe or asia or any other region at a lower rate, keep in mind, it costs about $1,600 for an employer in america to sponsor a foreign worker and bring them in, $1,600.

the hourly rates have been stagnant for 15 years because they keep bringing in these visas and asking americans to compete and if we keep going down this road, two things will happen. my x amount of dollars per hour will be cut in half and american students will not pursue i.t. careers because they will be competing with the big wages that corporations want to pay. host: the market tells us when there is a shortage. your thoughts. guest: as was noted by cameron, he calls it stagnant. they remain relatively flat. they have been rising with inflation. and people on the other side of this debate will say there is no shortage, of course. there's two problems with

examining wages in the way they are trying to examine them. one is an academic economic problem that relates to something i'll talk about in a moment and that is a comparative analysis with alternative fields. let's look at the industry and those wages. we have had a 30% increase in the number of technology workers in the united states. so the argument that there's a surplus, yet wages have remained relatively flat is wrong and the opponents often argue, there are a lot of people who will do these jobs, if there were we would see wages going down as a result of the number of workers we are bringing in. that doesn't amount to a shortage. but the mistake that people make when they are looking at wages is they forget this is a global market and industry. what causes increase in wages isn't simply on the labor side

but the demand side. so i have a supply and demand that both have to move in the proper direction or one has to move with the other not moving. we would see an increase in wages in the united states due to demand if the united states was the only alternative for hiring technology workers. and to me, this is the scornstone of why we have to do something in order to make sure we are bringing people here, because the alternative isn't that, ok, we can't bring anyone here. and so the jobs that we have open will naturally go to people who are ok at it or to someone who is here. the jobs don't have to stay here. in fact, that is the reason why you don't see an increase in wages, it's because we are competing globally for this labor supply. and when you have u.s. workers based in the u.s. who benefit from a couple of workers coming here, that is a much smarter policy than cutting off workers

to the u.s. and then saying, ok, well, we hope global technology companies will decide not to turn to ireland and not to turn to india and turn to china and start hiring heavily over there. the reason why demand and wages have remained stable is because there is relief. it's outside the united states. host: richard, austin, texas, independent line. caller: good morning, i'm glad to be able to talk with you this morning. i have several sons in the engineering business and one of them worked for a large company re and they had 50 engineers at the time and they started and they th chinese sent -- they got rid of all --

my son was the last engineer there. and they took on the engineering -- engineer documents from china. he refused to sign a document and asked him why and he said because it will kill people and they let him go and now there's none there. i was raised on the south border. people came across the border, cheap labor, cheap labor for farmers. somehow we have gone into a country of, by and for the corporation, rather than a country of, by and for the people. guest: i'm sorry for your son. that sounds like an awful situation and there are a lot of pieces in that as well. i'm not sure all of them are related to immigration. we need to be carbous about our

-- caution about our trading partners. the only way to change things in china is be a participant in their economy. it will be harder for communist gimes to have that kind of influence over its work force. i think he is trying to get at some of the knowledge transfer issue that people raise and that goes back to the other wage point i was going to make. the academic side of wages, you compare wages in an economy to other alternatives. so there is a surplus, a bonus. if you enter technology today, you are going to make more money than if you enter into the legal profession or the business profession. there is a consistent bonus for -- that's how you compare wages because it's a noisy indicator.

when we look at wages, we can't account for in the simple wage study within a single industry how is the economy looking and the overall picture of jobs looking and what we can do is looking at being a lawyer or business executive and what we see consistently technology workers are paid more money than their intellectual counterparts from an academic perspective. in knowledge transfer, in cases where that's happening, that's part of the disruption of economies changing but i want to be clear. it doesn't mean it's not a real problem and doesn't mean that some american workers are suffering. we can't be callous or cold towards that. we have to find a way to do better work force training. in the bills we pushed in the senate, our organization, we put together a fund that would have provided a large amount of money, much larger that has been put towards workforce training

that says i'm 80% there but i can't get the job interview i want because the resume doesn't look like the way it should or i'm not good on the certifications. we hope that fund if we pass immigration reform will deal with this disruption issue. they aren't going to have jobs but it's what economies need to have move forward. creating energy in this industry and making sure we protect u.s. workers. we can do both. host: is it true that visa workers are interested in the andthan where the job it is ther aments? guest: i have worked with a lot of them and what i have heard is broad statements -- i don't

think this person is meaning to sound raceist, but that is a pretty big generalization about people. most people are interested in having a job but to suggest that they are not pursuing the american dream with the same serious energy that an american would, that's a did honor to a good group of people that are doing what they can to support their families. caller: i was going to call about was that it's probably the best thing that i could think of people that have these jobs already in the united states and educate them to do better in their jobs instead of bringing people in from other countries. and as far as immigration reform

, wrong idea, ok. i think people need to take a look at facebook and need to take a look at twitter and understand that this immigration, it's not immigration law. what it is is illegal alien law. usly postponed questions. will be taken in the following order. suspending the rules with regard to the senate amendment 2183, 4152, and senate and agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. the first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from california, mr. royce, to suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment

to h.r. 4152 on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 4152, an act to provide for loan costs, for cost of loan guarantees for ukraine. senate amendments. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 378, the nays are 34. 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the senate amendment is agreed to and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is vote of the motion of the the gentleman from california, mr. royce, to suspend the rules and pass senate 2183, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: senate 2183, an act united states international programming to ukraine and neighboring regions.

the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 399, the nays are 12. 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and, without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the unfinished business is the question agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the question is on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. elected end -- members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 261, the nays are 140. voting present are two. the journal is approved. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. burgess: mook, i send to the desk -- mr. speaker, i send

to the desk a privileged report for committee on the rules for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 530, resolution providing for consideration of the bill h.r. 2575, to amend the internal revenue code of 1986, to repeal the 30-hour threshold for classification as a full-time employee for purposes of the employer mandate and the patient protection and affordable care act and replace it with 40 hours. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, by direction. democratic caucus, i offer a privilegeds remainlusion -- direction of the democratic caucus, i offer a privileged resolution. the clerk: house resolution 531, resolved that the following named members be and are hereby elected to the following standing committees of the house of representatives. one, committee on the budget,

mr. doggett and mr. kildee. two, committee on education and the work force, mr. takano. three, committee on science and technology, ms. clark of massachusetts. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on he table. for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition? he house will come to order. does the gentleman from illinois wish to suspend so the gentlewoman from illinois may be recognized? the gentlewoman from illinois. >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to remove my name as

co-spon or of house resolution 2988. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. he house will be in order. the chair is prepared to entertain one-minute requests. for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to recognize andy griffin of illinois for being named the american association of nurse anesthetists advocate of the year he serves as president elect on the board for the association of nurse nesthetists. uses his dual role as

advocate and teacher to bring young student nurse anesthetists to washington, d.c. to meet their representatives. he also volunteers at the lake williamson christian camp he uses his training and his love of music to help children find their faith. he's a loving husband to his wife valerie and a great father to their four children. his oco-workers, family and friends can attest to his selflessness and tireless devotion to helping others and advocating on their behalfment mr. davis: we should all aspire to be as compassionate and dedicated as andy griffin. i'm proud to call him my constituent an even more proud to call him my friend. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the -- for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas rise?

ms. jackson lee: to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. jackson lee: mr. speaker, they said it couldn't be done but as of yesterday and early million ing, seven individuals here in the united states accessed and enrolled in the affordable care act. is it working? do people want health care? they do. do they want access to the affordable care act? yes, they do. these numbers will probably grow when the state exchanges begin to report their various individuals that enrolled under their system. in the state of texas, going all the way from last week to lines around reliant stadium to individuals staying until 10:00 at the community of faith church which i was at with bishop james dickson to the harris county department of education and 500 or 600 there, yes, we want affordable care

and the affordable care act to give health care to all americans. but now we need to tell the states that they have left out millions of those who could benefit from expanded medicaid. i ask governor perry of the state of texas to stop denying the millions of texas who would be eligible under the expanded medicaid to have health insurance, stop denying them health insurance. this is a celebration, more will come and it is good to know that the work that was done is benefiting americans. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the jerusalem yields back. he gentleman from texas. >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and rhett let's -- and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. poe: a lady in my district talked about the new immigration enforcement policy, or rather, the lack thereof. the government claims it prioritize december porting criminal aliens before all

other whors illegally in the country. really? according to news reports in 013, nearly 68,000 foreign criminals were caught, charged and are convicted of a felony or a serious misdemeanor then released back on the streets of america. well, why? the administration should follow the law and deport foreign criminals and not let them loose. there's more. in some instances a criminal illegal goes to a u.s. prison, then he's ordered deported and their home country won't take them back. that's why i've introduced legislation to withhold diplomatic visas to take -- to countries who won't take back their lawfully the ported criminals. the administration should enforce the laws. criminals should be behind bars and then sent back to where they came from. and that's just the way it is. the speaker: the gentleman yields back.

for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, i'm wearing blue today, joining people around the globe in recognition of autism awareness day as we bring light to a disorder that affects 70 million families worldwide, one in 68 children in the united states. ms. frankel: autism day is a day of hope for the mother or father whose sweet baby doesn't smile or babble, for the child o rocks obsessively, for the teen locked in his own mind who is shund by classmates and aging parents who fear their adult child's care when they are gone. awareness is about increasing knowledge which means early diagnosis and early intervention and it's about love for all our precious children. on this day of awareness, mr. speaker, let's all commit to

work together in a bipartisan manner to fund autism research and reduce the financial strains for americans with disabilities. thank you and i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> i rise to speak on an measure -- on an issue that affects hundreds of thousands in minnesota. mr. paulsen: many seniors in my district have enrolled in the medicare advantage plans to meet their needs. it provides better quality care with more options. however the proposed cuts to the program will mean that seniors in minnesota have seen their premiums increase by nearly $1,000 annually. on top of that, they'll face a loss of benefits and less choice. we need to take steps to strengthen our medicare system and ensure it stays solvent for

generations to come. these proposed cuts are not the answer. by encouraging more incentives for providers, we can lower costs while providing more improved care. these are areas where we can find bipartisan agreement to make sure our seniors are protected from these devastating cuts. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> today i rise to honor the life of 23-year-old fallen marine lance corporal andrew silva of union city, california who was tragically killed last week by a drunk driver just over one month after returning home from afghanistan. mr. swalwell: lance corporal silva was a 2009 graduate of james logan high school where he played football. after high school he joined the marine corps reserves where he most recently served in a combat logistics battalion based in san jose.

in february, he returned from a deployment to the afghanistan supporting operation enduring freedom. though his life was cut far too short by a heart breaking tragedy, corporal silva and his service to the country was long and he will be remembered by many. his work as a marine illustrates the heroism of the service members across our country who are serving in the military to support freedom everywhere. lance corporal silva is survived by his wife and 2-year-old son. my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends and may he west in peace. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. ros-lehtinen: mr. speaker, the united states must stand in solidarity with human rights in venezuela and against the repressive actions of maduro.

since protests began almost two months ago, there have been nearly 40 killed at the hands of this brutal regime. at the organization of american states here in washington, .c., opposition leader maria corina achado was prevented from speaking the truth about the crisis in venezuela and as result of her appearance, maduro's top henchmen went after her. today, maria corina, joined by thousands of supporters of democracy, marched to protest this politically motivated act but were met with tear gas from maduro's security thugs. these actions must not go unpunished. it is shameful that the obama

administration continues to neglect the suffering of the venezuelan people. the time to sanction human rights violators in venezuela is now. i thank the speaker for the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the gentleman s recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise this evening to recognize the glenville high school boys basketball team for winning the new york state class a high school state championship on its way to becoming new york state's federation cup champions. mr. tonko: they completed one of the best seasons in section 2 at new york state basketball history. led by coach jim jimity, they not only became state champions but amassed a perfect 27-0 record on its way to becoming the tpwhoves public, private,

and independent institutions in new york state. these students will take this exemplary read leadership and teamwork with them to face future challenges as they continue to make our communs in the capital region of new york proud. gain, i congratulate the scioscia glenville tartans on a perfect season and this remarkable achievement. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, it's a great accomplishment when a school is honored for having a principal of the year or a teacher of the year or even a student of the year. mr. fleming: a.c. steer elementary school in shreveport has all three. ngratulations to principal

kendrick, principal of the year. the third grade language arts teacher, glenys johnston is the ka doe parish teacher of the year. each year she bring -- each day she broings a positive, motivational approach or the classroom. the fruit of a great prains pal and excellent teacher is often seen in their students and fifth grader tyndal hamm is a final example, she's the gifted young lady who is named ka doe parish student of the year. she's gifted in academics and active in her church and in sports. congratulations a.c. steer elementary, i'm proud to see you recognized for your achievements. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my

remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. moore: my fellow americans, the results are in -- ms. brown: my fellow americans, the results are in. over seven million americans have secured quality, affordable health care coverage for themselves and their families. i want to congratulate everyone who signed up. i personally call -- called over 30,000 people to encourage them to sign up and worked at one of the sign up sites over the weekend. thanks to the affordable care act, no american can ever again be denied coverage far pre-existing condition. no woman can ever again be charged a higher premium just because she's a woman. three million young americans age 26 and under can stay on their family's plan, no american ever again will have to worry that one major illness

will bankrupt their families, no senior will ever again have a -- have to pay a co-payment for a key preventive service such as cancer screening. once again, i want to thank everyone for signing up and not open door.he the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the gentleman is recognized for one minute. . mr. wilson: mr. speaker, a cbs poll revealed a majority of americans disaprove of the president's health care takeover law which destroys jobs. constituents living in south carolina's second congressional district agree. obamacare will not work. cindy from lexington writes, quote, i am so distressed about the extremely high cost of insurance now that the so-called affordable care act

is in place. our insurance has increased $600. this is ridiculous. it is really hurting our family and causing a huge strain on our budget. i'm so disappointed in this law and the fact it was able to pass. is there anything that you are doing or can do to help families like ours? everyone else i know is suffering because of it, end of quote. these real-life experiences convey why americans are fed up with the obamacare. we must repeal and replace this train wreck of a law so that these burdens no longer hammer down on middle class families. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from mississippi seek recognition? the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to honor ms. irene lancaster of columbus,

mississippi, and to wish her a happy birthday tomorrow. nunlnunl in fact, i stand in -- mr. nunnelee: in fact, i stand in this body today because of the encouragement of teachers like ms. lancaster. her passion and enthusiasm for american history was con table owls. -- contagious. as an eighth grade student at joe cook middle school in columbus, mississippi, she instilled in me a love of american history that i carry to today. i can still hear in my mind her voice as she talked about the forcefulness of president andrew jackson. she thought she was teaching ames and dates and places. but what ms. lancaster was really doing was preparing leaders, business leaders, community leaders, leaders in medicine and in energy and even the united states congress. so happy, birthday, ms.

lancaster. and in saluting her, i salute all of those teachers every day who are preparing the next generation of american leaders. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. capuano of massachusetts for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request is granted. under the speaker's announced the of january 3, 2013, gentleman from indiana, mr. young, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. young: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. young: mr. speaker, the president proposes a 25% increase in the minimum wage.

obamacare, however, is resulting in as much as a 25% decrease in the pay of millions of hourly workers. because of the 30 hours as full-time provision, too many americans aren't able to work the hours they need to support their families. and by passing my bill, the save american workers act, we can create an america that works simply by restoring the traditional 40-hour workweek. i'm joined this evening in this special order by my colleagues, representatives kelly of pennsylvania and barr of kentucky, but so many people have helped bring this important issue to the attention of the american eople, large rank and file americans who during this down economy are looking for as many hours as they can get, as much take-home pay as they might receive. let me just kick this evening

off by explaining with some level of detail what this 30-hour provision is. because frankly for the uninitiated, it's a bit foreign to most of us to consider full-time employment to be a 30-hour workweek. but that's the case under the affordable care act. in fact, the affordable care t mandates employers provide obamacare-sanctioned health insurance to all of their employees, should they employ 50 or more individuals who work 30 or more hours per week. we've all heard from employers about the adverse consequences, unintended, i expect, created by this 30 hours as full-time provision. the unintended consequence is chiefly that so many employers, especially those who are squeezed by tight profit margins, or those who just wouldn't be financially viable entities, they're moving their

employees down below this 30-hour threshold. they're reducing the number of hours that their hourly employees can work so that they don't have to provide obamacare -saxed health insurance -- obamacare-sanctioned health insurance. the employer mandate has been delayed by the administration twice. so it's clear that this is ill-considered policy. while the white house says the delays are to help employers, it should be even more apparent to those of us who visit with our constituents on an almost daily basis that it's the low and middle income worker who's being most adversely impacted by this employer mandate. the real result of the 30-hour bill, let me be clear, is fewer jobs, reduced hours, reduced wages, less take-home pay for things like food and shelter and clothing, for americans that need it most. now, i can site plenty of example -- cite plenty of

examples in my district where this is having a very serious impact. at this early stage of obamacare's implementation. i live in bloomington, indiana. indiana university is feeling the pinch of this, in reducing some hours of some of their hourly employees, from custodians to cafeteria workers and others. because they cannot remain a financially viable entity, as taxpayers expect them to be, should they have to comply with this employer mandate as it's currently constructed. i.v. tech community college is also feeling the pinch. in fact, 4,500 of their adjunct professors are losing hours. this is resulting in reduced course offerings for many students, but more importantly for those adjunct profitsers -- professors they need the wages, they need the hours. now, should i.v. tech decide to continue on with business as usual, they'd be eating all

sorts of compliance costs to try to measure the hours of their hourly employees and ensure that they're plying with the law -- complying with the law. they've done the math, they've figured out that this 30 hours full-time provision amounts to a $12 million unfunded mandate courtesy of unk sam -- uncle sam. i've heard from 39 public school corporations in indiana about the adverse consequences of this 30 hour is full-time provision. in fact, they're suing the federal government, along with the state of indiana, because of this provision, which they say will have catastrophic financial consequences on their operations, on their balance sheet. you know, from a practical perspective, the majority of employers who voluntarily provide coverage to their employees do so for their full-time employees and they do so because they want to attract the absolute best talent they can. within the labor market.

this system has succeeded in providing coverage for nearly 160 million americans. it's working. in fact, this is the largest source of health coverage in america. but the 30-hour rule radically disrupts this success and this model. so many people will lose their coverage, especially your lower-skilled workers, often your entry-level opportunities where our younger workers get valuable work experience and start to work their way up the economic ladder. well, we need to protect the wages of americans who depend on them most. that's what this bipartisan effort, the save american workers act, is all about. i'm proud to be joined in this effort by representative barr, who's showed some leadership on this issue, representative kelly who was out present it very early with respect to this

issue. and we'll look forward tone gauging in some dialogue this evening -- to engaging in some dialogue this evening and turning over the mike to them to get their state level perspective. but i think it's worth noting, because i do want to recognize the fair-minded members among us, who look for opportunities to work across the aisle. representative lipinski has shown a lot of leadership in the u.s. house of representatives with respect to this issue. a democrat from illinois. there are a handful of other democrat members who have signed on to the save american workers act. it is my fervent hope, not for my interests, but for the interests of my constituents and those like them around the country, that other democrats will join the vast majority of republican members of congress in supporting this bill. and with that i'd just invite the dialogue of mr. barr, my good colleague in his first term, but seems far more experienced than that, to speak

to the save american workers act. mr. barrow: i thank the gentleman from indiana -- mr. barr: i thank the gentleman from indiana, congressman young, for his leadership on this very important issue. it's an important issue because obamacare is hurting american families. it's hurting american employers. it's hurting american workers who are struggling to make ends meet, to put food on the table. this is a bad economy. we continue to suffer from a bad economy, despite five years passing after the financial crisis. but the project of obamacare, the project of the affordable care act is really, if you deliberate about it, the project of obamacare is the project of the entire obama presidency. it's a project to determine whether or not big government can solve big problems. it's a project to determine whether or not the federal

government can micromanage 1/6 of the american economy. it's a probably to determine whether or not it's a good idea to allow the government to take away choices from the american people, from american workers, and from american small business owners. wages in this country are down over $2,300 in the last several years. the labor participation rate in this country, the percentage of working-age people actually in the work force is the lowest it's been in 35 years. 75% of the american people are living paycheck--paycheck. this is not a sign -- paycheck-to-paycheck. this is not a sign and these are not indicators of a healthy economy. this is a very unhealthy economy. why? why haven't we seen a robust economic recovery where american family, american businesses, american entrepreneurs and american workers can achieve the

potential that they deserve, can achieve the opportunities, can reach out and take advantage of the american dream , why is that objective so illusive for so many americans today? unfortunately we all know people who are currently looking for employment and are unable to car foyer -- to care for their families as they would like. on top of insurance cancellation notices, higher premiums, broken promises, a malfunction website, and reduced health care choices, americans are now seeing as a result of obamacare that the law is forcing job creators to cut can employees' hours just so that they can comply with the law. just so that they can prevent any kind of sanctions or penalties that they would incur as a result of running afoul of the provisions of the law. so thanks to obamacare, millions of these already struggling americans are having an even harder time finding work, caring for their families, putting food on the

table, because, again, obamacare is putting full-time work and decent wages out of reach. mr. speaker, we are moving from a full-time work economy to a part-time work economy. and it's largely because of obamacare. i speak with small business owners across central and eastern kentucky all the time. and what they tell me is very consistentist. they want to put people back to work. they want to invest and grow their businesses. they want to be able to provide good, quality health care to their employees and to the workers who are the backbone of the american dream, who are the backbone of their entrepreneurial success. but obamacare is holding them back. employers in my district and all over america consistently cite obamacare as one of the top reasons for planned layoffs and their reluctance to hire more workers. think about that. why on earth in a down economy,

in the worst economy, the worst labor participation rate in 35 years, why on earth would lawmakers in washington want to punish american businesses, american entrepreneurs, american job creators, punish them for hiring more people? and yet that is exactly what this flawed law does. it entangles small businesses in a web of rules and regulations making it expensive and nearly impossible to invest in new workers. in particular, obamacare's 30-hour rule which defines full-time work as only 30 hours a week is resulting in fewer jobs, reduced hours and less opportunity for so many americans. this 30-hour rule forces employers who have been providing coverage, in some cases for decades, good quality health care, to fundamentally alter their benefit plans, drop coverage altogether or shift

more of their work force to part time by cutting workers' hours below 30 a week because they can't afford to offer insurance mandated by obamacare. the "wall street journal" had an editorial that called these the 49ers and 29ers. 49ers because these are businesses that will not hire more than 49 employees because obamacare will punish the employer if they hire more than 49 employees. 29ers because employers will not and cannot hire people for more than 30 hours or more than 29 hours a week. and so these are the 29ers. and these are people who are struggling to take care of their families. this is hurting people. >> if the gentleman will yield. mr. barr: i will. >> i sometimes like to distill the narrative down to numbers and so you just mentioned the movement down to 29 hours a

week. mr. young: let's consider the kentuckian or the hoosier who is currently working 39 hours a week band aws -- and because of this provision their employer is unable, under the current economic conditions to offer them obamacare sanctioned health insurance. so, they're incentivized to move that person, that hardworking, hourly worker, down to 29 hours. that's a loss of 10 hours per week over the course of -- of 10 hours a week. over the course of a month that worker is losing an entire workweek. how is an hourly worker leek that who has to pay for food and shelter and clothing and other basic expenditures supposed to take care of their family? it's unfair and someone needs to stand up for our low and middle income workers and i think that's the essence of what this is all about. >> absolutely. i totally agree. you're absolutely right.

i would commend the gentleman for being one of those leaders in our country who is standing up for the working people of this country and i would just note that the president of the teamsters union, james hoffa, he said that this rule will, quote, destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek that's the backbone of the american middle class, unquote. so in short or ba ma cair is hurting the very people that it was intended to help. and i don't think this is a partisan issue. there are well meaning people on both sides of the aisle who want to help working families make it a little easier. and get by a little easier. and put food on the table and earn a living wage. but this law is punishing people for working hard and hard work is what made this country great. why would we disincentivize hard work? yet that is exactly what obamacare does. >> if i could interject, i think you hit on a key point.

this is not ideological. this ought not be partisan at all. we have a number of democrat co-sponsors and i'm gratified by their intellectual honesty, their courage, their support. they're doing the right thing here. they're looking out for their constituents. we've all been asked to come here and get something done. mr. young: people are feeling pain, this was certainly an unintended consequence, is my reading. i don't want to impugn the motives of those who hurriedly passed this affordable care act. i don't think they intended this. so we repeal the provision, we replace it with something that makes sense and that restores wages for workers. mr. barr: absolutely, this is commonsense reform. i commend congressman young and other colleagues who have sponsored the save american workers act and this is a simple piece of legislation. it would simply repeal the 30-hour definition of full-time

employment in the affordable care act in obamacare, and restore the traditional 40-hour definition. it makes perfect sense. it would help employees who are seek the hours they need to take care of them and their families. it would lower the burden and the regulatory cost on employers. it would allow american businesses to be more productive, it would allow american workers to be more productive. it will get to the heart of why our economy is not where it should be. i yield back to the gentleman at this point and i appreciate is leadership on this issue. pll young: thank you for your support, your vocal support and leadership and education of your colleagues and others, important stake holders with respect to this issue. thank you so much for being with us here this evening. i would like to pivot off of your discussion of this down

economy. we are at a 35-year low in labor force participation. none of us is happy with the rate of job creation, of business creation, one of my constituents was sharing with me recently, they saw a stat indicating that business creation, entrepreneurship, are at a 15-year low. clearly we're experiencing the hardest of times. and the way to grow an economy based on my economic background is not to reduce the hours of workers and impose new compliance costs on our employers. nstead, we need to be removing obstacles to realizing the sorts of income that people need, opportunities to work your way up that economic ladder and unfortunately, this goes in the opposite direction. so i'm pleased today to be

joined by my good colleague mike kelly of pennsylvania who partnered with me in helping to draft this legislation and has proven himself to be a fine leader in the ways and means committee. mr. kelly: it's a pleasure to be with you tonight. representative young's legislation, h.r. 2575, is really something that i think that perhaps if more of us who serve in this body were actually people who experienced what it was like to be in the private sector, i was very fortunate to have a family business. i can tell you from an employer' standpoint, one of the greatest thrills you have in your life is to sit across the desk from somebody who has applied for a job and be able to say to them, you're hired, we need you onboard work eneed you to be part of our team to make the business successful. you can see in their eyes at that moment that they look at this opportunity as, you know, my goodness.

now i can put a roof over the head of my family, i can food on the table, i can few clothes on their back and i can plan for the future. now why in the world would we all of a sudden say, you know what? we're going to change that dynamic. it's no longer going to be a 40-hour week. we're going to dial it become to 30 hours a week. you say to yourself, how did anybody come up with those numbers? why would they come up with those numbers? what is the benefit of those numbers? the answer is, it helps make the affordable care act work. it doesn't help america work. it helps a piece of flawed legislation work. it's about the die nam exs of the math. it's not about the dynamic of allowing men and women to go to work and be able to go home at night and say, i went to work today for you. i went to work to make your life better. you look at the numbers, mr. young, the 30-hour rule puts 2.6 million workers with a median income of under $30,000

at risk for losing job os hours. 9% of the workers impacted by the rule do not have a college degree. 63% of these folks are women and over half have a high school diploma or less. now when i look back at my district, district three, ennsylvania, hardworking american people, i have no idea how they're reg sterd, i have no idea how they vote, i have no idea what they think about at night and what they pray for at night before they lay their head on the pillow but i know who they are because they are all of the same ilk, the same people, the blood that courses through their veins is the same they believe in america they believe in paying their fair share they believe in lifting the load and helping out. arb wilson works in an organization that assists people with developmental disabilities. she is a part-time employee who

used to work 30 to 35 hours a week. her employer informed her that all part-time employees will have their hours cut to around 20 hours a week because of the employer mandate. she said she was shocked when she heard this news and because of her hours being cut she said she'll no longer be able to afford the cost of living. i have many people in my district that come to me and talk to me. one of the things, and i think you'll find the same back in indiana, and i'm sure mr. barr has in kentucky, i have people come up and say, you can use my story but you can't use my name. that is a very chilling effect to think of that, in this country, in the united states of america that people are afraid to be identified with their story because they're afraid of a retribution from the government. that is totally unacceptable. one of those people is in the fast food business. ow about this. 2012, 993 employees worked more than 30 hours a week. think about that. now all of the 92 of these

employees have had their hires cut to less -- hours cut to less than 30 hours. more than 30 employees have had access to their health insurance plan ended even though their plans made sense for them, it didn't meet obamacare's standards so the company couldn't afford to keep them. this doesn't make sense. at a time when we want to get america to work, want to increase jobs, why make it harder for those people to accomplish those goals? it doesn't make sense. mr. young: it makes absolutely no sense. how can you re-- require, for example, a school corporation in washington county, indiana which i recently visited, i was visiting their superintendent, and members of their school board, and i don't know their politics. but i know they care about children they care about the mes who -- employees who work for them. they were distraught. they said, congressman, i don't know what we're going to do with respect to this 30 hour is full time provision. when we think about our

substitute teachers, we're actually contemplating having o reduce the number of hours in the middle of classes. so we could literally have somebody substituting for half a class but in order to fall urn the 30 hours is full time provision in the affordable care act, these folks are having to leave early. the students are unattended. they're not being educated. parents are certainly upset. it's imposing undue costs on the school corporation to track the hours of their employees. this is the sort of rube goldberg sort of contraption that only could be conceived of in washington, d.c. and you know, i can't -- i cannot make sense of why anyone would oppose trying to change this provision as we've done in this bill. some have speculated that it's

a matter of saving face, right? you pass a big bill, pass it wickly, it perhaps was most ill advised and any sort of fundamental change to the bill, any sort of repeal of a major provision within the bill a replacement with something that works better, undermines the credibility not only of the bill itself but of those who supported it originally. i'd like to think better of my colleagues than that. i think there has to be something else at work here. but i don't know how to explain to that superintendent and those concerned school board members in washington county, indiana, why others won't sign on. mr. kelly: my homeschool district had has -- has had to implement procedures to keep its part-time employees working less than 30 hours. in new castle, a large county, they reduced all their part-time employees to 28

hours. we just got here three years ago, you look at a government that's supposed to be a citizen goth a government that works for the people, does things in the people's interests and you look at this piece of legislation and say, how did we come up with this? the answer is, there's unintended consequences. i understand that there's unintended consequences. but you know what? they aren't unpainful consequences. if we're going to do anything here, we better start responding to when we hurt the people we represent and we better understand that these unintended consequences are also fixable. they're not unfixable. why wouldn't we fix it if you know it's hurting someone if you know it's taking away opportunity, and i talked about being in the private sector, when we bring people onboard, it's mutually beneficial. it's to share in success. i can tell you that the gap right now has widened between those who own businesses and run them and those associates who work there. we have put them at odds with each other because now it becomes, well, you know what?

the people that employee you don't -- that employ you don't care enough about you. no, my goodness, that's not true. that's not true. i can tell you from the position i've been in, with a business my dad started in 1953 after being a parts picker in a chevy warehouse, coming back after the war and starting a chevrolet dealership, i know that when they're successful, the business is successful. when the business is successful, the community is successful. because we all participate at every level. now why would you destroy a model that is so perfect? why would you destroy something that is so fundamentally trong? why would you take apart the american dream in order to have a flawed piece of legislation meet the metrics? it doesn't make sense and in a town that you and i have disdiscussed many times is devoid of commonsense, we need to take a look at it. if our real concern is the next election and not the direction

we're going in, we're here for the wrong purposes. i want to thank the gentleman, i was going to tell you, we talked at great length about the effects this was having, h.r. 2575 creates a flawed idea -- corrects a flawed idea. it makes sense. i would tell you for all those thousands and thousands and millions of workers who have been hurt by this law, our ability to fix it which is what our colleagues say, if you don't like it, help us fix it, we need to fix it. i thank you for what your doing, and this legislation is timely and needed and your dedication to the american worker and american family is to be heralded. mr. young: thank you for your leadership on this important issue. this is not a political issue. you know, there is an old saying good policy is good politics, because those who are driven by political considerations, and i

think there are few that are primarily driven by those, they need to be on the right side of history. they need to be adopted a more optimal policy how we treat our low and middle-income workers. i invite their support. please understand, even in this divided congress, even in this sometimes divided nation, there are things we can agree upon. there are commonsense solutions we can adopt. there are problems that we can solve. and repealing the first ever definition of full-time in full law at 30 hours and moving up to 40 hours, the traditional full-time work week standard just makes common sense. it's going to restore wages for millions of workers. $75 billion in foregone wages

will be realized if we pass the act. there has been talk about wages in this town and beyond in recent weeks. the minimum wage in particular. i didn't come here to talk about the minimum wage, but let me illustrate the impact of this 40-hour provision. let's consider the worker who works at the federal minimum wage which few actually do, but $7.25 an hour. so many states have a higher minimum wage. so many people get multiple jobs and you know, gosh, my heart goes out to them, i appreciate their work ethic. but most people are not working at the $7.25 rate. but let's suppose is and worked 40 hours a week, that is $290 in take-home pay per week. if we were to raise the minimum wage as the president suggested at $10.10 and this person got

dropped down to 29 hours a week, guess what they would be making, $290 a week. the same thing. for those who see this as a sort of an issue that is somehow partisan but care deeply about the issue of minimum wage which could create distortions in the economy and kill jobs, that is a separate debate i suspect we'll have, but those who care deeply ought to be on board with 40 hours full-time legislation, the save american workers act. i support their bipartisan support. we have every bit of republican that has signed on. we have a handful of courageous democrats and commend their participation. we have some others with us this evening who are supportive of this legislation, prepared to speak to their constituents' experiences and their thoughts

about the adverse consequences of a 30-hour definition of full-time in the united states of america. joined by my colleague, representative james lanching forward who is -- lanching forward who cares deeply about his state. mr. lankford: people who have jobs, barely getting by, working hourly, suddenly got their hours dropped and asking all of us, why did this happen. well, the difficult thing is, we are trying to explain to people, it happened because more people were needed onto the exchanges and so the administration needed additional people to get on to this health care coverage so it isn't actually to help people but the administration and their

formula, which makes them even madder. they don't want to be a pawn in some game, they want to take care of their family and do what they can do in their job and take care of their kids and play soccer with them on the weekends. but things have changed. mr. young: so would it be accurate to say in part it's our lower income to middle-income workers through reduced hours, who are paying for the affordable care act which is wildly unpopular nationally? mr. lankford: it is and in that group as well. every section of americans when you get a chance to visit with them, they will tell you, my premiums went up, my deduction went up, i lost access to a doctor. i lost some of my choices and this whole pleff that now we have seven million people, millions of individuals that are now in the exchanges used to be

on health care they liked and were kicked off of it january 1 and now forced into a new system and the president is somehow celebrating. and i was astounded by the sense at the last minute all these people filed. there are 142 million people that are uninsured, seven mill ve gone into the force enrollment or faced a fine that is like akin to tax day coming up and the administration celebrating that 25% of americans actually filed their taxes on time because they would face a fine if they don't. no one would sell bait that. but this administration is celebrating, 25% of the people following through. there are real lives and real people. one is named cindy and like some of the other individuals visiting here and mr. kelly from pennsylvania, didn't want her name put out publicly, because in this day and age people are

becoming more and more afraid of their government and what the government is going to do to them instead of for them. she works more than 30 hours a week at a restaurant. they are dropping back to 26 hours a week. 26 hours a week. her job plus 30 hours was difficult to make ends meet. she can't make it at 26 hours. now this individual has to go out and try to find a different job rather than two different jobs. a dad, his son just graduated from high school. didn't make great grades and a good hard worker and he is outlooking for a job. just a working guy. cannot find a job for more than 28 1/2 hours. he is looking for two jobs to try to buildup to enough money to be able to do it. this sense, we are going to help provide for people by forcing

people to get to this providing health care, people are dropping the hours, same thing mp said before. and the president said there is no good reason to go back before a time before obamacare. a lot of people would say i would much rather work one job than forced to work two jobs and not have health care coverage. mr. young: you mentioned a compelling story and we all hear these stories, republican, democrat, it matters not. i suspect we hear them around our district and you mentioned the president's statement of administration policy which came out today. april fools' day, i wonder if it might have been an april fools' joke. it reads, rather than attempting to once again repeal the affordable care act, which the house has tried to do over 50 times, it's time for congress to

stop fighting old political battles and join the president in providing greater economic opportunity and goes on and on. listen, this is not a repeal of the affordable care act. this is a repeal of a provision that we recognize that a bipartisan group of united states congressmen and many senators recognize is flawed. i cannot understand why the administration won't engage with us in a fair-minded, statesman-like way to mitigate the pain americans are feeling. mr. lankford: i would like nothing better for my citizens to not have to live under this law. i will absolutely vote again to repeal. i will do whatever i can to protect the people of my district from the harmful effects of this law. one of them is, forcing those

that struggle the most in our economy to make two ends meet, to go out and get multiple jobs and made it even harder for them, in transportation, in time with their family, they are losing those things and being taken away from them based on the preference of the administration. mr. young: i would like to associate myself to those remarks in prevering to start over in an open, deliberative fashion. my belief would be if we started over with respect to health care reform, we could increase access and do all the other things that was purportedly the rationale behind this law. we want to broaden coverage to those who don't have coverage. the affordable care act does not even accomplish that and so the administration at least according to the statement of

administration policy put out today welcomes ideas to improve the law. well, this is an idea to improve the health care circumstances of so many americans and we need to repeal this 30-hour provision within the law and that's what the save american workers act does. w, i noted that this creates perverse incentives, 30-hour threshold. i heard a story from a constituent who will remain unnamed for obvious reasons, but they indicated, they own fast food restaurants and actually contemplating employing some of their workers at one fast food restaurant under the 30-hour threshold and making an arrangement with a nearby restaurant whether they own it or someone else, of a different name, to finish out their work

week. to use the example, you take off the subway shirt or the mcdonald's shirt and put on a burger king shirt. these are the perverse incentives considered by i will considered provisions in a very hace tillly passed and partisan law. >> a point that the president made in his state of the union address. mr. barr: and really why congressman young's bill should be a point of agreement for all of us, for the president for members on the other side of the aisle, those of us on this side of the aisle. and here's what the president said, speaking to the state of our economy. inequality has grown, he said, income equality. upward mobility has stalled. that's what the president of the

united states has said. i agree with the president. upward mobility has stalled. why has it stalled? one of the reasons, mr. speaker, is because we are punishing hard work. obamacare is punishing people for working hard. that's what made this country great. the congressional budget office released a report a few weeks ago and that report projects that obamacare will force 2 1/2 million americans to leave the work force in the next decade. think about that. there are members of congress who are defending a law that will shrink the american work force by 2 1/2 million americans and what's the administration's response? they say it's a good thing. it's a good thing that americans are going to be forced to leave their jobs. so this law does two things. it forces americans to lose

their jobs or leave the work force and forces employers to reduce the number of hours for those who remain in the work force. this is a prescription for continued economic stagnation. now, we have a solution before us. the solution is the legislation, friend,5 proposed by my todd young, the save american workers act. not only is this proposal good for working americans because it would repeal the 30-hour work week definition and replace it with a 40-hour definition work week for full-time work. but it would also create $75 billion in higher cash wages for american workers. now, if that's what the nonpartisan c.b.o. says and we know wages have been declining and we know that working families are struggling to put food on their table because they

aren't making enough to make ends meet and take care of their kid, why on earth would we not vote in favor of legislation that will create $75 billion in higher cash wages? i thank the gentleman from indiana. i thank the gentleman from pennsylvania for his leadership, the gentleman from oklahoma, who spoke earlier and shared a story of his constituent. this is about american workers having the ability to achieve that upward mobility that the president spoke about in his state of the union. i invite the president to join us, i invite my friends on the other side of the aisle in helping the american workers achieve their potential, reinvigorate the work ethic, allow people to work the way they want to without punishing small businesses and workers from achieving their potential. at a time when americans are struggling, we must do everything we can to invest in

this act to grow the economy and get the country working again. ith that, i yield back. mr. young: i'm going to close where i began. the president is proposing an increase in the men wum -- minimum wage but obamacare is resulting in a decrease of the hours americans are working. to too many workers aren't able to work the hours they need, get the take-home pay they need to support themselves and their families and go after the dreams they want to realize. by passing my bill, one which has bipartisan support and which has enjoyed great leadership by so many of my colleagues, the save american workers act, we can create an america that works simply by restoring the traditional 40-hour work week. i thank the speaker and i yield

back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the remainder of his time. under the speaker's announced spoil of january 3, 2013, the gentleman from california, mr. garamendi is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. garamendi: mr. speaker, thank you for the opportunity to talk about a couple of issues that are on the floor. i really want to spend this evening talking about an enormous opportunity that america has to further jobs in this nation. it's a piece of legislation that passed off the house floor this afternoon. house resolution 4405. a piece of legislation that deals with the coast guard and the maritime industry.

but just a few words about the previous hour that was spent here talking about the 40-hour workweek. there's nothing in the affordable health care act that d does away with the 40-hour workweek. not at all. the 40-hour workweek remains and in fact democrats are trying to strengthen the overtime provisions that we need to put into effect when men and women across the united states work more than 40 hours and do not receive overtime, time and a half pay. so that's another thing. we just basically heard jet one more effort by our republican colleagues to eviscerate and otherwise put aside the affordable care act which now has perhaps 12 million to 15 million americans with some sort of insurance, perhaps it's a new health insurance policy that they previously did not have available to them, or they are on medicaid or they are on their parents' health insurance.

well over 12 million americans now have insurance because of the affordable health care act. they also have guaranteed coverage. no longer can an insurance company discriminate against them because they have a pre-existing condition. no longer are young, newborn babies denied coverage because they are born with some sort of a medical problem. that's what used to occur in america before the affordable health care act. also, it's kind of ironic, if you will, that we just heard in our discussion db an hour discussion on the 30-hour workweek, the 40-hour workweek, the 30 hours only talks about when an employer must provide insurance for their employees. it doesn't take away anybody's 40-hour workweek at all. however, the ironic part is

today, the republicans announced the new ryan budget. which seriously impacts every american's health care policy. the new ryan budget repeals the affordable health care act and those guarantees of coverage that i spoke of just a moment ago. the guarantee that a newborn child with a medical problem has insurance, wiped out by the proposal that was introduced by mr. ryan today. the guarantee that every woman is no longer discriminated against because she is a woman, a female, that guarantee wiped out by the proposal that was put forward by mr. ryan today. the guarantee that there is no more limits on coverage. before the affordable health care act if you came down with

cancer and your insurance policy, as was common, had a total limit on the coverage, you would blow through that coverage and then bankruptcy was in your future, unless of course you didn't take the medical care. so these basic guarantees of health insurance availability were wiped out, or would be wiped out, by mr. ryan's budget that he proposed today. eryly, something that's really every senior is seriously affected. by the republican ryan budget put forth today. medicare went into effect.

lyndon johnson signed that bill. i actually have a photo of the speech that the gave here on the house floor calling for the enactment of medicare and medicaid. this is 1963, 1964 when that occurred. the budget that was put out, the proposal put out by mr. ryan today would effectively end medicare as we know it. and if you are 55 years of age or younger, you would not have medicare when you become 65. instead, you'd be given a voucher and told, go buy insurance in the health insurance market which was so roundly criticized by our republican colleagues today. and the improvements that have been made in that market by the

affordable health care act. let's try to get this straight. first of all, a proposal put forward today by the republican majority in this house would effectively end medicare for every american who is 55 and younger. and put those people into a health insurance market that has had all of its guarantees of coverage, all of the consumer protections, all of the consumer bill of rights in the affordable health care act repealed. so on the one hand, you repeal all of those protections and then on the other hand you take every american 55 years and younger and force them into that dog fight with no protections in the private health insurance market. i don't think we want to go there. i don't think we want to go

there what we want to do is to make sure that seniors have affordable medicare insurance. the proposal put forth today will deny those men and women that are currently in medicare the opportunity to have the doughnut hole, the prescription drug doughnut hole removed instead -- removed. instead the proposal put forward today would increase that doughnut hole sending eniors become into the unaffordable prescription drug program that existed before. that existed before the affordable health care act system of if you're a senior out there, beware. beware of the budget proposal that was put forth here in the house of representatives today. because there is serious harm you in 2016 should that

proposal ever become law. we'll fight that. we don't want medicare to disappear as we know it. we don't want a voucher program that forces seniors into the clutches of the private insurance companies without -- without the protections that are presently in the affordable care program. i didn't intend to talk about this today. but you know, following on the previous hour from my colleagues who were talking so vehemently against the affordable health care act, i thought we ought to have a discussion about what is in the affordable health care act. all the protections that are there for every, every american, whether they are 65 or older. and oh, by the way if you're 65 now and on medicare, you have an annual free medical checkup. high blood pressure, diabetes,

all those things that can affect you, an annual free checkup which has already shown that it keeps seniors healthy longer and has dramatically reduced the cost of medicare this year and in the years ahead. now, what i really wanted to talk about was something really good and really positive. that happened here on the floor of the house today. and that was the passage of h.r. 4005. the coast guard and maritime legislation. that re-authorizes the american coast guard, the united states coast forward, for two more years, expands their opportunities to protect our waterways, our lakes, and to protect america in the oceans that surround this great

nation. it also provides an opportunity for the mariners who want to enter that profession from the armed services that may have been in the navy, that have gained certain skills, so that they can get a license to be a mariner, to be a sailor, tore a ship's captain or -- to be a ship's captain or an officer on one of our merchant marine ships. there's more we can do with this piece of legislation and i want to put it up here so we can take a look at some of the opportunitys that exist in this law. ere we go. about 20 years ago, there were several hundred american flagships and several tens of thousands of american sailors that were bringing american

commerce, exports and imports into our ports. so if you support the growth of jobs and the growth of trade, then we need to support the merchant marine and coast guard renewal act that passed the house today. because it provides these opportunities. this is not an l.n.g. tanker but the united states may very well be exporting lick fied nchral gas -- liquefied natural gas rather than importing, we're likely to be exporting. several permits have been granted to gas companies to export l.n.g., liquefied natural gas. that's good, to a point. export too much of this and a strategic american asset will be wasted, we'll lose the opportunity to have low-cost energy in the united states. that low cost energy, a result

of the abundance of natural gas that we now have in the united states will be lost if we export too much of that gas through the liquefication and export of it. but right now we're we are 10% of the total supply that will be exported. at that level, we are not going to see a rise in the cost of energy in the united states. that's good. and it's good for the gas companies. they have been drilling and able to export this, they are going to make a substantial profit on that gas they are allowed to export, a very handsome profit because we have seen the ukranian situation with russia threatening to shut down the supply of gas to ukraine and possibly western europe. the cost of gas in those

countries is two, three, sometimes four times what it cost in the united states. the gas companies want to export to that market to take advantage of the higher prices. all well and good, if it's limited. even at that limited rate, we ould see over 100 new american -made ships handling that export. we need to be aware in congress that american policy, the laws have everything to do with american manufacturing. so if we're going to make it in america once again, we need to use every opportunity to enhance our manufacturing base. the export of billions and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas from those seven port terminals could lead to

l.n.g. ore new tankers, tankers in that export of that gas, sending that gas all around the world. we could build those ships here if we use our public policy isely and simply require american natural gas be exported on american-made ships in american shipyards, made by american workers and then by american iled sailers. building once again the american merchant marine. we have this opportunity and should not lose this opportunity. now we may run up against certain trade barriers, put

there by the world trade organization. we need to find a way to maneuver around those trade barriers and use every opportunity that this strategic natural asset gives to this country. use that, not just for the benefit of the gas companies and their profits, but also to the benefit of american workers, american steel companies producing the steel, american engine companies building the engines for these tankers, putting together these ships that will be exporting this natural gas, the liquified natural gas industry, opportunity must not be missed. we must once again rebuild the american shipping fleet. 100 tankers. it's a very real possibility. we must not lose that possible bill.

so in the legislation that passed today, we see the opportunity for the coast guard to build new offshore patrol cutters. we see an opportunity for the maritime industry to enter into the manufacturing of ships from american shipyards. we see the opportunity for the coast guard to protect america's ports. these are things that must be done. and this is public policy at its best. however, there's a threat to all of this. the threat is found in the reality that passing an authorization bill is the starting point. it authorizes the expenditures. the question then goes to will there actually be an appropriation that will fund coast ew ships for the guard, that will fund the

merchant marine, the ready reserve fleet, the maritime shipping programs? that's on the appropriations side. and that will bring me back full circle to where i started this discussion. the budget that was proposed today by mr. ryan and the republicans decimates the programs that would fund the education of the mariners in the maritime academies, would fund the new ships for the coast guard, would decimate the opportunity to build the marine security program that put ships available for the military, shipping men and equipment to wherever they are needed in the world if there is some trouble out there that the military must respond to. that decimates the funding for the programs that are in the maritime -- the coast guard

maritime authorization act. we need to be consistent here. it's not enough to vote by unanimous consent off this floor a bill that authorizes a robust coast guard, that authorizes the rebuilding of the maritime industry, that authorizes the pay level for our coast guards men and women and at the same time put forth a budget that would defund or largely eliminate those programs. so the question is, are we prepared to create jobs in our nation or not. a final point goes to something in my really important district. and it's this, the levees that protect the tens of thousands of citizens in my district from flooding. this is a picture of a levee that broke in california some

time ago and the flooding devastated a community. this is a threat all across america. the question for us here on the floor of the house of representatives, are we willing to put together an infrastructure program, like the president called for in his budget. or we going to go with the ryan budget which reduces, significantly reduces the investment in critical infrastructure that protects our communities? i could have put a picture of a bridge that has collapsed, of roads with potholes. in this nation, our water and sanitation systems are inadequate and levee systems don't meet the needs to protect our communities. and in california with a major drought under way, we do not have the money to build the water storage systems to protect the world's largest agricultural

system and the world's largest agricultural sector or the cities and communities that depend upon the water. we have huge infrastructure needs. the president and his budget put forth a major undertaking to fund new infrastructure by ending tax breaks for american corporations that are sending jobs overseas. on the other hand, put forward today by my republican colleagues is a minimalist program, not a robust program that would put millions of americans back to work but a minimumalist program that would continue to decrease the funding of infrastructure. let me put up one more chart ere.

and this is a chart of where we're going with infrastructure spending at the federal level. his is 2002. 2002, we were spending somewhere in the range of $325 billion a year on infrastructure. in 2012 -- and we are not even at the lower level called for in the sequestration. we are down to less than $250 billion a year on infrastructure , all federal expenditures, highways, levees, ports, water systems, sanitation systems, all of that. lost 325 billion, we have $75 billion. those are american jobs that are not coming into play. and if we take the budget proposal today from mr. ryan, this number will go even lower.

we can't do that. this nation is built on its infrastructure. it's built on its education. it's built on its support for seniors. it's built on the humanitarian instincts that we have and whether -- and what are we getting from our majority? less. ess infrastructure, less for seniors, less for medicaid, the poor and the elderly, less pell grants for those kids who want to go to school. that's not how you build this economy. you build this economy on a great education system that has to be funded, kids that can go to college. not less pell grants, but more, so kids can find an affordable college education. more infrastructure investment, not less.

go with the president. he would have us back to this number, $325 billion, not the $75 billion that is in the current austerity budgets or the budget proposed by mr. ryan today. are we going to build america or not? we put forward a major bill, the coast guard bill, and then we don't fund it. so it becomes hypocritical and devastating to the american economy. and for those seniors that depend on medicare, the ryan budget, instead of closing the doughnut hole for prescription drugs that cost seniors that have serious health care an enormous amount of money, it opens it. so once again seniors are going to have to pay for drugs that

they cannot afford. the affordable care act closed that. choices. we are going to make choices here. we're in the process of deciding what the budget will be for the government of the united states. will it be a budget that provides the fundamental needs to grow this economy, education, so our shipyards and bridges can be built by american-made workers. are we going to do that or not? are we going to take care of our seniors and kids. these are the questions we confront here. i would ask our colleagues to stop the three-year effort to repeal the affordable care act and rather work on making that new system effective, efficient,

viable. it's a path we're on. it's not a government-run health care system. in fact, it is a private insurance system that has now been added with protections for the consumers. the consumers health care bill of rights. don't repeal it. make it work better. work with us to address those problems that we know exist in the system. no program has ever been perfect. and we can do better here. that's our goal. so today was a good day for me, as ranking member of the coast guard maritime subcommittee, we put forth a good policy. not complete. we need to add to it and hopefully it will be when it is taken up in the senate. at the same time, we hear a continuing call to do away, to eliminate the patients' bill of rights.

we don't want to do that. i yield back my remaining time here and put this question before all of us. this is a country that needs to grow. this is a country that needs to prosper and we need to work across the aisle here just as we did last week with my colleague, mr. lamalfa, republican, a conservative. we said we need to build something in california. we need to build a water storage system. and we have introduced legislation, the sites reservoir legislation, a bipartisan legislation, major reservoir infrastructure where we can store water not for the current drought but for the next drought. two-million acre-feet of water stored to be available for farmers, cities, for the environment, to be used when

needed when the rain's not there. that's the kind of bipartisanship that we need. we need to come together. we need to spend our money wisely and efficiently and we can do it in a bipartisan way and i want to thank my colleague, mr. lamalfa, on for working on a project that is desperately needed in california. we need those levees. we need those shipyards building american ships to carry that natural gas all around the world. we don't want to drive up the price in the united states, but we want to make sure that if we're going to export a strategic national asset that all of america benefits, not just the gas companies, but all of america, the shipyards, the ship builders, the steel workers, the plumbers, the pipe fitters, the electricians, middle-class jobs.

100 ships. it's possible. we need to work together to make that happen. it's going to deprive of us of what we need to do, we need to build the infrastructure and move forward. with that, mr. speaker, i yold back my remaining time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. does the gentleman have a motion? mr. garamendi: i do. i move we adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow for morning hour debate.

>> how about the democrats' position in general? >> some support from democrats in tough reelection fights. there is an idea of at least

looking at the 30 hour workweek provision. in society, 40 hours is a standard work week. the notion is out there. i think realigning the health is an idea that has been pushed mostly by republicans. some democrats in the center consider it reasonable. >> the white house does not get a chance to take a victory lap. as the health care bill president counts the 7 million people who have signed up. arrived" ishas not the headline in politico. what is the position from the white house on this workweek thing? them, this is another swing by republicans to undermine the health care law. they do not really distinguish it from other provisions that would got it. this takes aim at one specific provision, requiring that employers offer health -- health

insurance. to them, it is just another chance to undermine, and they are opposed to it. >> kyle cheney is a health-care reporter for politico. follow his reporting at politico.com and on twitter. thanks for joining us. >> absolutely. hikes in a few moments, general motors ceo mary barra testifies on capitol hill about the ignition switch recall, a problem linked to at least a dozen deaths. in a little more than four hours, a news conference with family members of victims of accidents believed to have been caused by faulty switches. oner that, president obama the latest sign-up numbers for insurance under the new health care law. >> if the reader knows exactly what your politics are, and he or she can predict how you are

going to describe a politician ahead of time, you really have not done your job. you should be a little bit of stir to the reader. -- obscure to the reader. you definitely should not be partisan, because that eliminates the ability of people to be interested in what you have to say. you cannot be predictable. if you are going to give it to one side, you have to give it to the other side. sameave to use exactly the techniques for democrats that you would use for republicans. i think that is something moderate audiences really respond to, especially when they the news landscape being fractured more and more overtly into pro republican and pro-democratic camp's. makes ataibi on what good journalist. sunday night at 8:00 on q&a. barra testified

before a house energy subcommittee on an ignition switch recall linked to at least a dozen deaths. the recall covers more than 2 million vehicles. fromubcommittee also heard the head of the national highway traffic safety and restriction. you can be part of the conversation at this book and twitter. this is a little more than four hours. >> i now convene this hearing of the oversight and investigations subcommittee. why did the recall take so long? ms. barra, if you would like to sake -- take your seat? thank you.

this question is the focus of our investigation. as soon as the chevy cobalt rolled off the line, customers began filing complaints about the ignition switch. these customers told general motors that by bumping the key with their knee while driving the cobalt, it would shut off. in 2004 and 2005, gm engineers twice considered the problem and develop potential solutions, but gm decided the tooling costs and high, andes are too none of the solutions represent an acceptable business case. the solution gm ultimately settled for was to tell their dealers to ask cobalt drivers to remove heavy objects from their keychains. the year later, gm decided to fix the ignition switch. supplierthey told delphi to increase the torque in the ignition switch so the key

would not move out of the run position and into access remote. gm was not alone in examining problems with the cobalt. the national highway traffic safety administration, and tsa, was alsoh examining problems. but they looked at airbag non-department. they propose the agency investigate the cobalt because of a pattern of mondo plummets. pattern that did not exist in similar sedans. s for cobalt air bags. a total of 29 crashes causing 25 injuries, 4 deaths and 14 field reports. yet nhtsa decided not to investigate even when the issue was raised three years later in 2010. nhtsa again passed on investigating. gm was also looking into the air bag nondeployments.

as early as 2007, gm started to track incident where cobalt air bags did not deploy in crashes. in 2011 and 2012, gm assigned at least two groups of engineers to examine the problem. according to gm's public statements it wasn't until december 2013 the company finally put the pieces together and linked the problems with the air bags with the fally ignition switch. almost ten years after customers first told gm the cobalt ignition switch didn't work. we know this. the red flags were there for gm and nhtsa to take action but for some reason it did not happen. why didn't they put the pieces together for ten years? why didn't anyone ask the critical, important questions? why did gm accept parts below their own company standards and specs? when gm got a new ignition switch for the cobalt in 2006, did they recognize that the faulty switch poses a sif they problem? why did gm keep the old part number which led to confusion.

when gm replaced the switch, did engineers consider how the faulty ignition impacted other systems in the car like air bags? why did gm replace the ignition switch in new cars but not the older models? why did gm think a memo about the size of key chains wu enough to solve the problem? why did nhtsa twice decide not to investigate and why not make the keys of the accessory position and air bags not deploying? did anyone ask why? for both are people talking to one another? did gm and nhtsa have a culture where people don't pass information up and down the chain of command? to borrow a phrase, what we have here is a failure to communicate and the results were deadly. a failure to communicate both between and within gm and nhtsa. today we'll ask them what they're doing to not just fix the car but to fix a culture within a business and a government regulator that led to these problems. this is about restoring public

trust and giving the families and crash victims the truth about whether the tragedy could have been prevented and if future ones will be prevented. it is my hope and expectation today we'll not hear a blame game or finger pointing. the engineers and workers won't matter if the people don't care and people don't care that you know until they know that you care. this investigation is only three weeks old and determined to find the facts and identify the problems so that tragedy like this never happens again. this investigation's bipartisan, as a priority of the members of the committee. i want to thank mary barra for being here and the head of nhtsa, david friedman and ranking members for working with us. i now give the remaining of my time to dr. michael burial jess. >> i thank the chairman for yielding. i thank the witnesses for being here and being so responsive to the committee's staff request. we are here to examine a very important matter. the hearing is appropriately named "we do have questions for general motors. we have questions for the

national highway traffic safety administration. two chances to open up formal investigations into the recall general motors cars both in 2007 and 2010, nhtsa examined problems with the vehicles and both times, both times decided that no investigation was needed. we need to hear from nhtsa today how you intend to improve the process going forward and we were just here five years ago with the toyota investigation. we heard a lot of things out of nhtsa on those hearings. i would like to know how they improved the process and how we can expect to have confidence in their ability going forward. i yield back. >> now recognize the ranking member of the committee, ms. degette of colorado. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. like all of us i'm deeply troubled about what our investigation has revealed about gm's business practices and its commitment to safety. here's what we know. we know that gm has raumed over

2.5 million vehicles because of defective ignition switches. we know they should have tunnel it much, much earlier. we know that gm failed to provide federal regulators with key information. and sadly, we know that at least 13 people are dead and there have been dozens of crashes because of gm produced cars that had a deadly effect. mr. chairman, i have a copy of the ignition switch assembly for one of these vehicles. and this is it. a spring inside the switch, a piece that costs pennies, failed to provide enough force causing the switch to turn off when the car went over a bump. gm knew about this problem in 2001. they were warned again and again over the next decade but they did nothing. and i just want to show how easy it is to turn this key in