carry out the avoidance maneuver. as the transportation capabilities and operations continue to advance, and as the risk posed by the orbital debris increases, plans for mitigation become ever more critical. it's time to explore the safety of commercial space transportation under the commercial space launch act. this concludes my prepared remarks and i would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have. >> thank you mr. zamka. the chair recognizes mr. nelson for five minutes. >> chairman brooks, ranking member edwards and members of the subcommittee thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about the fcc's role of orbital debris mitigation and how we fit into the government respecting this issue. in 1973 the fcc licensed the first private u.s. communications satellite and the first satellite began operation in the orbit in 1974 slightly more than 40 years ago. under the communications act the

fcc is charged with licensing communications and recognized radio transmissions do not stop at the national boundaries and as a result of the activist crafted with an understanding of regulation needed to stand outside of the territorial boundaries of the united states. at the same time, the fcc licensing does not extend to u.s. federal government transmitters which are authorized by n. t. i a end of the congress department. fcc licensing and regulation are governed by the principle of the communications act issuing a license requires a finding that the public interest must be served. in that vein, the fcc in 2004 recognizing the work done by other agencies adopted the debris mitigation regulations for the satellite services and licenses. the fcc concluded that the debris mitigation would help preserve the united states, continue to be affordable access to space, continued provision of reliable u.s. space-based services as well as the continued safety of persons and property in space and on the

surface of the earth. fcc satellite licenses have always included as the one of the terms the assignment of the organization. deviation from that term as a basis for an enforcement action. the licensing process includes an opportunity for public comment, and this has on occasion resulted in objections to a proposed license modification based on collision risk. in 2004, the debris mitigation rules added a requirement to describe the debris mitigation plans. specifically the rules require license applicants to describe steps taken to avoid accidental explosions to identify and avoid collision risks and to safely dispose of the satellite at the end of its mission. the fcc rules also include the requirement to dispose the stationary satellites consistent with international total communications union recommendation adopted in 2003. and the requirement alsin the rs

the left in a safe configurati configuration. satellite applicant plans are evaluated as a part of the licensing process. the fcc is one of three agencies that licensed the activities in space and the other two being the launch and reentry activities and the remote. consistent with long established frequency processes, the fcc is the licensing authority for the radio frequency used i private launch vehicles and remote sensing satellites. however, the fcc has recognized the statutory role under the commercial space launch act and recently reiterated that it was not apply to the mitigation rules to commercial space transportation activities that are subject to the faa regulation. the fcc recognized the statutory role concerning the post-mission disposal of the remote sensor satellite licenses. of all of the licensing processes independent from now and faa, the se fcc consults wih the agency says needed.

consultation is related to the status of particular cases and the progress of licensing activities. further, the regulation to the licensing make use of the scientific and technical work done. the fcc does not operate orbital debris tracking equipment such as radar telescopes and like much of the commercials of light industry, the fcc main source of the satellite tracking data are the dod as well as the satellite operators themselves drive from the links with other satellites. the efforts to improve the space situational awareness of the commercial operators through such mechanisms of the space data association or an important element to an overall debris mitigation strategy. to be clear that they are sharing between the jspoc and spacecraft operator basis the fcc is not an entry made year he and his process. in conclusion i think the committee for the opportunity to describe the fcc rules

concerning orbital debris mitigation, the source of the authority on these rules, and the fcc interaction with other federal agencies concerning this important topic. thank you very much. >> the chair recognizes mr. blount for five minutes. >> chairman, ranking member edwards, distinguished members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss this important topic. space traffic management is a complex issue and i will try to briefly summarize my statement. space traffic management as a contest contains two different elements created these are the technical capabilities needed to control space traffic and the legal appropriate behavior. i will primarily be addressing the legal aspects of the space traffic management and i will do so in the context of the international obligations of the united states. international space wall encompasses a variety of principles that set the bounds of appropriate state conduct in outer space. these pencils are broad in scope and largely undefined.

the lack of definition means the united states is a unique position to influence the content of the norms to create a safe and secure space environment. international space law grants allstate the rights of free access to outer space. additionally, the states shall under article nine of the treaty engaging space activities with due regard to the corresponding interest of other states and states are given a rid right ann obligation to seek consultations and there may be harmful interference between the space activities. this treaty provisio provision s international cooperation and coordination in the space activities. article nine also create createn organization to not contaminate the space environment. under article six of the same treatment as aides believed the states are responsible for the activity of non- governmental actors and required to authorize and continually supervise these activities. this is an expert in a position in international law but it generally does not hold of the states responsible for the activities of the non-

governmental actors. this provision gives the states an affirmative obligation to oversee the non- governmental actors to ensure they behave responsibly in space. as i've already mentioned these provisions are substantially undefined. they require states to engage in activities in such a manner to preserve to space exploration by all for peaceful purposes. however the provisions lead to the contours that constitute responsible behavior of the state who traditionally cooperate and coordinate on an ad hoc basis. notably the provisions failed to set meaningful limits on the creation of orbital debris. the united states has been a leader in the development of international space law and space traffic management should be no different. the provisions of the treaties are unclear at the state's practice in regards to the provisions often help to define the content of the meaning of the provisions. for example, following the united states lead the article six obligation to authorize and supervised has been implemented as licensing regime's. the united states is in a unique

position in the development of domestic space traffic management regime to influence the meaning of international norms and international framework developed to coordinate the management among the states. to this end in my written testimony i've identified three key principles that should be taken into account when developing a domestic space traffic management system. first, mechanisms for the transparency and access are critical to ensure the management of space traffic is a sensual to controlling domestic operations as well as international cooperation. second, the system whether organized in one agency or many needs to ensure a government agency has unambiguous jurisdiction during all phases of space operations. this provides regulatory predictability that can help foster the commercial space industry and also ensures the united states comprises its obligation to continually supervise nongovernmental actors. finally, whatever government entity assesses to manage the

space traffic, that agency needs also to be vested with technical competence to ensure it can properly oversee these operations. the jurisdiction to manage will be meaningless without the technical capabilities to do so. maintenance of a safe and secure space environment is in the national interest of the united states. civil, commercial and military operations are all dependent on a space environment free of interference from other actors. to this end of the united states should be a leader in developing the space system that can foster such an environment with domestically and internationally to mr. chairman, this concludes my statement. thank you begin for the opportunity. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you mr. blount. the chair now recognizes mr. weeden. >> thank you chairman brooks, ranking member, members of the subcommittee. the foundation is dedicated to the long-term sustainability of the space environment so all of humanity can continue to use space for benefits.

the growth in the space debris that increases congestion on the critical orbit present significant challenges to space sustainability. in addressing those challenges there is a key part of our work. regarding the threat of the space debris poses there are three categories o of compliment three activities that can help address this challenge. first is the space debris mitigation. the creation of new debris from the human activities in space. second is the removal also known as remediation which removes the existing pieces of debris to help prevent future growth in the debris population or to reduce the collision risk to the satellite and highly congested regions. the third activity is the space traffic management which i define in my testimony as minimizing the negative impact of space debris on the space activities. all three of these activities are enabled by the port space

situational awarenes awareness e defined abrought bedefined as ce environment and its impact on activities in space. the u.s. government's strong efforts on the space mitigation over the last decade and a half or a good start but needs to be part of a comprehensive approach. my written testimony outlines three major steps that can be taken in this direction. the first is to find ways to harmonize the implementation of that mitigation guidelines across the various regulatory agencies that currently have authority. doing so can result in an efficient process with benefits to commercial industry innovation. second, the subcommittee can call on the executive branch to articulate a copy of strategy dealing with the debris which may potentially include active. third, the subcommittee can work with executive branch and other committees of the jurisdiction to re-examine the role of the responsibilities for the space such regional awareness and traffic management. the key question facing the

government moving forward is whether or not the department of defense should continue to be the single federal agency responsible for all activities and regarding operational space traffic management of the world. i believe the answer is no. while space surveillance began as a national security function, it has default into more than just national security. it plays a fundamental role by not only the military but also the civil government agencies and the private sector. thus i believe it is time for the government to shift response ability for part of the mission that directly supports the safety of the space flight to the federal entity other than the dod. the shift will allow the new entity to focus on building relationships, commercial at hers, to take better advantage of private sector innovation and to establish trusted services with all space actors. the dod would certainly maintain the response ability for and focus on the national security

aspects. making this change is not without considerable challenges. first and foremost, determining which federal department or agency should be assigned this new role. one option is designed to an agency that already has existing authority for regulating and licensing private-sector space activities. another option is to assign a federal agency that already has significant expertise in the space operation debris. a third option would be a new federal agency with both regulatory powers and operational responsibilities. which of these options is best depends upon the long-ter long-m prayer at ease and goals of the u.s. government and the role that i wants to play in the glol space activities. this response ability puts the u.s. government in a better position to harness the private sector innovation currently ongoing and improve its own capabilities and security. it's similar the approach for satellite communications and

space remote-sensing. in both of these areas the government focuses its efforts on exclusive capabilities the private sector cannot provide. the end result has been an increased military lower costs to the taxpayer and a booming commercial industry. to become almost frightening to point ou out this baseball has changed in the context of the hearing it's worth making the point again. continued expansion into the numbers are the type of space activities has created a complex space environment. technological diffusion has commoditized the space capabilities and fueled a surge of private sector innovation and creativity in impossibility for many new uses of the benefits here on earth. it's vitally important for the government to involve its approach on the ongoing change and continue to maintain its leadership role in supporting the safety of the space activities and encouraging innovation. thank you for your time. i would be happy to answer any questions that you have a

>> thank you mr. weeden and i think the witnesses for their testimony. as an aside it looks like we are going to have our second set of votes around 11:30, 40, 45 minutes from now. hopefully we will be able to complete the proceedings before the house floor vote are called. remaining members committee rules limit questioning to five minutes the chair at this point will open a round of questions and the chair recognizes himself for five minutes. as a part of my five minutes in recognizing i would like to at this point recognize the team from huntsville alabama if he would please stand. we have coach bobby murphy, john ashwin, v-victo victor murphy, d green, matthew kellog and estrada rate of the competition is tomorrow representing the state develop them and i want to encourage you all to do what you can to represent the community inasmuch as we are the

birthplace of america's human spaceflight program. thank you for being here for this hearing today. the challenge we're facing today may be one we need you to school tomorrow. that having been said about me proceed with my -- [applause] having been said about me proceed with my first question. doctor henry of the george washington university recently testified before the committee that the faa should be defined preferably limited to those issues directly related to launching and reentry. his comments appeared to be somewhat inconsistent with the request the faa is making today. can you comment on the statement concerning the potential role in

this matter? >> it seems like i might be the first one. the current authority ends at the end of the launch and that is the last time an operator has contact with their vehicle at the beginning of reentry and that is when the safety checks begin. what we have experience with is talking to the operators into dealing with the orbital debris mitigation. we are there as they are conducting their operations as part of our inspection and enforcement function so we have existing experience and credibility with the operators. the thing i will refer to my testimony that is new that would be great considering are the class of the vehicles and operations of these are vehicles taking the personnel cargo servicing of two space stations and also servicing satellites.

>> i would add with what my partners an that we worked very closely on the licensing of the vehicles and commercial space launches that we conduct of the ranges we have the faa representation as we go. i would add we are consistent with the national space policy we think it's important that this hearing happen and that you look at different agencies to take on the federal role really aren't going to pick one or the other but i think it's important that you explore that going forward. >> while the fcc has not ruled on any of these issues, it's probably important to point out they had a role in the past for instance with eric chan sport and human transport issues and

they are involved with the launch vehicle situation carrying that through for the further launch operations. >> i do not answer this question. my testimony is who should have this authority. i think there are ways that we can envision either a single agency or the fragmented agency authority where we have different agencies handling different functions. however, we do think general raymond's point about the overall agency is an agency that can coordinate this information and make sure that all of the involved parties and stakeholders are coordinated as very important and currently looks like the most appropriate for about i don't think it is necessary that it goes there. >> one of the key questions here is what kind of powers are we

talking about. and with that extend to the operators what to do a lot of these areas when we are getting intwere gettinginto the approace objects and we don't know a yes or no answer whether or not they will collide except in very specific cases like for example the plan on david between the two satellite. most of the cases that comes onto the statistics and probability to make a judgment call based upon as your level of the risk. to give the government agency the power to somehow tell a private operator with a level of risk should be and what it should deal with. they are not as numerous as many might think. most close approaches are between either two pieces of debris that no one controls or a satellite control piece of

debris. the only situations where that might come into play if a mandatory control would be if perhaps safety was in question. >> the chair recognizes mr. edwards. >> i want to follow-up on this. in your prepared statement you are urging us to get to issues whether the regulatory agencies should authorize transportation on orbit by licensed, and the second is the benefits of an agency with enforcement providing coalition and from my standpoint i'm really not prepared to legislate because i feel like there's still a lot we need to know so i wonder if you might comment what parties might need to be at the table and what then you to begin to explore with the congress needs to do in this area and might that be a

better approach than going right to identifying an agency that would have sweeping authority that we don't even know about yet. >> we really just want to begin the exploration of the solution might be and a very important part of that is having the right players at the table tables of e industry certainly to have to deal with the risk and extent deciding to do the debris maneuver to avoid a collision is a difficult one and there are a lot of working solutions out there among the commercial operators that are already working and there are numerous ways of dealing with a shy of the regulation and enforcement so we don't want t have to get f any particular solutions but i would say the agencies that are involved would certainly be good players.

>> i wonder if you could comment about the role that he would see in the future environment with a whole bunch of other actors that play both domestically and internationally what then is the role of the department of defense? >> the department of defense is focused on national security and space situational awareness is foundational to everything we do. when you have these discussions, one of the things i think we need to be careful about as we go forward as making sure we have the ability to do what we need to do to protect the nation and to protect. >> following up on what i said earlier and mr. zamka's comments, i would suggest at least from the point of view of the maneuver maneuver situationr enforcing an orbital maneuver to take place. it's in their best interests too

move and that's how they would take a look at it. if you are aware a potential collision was coming along i'm sure they would end up moving that satellite. it's in their best interest especially from the financial point of view. having to have somebody that would go through and actually force them to do that is an unlikely situation and further as you point out the international aspects of this, we only have a certain percentage of the satellites on orbit and the issue of telling some other countries for a satellite that they have to move raises its own issues. >> professor blount, i wonder if you can talk about the liability of the agencies either should have or do have and who should

be in charge of the space traffic management and what liability should they assume when its direction to a satellite operator to move its spacecraft or its failure to provide a timely alert that results in a collision or debris. and i cannot verify that question on the liability of the federal agency to the space operator? >> either the liability that the agency has or should have. >> i think the liability is an interesting question because these are obviously extensive pieceexpensivepieces of equipmet very fast speeds and can cause a lot of damage and there is when you define a federal agency that is going to be in charge they take on a responsibility and part of the points that i pointed out that we should have in the legislation is this technological capability. so right now that's capability if we name a federal agency lets say the faa then there becomes

the question of where are they getting their data. they have to rely on me to get their data and then are they going to do this analysis were they have to rely on me to the collision analysis were the fda to do the collision analysis and so until the problems of where the data comes from and how it is going to be managed by that agency comes through its way to be difficult to determine who is going to be liable for these actions. i would quickly added that the international level, the state is liable so the way that we manage our domestic asset is going to be important in the way that we interact internationally because we could be on the hook for something the commercial actor does. >> it does seem to me there is a fair amount of risk that is inherent when you cannot entirely be accurate if it comes to predicting how you move a

satellite or how you move a spacecraft. so, these liability issues i think we have to explore in the responsibility in another lead agency. with that i yield and i think that we have a lot more questions to ask and answer before we come to the point that we need to legislate in this area. thank you. >> the chair now recognizes mr. bush of arizona. >> i want to focus on what we do with the debris that is already there. we talked mostly about regulating a regulatory climate right now. but i'm interested in -- anyone can answer -- what is happening about either capture or deflect the orbit of existing space debris because i think it seems to me that 50 years from now we may not even be able to fly in

space if we are going to way we are because we won't be able to get out of the way. obviously when you capture this you have to be going at similar speeds or it's going to destroy whatever you try to capture. mr. zamka maybe you can start. >> as a part of our center of excellence function we have six studies and work to begin to characterize the degree to predict where it's going to be better and then identify potential efforts of remediation and other are some things that can increase the drag to begin to bring the pieces down but it is a difficult problem. the most important thing relative to today is the plan to

mediate the debris on orbit is dependent on not creating more debris now and as we see in any single act to create a tremendous amount of debris. >> you pointed out deflecting the order magnetically or physically deposit of the vienna seems like we could solve the problem with a bigger step but all of the little stuff, you know like the stuff that hits the space shuttle between to be very hard to get that out of the orbit it seems like. the commissio telecommunications at the same low earth orbit regime which is where it one of the debris is there's quite a bit of work going on in the community both on studying the problem and looking at some technology that is still near the level that it's early stages

of the promising ones that might need to be adapted down the road. nasa works with other agencies to studies on this issue and they've done a lot of modeling. one of the big questions that we are grappling with is do we go after the big things were the little things? because of the generally is different types of technology. it doesn't mean twice as much money probably. and the difference is the source of the new debris in the future. so removing them you are controlling the long-term growth but it's the current threat to o satellites. so removing that is a short-term lowering of risk. and that is the choice between which strategy is more important and that is the basis going on in the scientific community. >> as far as medication in the future and this would apply to u.s. lawyers because we can't control the international community but is there any talk

about penalizing financially people that generate the space junk? does anyone want to talk about that? it seems if you are a private entity and you put something up into space that generates a lot of problems coming to know, what can we do about that and is there a way to financially address that? >> there have been suggestions and proposals in the past and eight tax or something. a recurring problem is who has the authority to put that in place. as you mentioned it in international environment and there are more than 60 countries that are now launching satellites into space objects, and each of them has authority over their own private sector activities. ..

it is mostly government satellites. at the moment there is not a activity there. there will be in the future, but not there. how do you incentivize the government? i yield back. >> thank you. the chair now recognizes mr. schweikert. is terrifying, what makes us

laugh. the first question, and i want to make sure i understand the hierarchy of the mechanics. u.s. but private commercial satellite, directv, something of that nature, it is put up in space, does not carry insurance. most companies do have insurance on their satellites. self-ensure, so they may put up money -- fund or something, but somehow there is an insurance product. french, east indian, private telecommunications or private cable or television provider, do they carry insurance? do they have a national indemnity? ,> from different countries

they have different rules concerning how they go about -- as an example i am aware of the united kingdom, for any of the folks that might launch under their flag, they have a space act, and some of the requirements is indemnification of the crown, so the speak. it depends on the country and what the rules are associated with their activities. to fine, am trying these are expensive objects, from the private and governmental. have great value. we know there is an insurance regime of some mix. it may not the universal in design. we know we have incentives because of the value, there is some structure out there. what happens today? how do they communicate today?

general, let's say you see something heading toward my direct tv satellite. do you communicate with them? question.for the absolutely. we are very interested in maintaining a safe space domain. my organization and specifically the command center that i have the joint operations center at center,rg air space tracks those objects, and of those objects, not only do we track them, but we detect potential conjunctions. yourat was part of testimony and helpful, the communication regime. the satellite providing television for australia. the you communicate with them? >> we do. if we detect a conjunction, if we can detect a conjunction, we will make an emergency notification, --

>> doesn't come the other direction, where the private tracking firm that is managing -- do they communicate back to you? -way sharingwo agreements with 41 different companies. trackingthe capabilities out there are our tracking capabilities and largely we are the ones who are doing this for the world. >> to any of those private firms ever provide their statistics saying we actually believe you missed our orbit by a few yards, a few this, few degrees, we have some wobbles, some elliptical -- do they share that data? >> for those we have agreements with, they provide owner-operated -- the address in space, if you will. they have the exact address, so they provide that back and

forth. the challenge is our command and control systems we have is not allow us to automatically ingest that. we have a system that will allow that automatic ingestion of owner-operated data. >> mr. chairman come as my buddy and i were talking a moment ago, as we thisee the commercialization incentives, we know we have the need, we know we have the medication structure, and we know it is ultimately going to be international. is there a way where we could ever at these parties where they have certain automated information exchange back and forth, and others are carrying the costs of this? thank you, mr. chairman. i yield i. thehe chair next recognizes former chair of the science,

space, and technology committee, mr. hall. >> thank you for holding this hearing. some, general raymond, time ago, maybe 15 years ago, we had a hearing on astronauts -- on asteroids, and to our surprise we found out one had within 15 minutes of the united states. no one knew about it or gave us any a warning about. england, japan, france -- it is a world problem, not just the u.s., but got very little hope from them. or a few of them showed up. we had some hearings on that. frankly, it scared you did it. give us a sense of the process that goes in when you want to protect our national security in our -- and her commercial assets could be threatened by orbital

tdebris? how much warning does nasa have when there are instances? if this is too general -- >> we track every object for nasa. we have nasa operators that sit on our floor with us. we take very seriously the protection of the international space station. you heard from our previous panelist at the space station had moved 16 times. we recommended they move it twice. there is a layered approach. we detect where the debris is, and as it get's into a certain area around the space station, we can put more energy on that debris, refined the orbital accuracy and our position estimate of that debris, and make recommendations.

it is something we take seriously and there is a set process with nasa operators and we do that for all of our dod satellites. as i mentioned earlier, for any conjunction that we see is going to hit on an emergency basis, we notify the world. i know you must have processes for the government operators to warn them about any possible collusion. but what type do you have with the private operators? how do they know this and how do you contact them? or how do they contact you or how do they watch and listen to? >> we have a tracking network of about 21 different sensors around the globe the track what i will call addresses in space of objects, debris or satellite. we post that on a website, www.space track.org. anybody can get on there and all of the addresses are large portion of the things in space we put other publicly for everybody to have.

>> and the private operator has just a good operation as a government operator to know -- >> to have that debt. for those who and into agreements with those we go beyond that we provide service to them in addition to that data and then again on an emergency basis even for those who don't have agreement. >> we have 41 different companies now that habit and we've got five different nations that we've signed agreements with and there's five or six more in the hopper right now going through the negotiations as we speak. >> thank you for the work. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the chair next recognizes mr. rohrabacher of california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i apologize. i had another hearing, mark up on another committee and i will be here reading your testimony. i think this issue is vitally

important for the future of not only the united states but all humankind. the debris issue is not a secondary issue. debris is something that will limit humankind's ability to use the space for our benefit and to up left mankind, humankind. and we are getting to a point of saturation now would either we deal with it or we will suffer the consequences of this limited, this limit on the benefits that we can utilize space for. one need only take a look at how we rely on space for whether. for communications. you name it. we have brought down the cost of telephone calls so dramatically with the use of space. we have agriculture that now depends on space. gps.

we have whole economies based on space better now in jeopardy because we're not cleaning up our trash. we need to make sure that we just not track it. it's like a tracking trash in space. it's not the answer. what the answer is eliminating the trash from space, and this shouldn't just be something the american taxpayer needs to bear the burden of. we need to make sure that we have an initiative. we should hopefully, this hearing will provide step number one for creating international initiative to clear space debris from orbital space. and i would imagine that our friends in the eu and russia and perhaps, i can't speak for china, considering the fact that they've contributed so much to this problem as of late, but we

should make this an international effort and the steps should be made to get this thing moving. otherwise we're putting all of these wonderful assets that we have invested in and are currently helping improve the condition of humankind. we're putting them at risk. let me note, the chairman, our chairman of the full committee, just mentioned that we talked about near earth objects. when he was chairman, and i think that we probably had something where we are tracking them a little bit more than what we were then, but i don't think that we have done anything that right now that we could count on to say if we see a near-earth object that's going to hit the earth and destroy, large numbers of people, whether not we have a system in place that we could then activate to deflect that

near-earth object. i believe that system is in place. well, we've got two major threats there. thinks we should be able to work on with our allies and friends throughout the world in order to achieve this as a human goal, a goal for all of humankind as they say. so thank you very much for your testimony. i will be reading it. i'm sorry that i missed -- and i will be happy to yield to my colleague from maryland. is that agreeable? did you want sometime? i would be happy to yield. >> does the gentleman from california have anymore questions? >> i'm done. [laughter] >> thank you. the chair at this point, subject to the call for votes on the house floor, is going to entertain a second round of questions and the going to defer my second round at this point and recognize the ranking member from maryland, ms. edwards. >> thank you very much, mr.

chairman. the reason i wanted mr. rohrabacher to stay because, in mr. weeden's test when he had a recommendation for the executive branch to clarify its strategy for assessing the orbital debris removal. it really struck a chord because it out of committee, bipartisan committee passed bill just a couple weeks ago we included a provision that would require nasa in collaboration with other relevant federal agencies to review the concepts and tactic coal options for removal or bottle debris -- technical options. said getting to this question of not just looking at it and know where it is all very important, but what will be our strategy for removing it? we need to free up some of that space for all the additional activity that's going on. so i wonder if any of you have any views, mr. weeden, starting with you, about what an effective approach and nasa might take to address this particular provision, assuming that it does become law?

>> that's a very interesting question. it's a very challenging question because at the moment there's no single technology that seems to be the answer. the are a couple of different technologies that have some promise, and so i think a first step would probably be to figure out what those technologies are and then look for how are we going to mature those technologies? because the moment that they exist we generally know theoretically that would probably work but most of them have not been demonstrated in operational manner. so the identifying what the most promising technologies are, and then some sort of a strategy to mature them, the risk reduction and some sort of demonstration mission on orbit of one or more of these technologies. i think it's probably going to to be an international demonstration mission in nature given the nature that all the debris is international. a country can only really touch

the thing that it owns and so there will have to be some level of cooperation. >> given that the united states mostly tracks all of this, i would assume we should be able to get some cooperation. general raymond, is there a way that dod can play in terms of maturing some of these technologies? >> bam, there's a lot of discussions going on around the world on this problem and it is an important issue. i think the our roles week ago. i've not heard to date without any specific technology that's out there that i see is, is something near-term that will be able to solve this problem. >> mr. nelson? >> i think mr. weeden touched on it. the technologies and being able to take the items out of orbit and getting them out of orbit is there important. obviously, if you get it out the likelihood is they won't question is something else.

the issue comes down to is whether or not you take out -- somebody else's piece of debris. the flags that are flying, even if it's not usable, that particular item has the flag of another country. so there were probably have to be some sort of treaty work or something along those lines or agreements made between nations in order to be able to effectively work that out. >> great. i know that goddard space flight center has rather robust activity going on now to try to look at ways to resurface some of these decommissioned satellites as a way to get them back in service, not put new winds up. that, too, is a long way down the line but something i think we need to invest in. with that mr. chairman, i will yield. >> thank you. mr. rohrabacher, we have time for another round of questions on your and if you any additional questions.

the house floor vote has not yet been called. >> i would just like to suggest that we make this the first step and not just a public relations -- this is a problem, you know. we can do something in congress to work with these folks and to work with people internationally. when i travel overseas, i'm on the foreign affairs committee, i always want to go to another country i go and talk to their space people. every time i talk to the space people, whether it's russia or japan or europe, they all are in tune with this is the challenge that we're going to have to someday deal with. because it's coming to the point now where it's imperative to do with it because it's limiting what we can do in space.

so let me see, i would just say, okay, have any of you had any talk with, for example, the russians or the eu or japan on this issue? >> server, the faa is engage with a lot of international partners, including european space agency and we have letters of agreement with countries like spain. because of such a big international problem there is international will to attack it. one thing we had an opportune to do here is identify a civil agency that can represent the united states, which is the biggest operator out in orbit to take a leadership role as we communicate with the rest. >> i remember one of the directors of the space program in russia telling me that they had been thinking about some,

almost a bulldozer type of thing where you had some kind of a big shield in front of something that would go forward and get a hold of some of this debris. we actually -- are we studying anything that would be -- there's one idea. i mean, i'm not saying it's good or bad. are we really, you mentioned that we don't have any -- is there a program on that is after going to develop the technology on this? >> at the moment i'm only aware of one nasa funded program to do some technology development, refers to the electrodynamics tether which is a spacecraft that could use the combination of electrical fields and earth magnetic field to maneuver without using fuel aside from sunlight. the technology is fairly early stages but it could be one of the more efficient ways of moving around and gather debris. i'm not aware of any other u.s.

government-funded program but i will say that in reference to question by international efforts come next month there will be a meeting hosted by the french space agency that has participation from japan, from nasa, from russia, a number of the countries, a three-day workshop looking at technology and engineering solutions for this. >> really? where will that be? >> it will be in paris. they've held this workshop every two years. this is the third instance of it. >> what days are the? >> it will be june 16, 17, 18, around there. >> mr. chairman, i would suggest that someone from this committee go to that hearing, or that meeting. [laughter] >> is that a request? [laughter] >> thank you he may have to compete with the chairman and the ranking member. [laughter] >> does the gentleman from

california have anymore questions? all right. let me exercise my prerogative now, ask my questions. general raymond, if an event like the cosmos collision happened today, how would jfcc respond specifically can you give the committee a sense of the process that goes into action to protect our assets on international space station or other national security commercial asset that could be threatened by such an event? >> thank you for the question. if an event happens were to sell its collided it would generate debris, we would detect that debris with her network of centers around the globe. we would characterize that debris. we would get an orbital element or the address in space if you of that debris and we would we find that over time and put that debris into our catalog. once it's in the catalog as i discussed earlier we have the process in place we differ every active satellite on orbit. we would screen against that debris to ensure that we were

provided proper warning if something were to collide. >> that's the vote call but we still have 50 minutes before we have to be on the house floor. a follow-up question. how long does it take, generally speaking, for the orbital debris to have its orbit to the point where goes back to earth and it's no longer an issue? >> mr. chairman, there's lots of factors that are involved in that. that. >> is there some kind of average number of years or decades or a range of? >> i don't have that a much of t to. there are so many factors involved. it's size, shape, speed, velocity. a whole bunch of things. we do predict reentry and we tried to three entries. we track those, we warn against them, when they will reenter but i can't tell you, you know, i can't give you a time for how many years. but when it gets close we can

characterize that reentry and we warn against that as well. >> mr. nelson? >> the general actually hit on the issue but it's basically the altitude, the shape of the object, the mass of the object. and it can range quite -- there's a very, very large range from tomorrow to maybe a million years from now. depending on where that particular object is a so that brings up the issue of basically taking it out of the orbit. >> mr. weeden? >> just to give you some ballpark numbers, at the space station i would say rough estimate on the order of months to maybe a very short number of years your when you move up higher, what's it about 800 kilometers where most of the remote sensing satellites are in the grid congestion, debris is, and the collision was and the chinese satellite test was, at that altitude you were talking decades or longer. once you get beyond

1000 kilometers for all intents and purposes it's up there pretty much as far as we are concerned, forever. >> thank you. general raymond come as a follow-up to my car to question to you, faa requested in the reinvestment 43 to require operators to move positions is a possible collision is detected. how would your process change if at all if that authority is granted to the faa? >> the faa would still rely on the data we get from our senses but we'll be providing that dated. today, again we warn others conjunction. we do not have the authority to make a satellite operator move. i can't -- i can make commercial satellites i don't have that authority but they would take our data that we have and use that data in their new role. >> thank you. any other follow-up on that? mr. zamka? >> if i may, the request to have the ability to have an operator

be forced to move, that can be done in a number of ways. earlier is better. earlier interaction press agree with the operator as part of the operating process was a quick it would be for which they move in the progress of all would be an industry based consensus on what is the agreeable time to affect a move. all these things involve probabilities and a lot of expense for the operator, frankly. >> all right. i thank the witnesses for the valuable testimony and the members for the questions. the members of the committee may have additional questions for you and we'll ask you to respond to those in writing. the record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments. written questions from the members, the witnesses are excused and this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] earlier today, president obama talked about energy efficiency and climate change. he addressed the impact of climate change, why believes it's happening right now. here are some of his remarks. together, the commencements we are announcing today prove that there are cost-effective ways to tackle climate change and create jobs at the same time. so often when we hear about how we will deal with this really serious issue, they say it will not be good for the economy. it will be good for the economy long term. if we don't, that would be bad for the economy.

drought, moreels, wildfires, more severe storms. those are bad for the economy. wait.not afford to there's no reason why we cannot even go further than we are so far by working with states and utilities and other organizations to change the way that we power our economy. climate change is real. we have to act now. we issued a report that was years in the making that was the national climate assessment. not for profits, local communities, all contributed over the force of four years. not some far it's off place in the future. it is half -- it is causing hardship now affecting every sector of our economy and society. more violent wildfires. it's already costing cities, states, families, businesses

money. here in california, you have seen the effects firsthand. and moregly, more americans do including, by the way, many republicans outside of washington. unfortunately, inside washington we still have some the climate buters who shout loud they're wasting everybody's time on a simple debate. climate change is a fact. we know the shift to clean energy won't happen overnight, we have to make some tough choices along the way. it willthat if we do save us ultimately money and create jobs in the long term. not when walmart understands. that's why this fight is so important. that's why the sooner we work together to adapt the economy to this reality of climate change,

more likely we do right i our kids and leave a more stable world. that is what motivates a whole lot of us. as americans, we don't look backwards. we don't fear the future. we seize it. we shape it. we havecomes to energy, a chance to shape that sector that is probably going to have more to do with how well our economy succeeds down just about any other. we are blessed when it comes to energy but much more blast when it comes to the innovation and the dynamism and creativity of our economy. >> just some of the president's remarks from earlier today in mountain view, california. you can watch his entire speech at 7:45 p.m. eastern here on c-span or any time online on c-span.org.

on the next "washington erie from richard vigu tea party hq. americaner for progress looking at policies that directly affect working mothers including maternity leave and the pay gap between .en and women talking about preparing for the advanced placement u.s. government examined what will be on the test. your e-mails, facebook comments and tweets. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. i am not be clear that defending ms. lerner. i wanted to hear what she had to say. i have questions about why she was unaware of the inappropriate criteria for more than a year after they were created. she did notow why mention the inappropriate criteria in her letters to congress but i could not vote to violate an individual's fifth

amendment rights just because i want to hear what she has to say. in much greater principle is at stake here today. the fifthty of amendment rights for all citizens of the united states of america. i have never alleged that it goes to the president. i have said that the tea party be described as adverse to the president's policies and i think that's pretty comfortable to understand. they were targeted by someone with politics who was quite frankly trying to overturn the supreme court decision in citizens united in support of the president's decision using her power. can urge, i yield support. >> this weekend on c-span, house debate on holding former irs official lois lerner in contempt of congress for refusing to answer questions about targeting

conservative groups saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern. thatook tv," arguing president obama's foreign-policy will harm international and regional safety sunday at 7:30 p.m. on c-span 2. on "american history tv," the newly unveiled restoration of the mount vernon dining room. c-span 3.sunday on >> earlier today, the house foreign affairs committee approved a number of bills including one condemning the abduction of several nigerian girls and another on human rights violations in venezuela. this is one hour.

>> the committee will come to order. i would ask all members of they could take a seat at this time. we meet to notice, today to mark up three strongly bipartisan measures dealing with pressing humanitarian issues. because these measures enjoy broad support him because we're looking at a short legislative day, the ranking member randie intend to consider them-- and i intend to consider them en bloc. .hey will be considered red hr 4573, international megan's law authored by mr. smith. and the smith amendment, number fit to three, the bipartisan amendment and the nature of the substitute provided to your offices last night. hr-4573 provided to your offices last night.

hr-4547 the venezuelan human rights and democracy promotion act authored by congresswoman ros-lehtinen. the salmon amendment and the third bill house resolution 573 condemning the abduction of female students by boko haram authored by congresswoman frederica wilson. and the royce amendment to house resolution 573. without objection all members may have five days to submit statements for the record and any extraneous material on today's items. and after opening remarks by myself and the ranking member i'll be glad to recognize any member seeking recognition to speak on the en bloc items. this morning we are considering subcommittee chairman smith's hr-4573. it is the international megan's law to prevent demand for child sex trafficking.

this bill deals with an issue i know all of us want desperately to address, the horrendous exploitation of children overseas by adults traveling for purposes of engaging in so-called sex tourism. unfortunately this has become a growing industry in a number of countries which are ill-equipped to deal with an influx of child predators, including from the united states. this bill codifies existing law enforcement efforts to combat child sex tourism by establishing the angel watch center. within the department of homeland security's child exploitation investigation center. the angel watch center currently operates by combing through massive amounts of data from multiple agency sources to analyze foreign travel by convicted child sex offenders, and determine whether notification to u.s. officials or foreign governments is warranted. this bill improves vastly the

speed of the information that the center receives and the staffing at the center. right now there's one lady doing this and it's often after the fact. this rectifies this and will allow the center to better detect and report the travel of child predators so that that is prevented. it also requires the center to maintain records of its work so that we have more information about how other countries are combatting child sex tourism. listen, i think all of us here who have worked with congressman smith over the years know we all owe him a debt of gratitude for his heartfelt commitment to this issue and i want to thank him for his leadership, and a long-standing dedication that i think has surpassed what anybody else has ever put in to trying to track and do something about this issue.

and i'd note that there was very close collaboration with the judiciary's majority and minority on this bill, and ranking member engel and i look forward to working with our colleagues on this committee and the judiciary committee as we move forward to ensure that the bill's notification provisions are effective, and satisfactory. now we also consider house resolution 573 on the recent boko haram abductions. this sunday is mother's day. but for hundreds of mothers in nigeria, this will be another day of horrendous grief. their daughters are missing. kidnapped from school by an islamist terrorist group. this resolution puts the committee firmly on record in condemning this atrocious abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls. many around the world are just learning of the evil of boko haram. unfortunately for the communities in northern nigeria, the terror there has existed for

years. sadly, boko haram lives up to its name. that name translated loosely is western education is a sin. they have killed more than 600 students and teachers. they have destroyed some 500 schools. they have denied more than 15,000 young nigerians an education. they've killed many other people, as well. but their focus has been on killing teachers, and going after students and killing students or abducting them. despite knowing the dangers, these young women were committed, they were all committed to their education. and they took that risk of trying to go to school. boko haram has been a focus of this committee for which subcommittee chairman smith and ranking member bass deserve credit. members will recall that it was pressure from this committee that was critical in convincing

the state department, forcing the state department, to des ignite boko haram as a terrorist organization, a foreign terrorist organization as the designation today. indeed the administration made that announcement in this room under pressure from the members of this committee, and it should not have taken so long. commanders at the pentagon have stated that boko haram is, quote, a threat to western interests, and one of the highest counterterrorism priorities in africa. that's especially the case given nigeria's position as a continent's most populous country and the largest economy in africa. this resolution reaffirms our support for the assistance that the administration's offered to help the nigerian's find these girls, but more needs to be done. i'm pleased that we are considering an amendment i've authored and the ranking member supports to encourage more aggressive assistance. it's clear the nigerian forces

are struggling in this fight. direct u.s. security assistance, intelligence, and advisers in the field can make a big difference in rescuing these girls, and combatting this threat. years ago a key military assist from the british was key in ridding sierra leone of a rebel insurrection. if you remember the revolutionary united front, and the amputations of children that they used to conduct. more recently, french efforts in mali have been key to combatting that al qaeda threat there. historically the nigerians have been reluctant to receive such outside aid. luckily, that seems to be changing. we should be pushing on the nigerian government to accept as much help as they can, to save these young women now, and to e eliminate the boko haram threat soon. this resolution is part of that push. and lastly we are also advancing hr-4787 to impose targeted sanctions on venezuela's human

rights abusers. since february, thousands of student activists have taken to venezuela's streets to highlight rampant crime and lawlessness. these peaceful protests have grown in size and frequency, and the response from their government, president maduro, who was hugo chavez's hand-picked successor, has unleashed a heavy-handed, and violent response that has resulted in many senseless deaths, countless casualties, and the jailings of thousands, including many senior opposition leaders. in fact, a new human rights report released this week found a, quote, pattern of serious abuse carried out repeatedly by multiple security forces in multiple locations, unquote. just yesterday we learned of fresh reports of hundreds of more students being rounded up and tossed in jail. this legislation opposes targeted sanctions on those

individuals who've carried out human rights abuses or who ordered the violence against those peaceful protesters. while the obama administration has been supporting political talks in caracas, there unfortunately has been little progress there. if the maduro government is to agree to true reforms, to reverse the dissent, its leaders must feel the pressure. targeting those officials who have directed this repression is a good place to start. chairman emeritus ros-lehtinen should be recognized for her efforts on this legislation, and i appreciate her and chairman salmon working in a bipartisan way with the democratic members, mr. sires and other members on the committee. i will recognize our ranking member mr. engel of new york for his remarks. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. for holding today's markup on these important pieces of legislation, and as usual, for

working with us in such a bipartisan manner. firstly i'd like to commend our colleague mr. chris smith of new jersey for his leadership on anti-trafficking issues, and for his hard work on hr-4573. there were a lot of negotiations going on with this bill, and mr. smith was of one purpose, wanting to have an effective law to combat child trafficking. and was willing to make the necessary compromises to truly receive bipartisan support for this bill. so i commend him for his tenacity, his sincerity, and for his hard work. this legislation, called international megan's law, aims to prevent child sex offenders and traffickers from exploiting vulnerable children when they cross an international border. in reality is that some sex offenders are traveling overseas

to exploit children in a practice known as sex tourism. in some of these countries extreme poverty and inadequate law enforcement protocols enable sex offenders to continue their victimization of children, often unbeknownst to the local government or with local law enforcement turning a blind eye. international megan's law establishes an angel watch center within immigration and customs enforcement that would provide advance notice to foreign countries when a convicted child sex offenders travels to that country. the bill also calls on the president to negotiate memoranda of understanding, or other bilateral agreements with foreign governments that would encourage information sharing on known child sex offenders. worldwide, it is reported that over 2 million children are sexually exploited each year through trafficking, prostitution and child sex tourism. 2 million children. that's just staggering. we need to do all we can to encourage the international community to address this

scourge. mr. chairman, i'd like to thank you for working with us to move this important legislation forward. i also want to thank the judiciary committee for working with us in a bipartisan manner. to come up with a practical and effective mechanism which will serve the twin goals of deterrence and prevention. i understand that there is one outstanding provision in the judiciary committee's jurisdiction regarding actual notice that will be worked out in good faith prior to floor consideration. next i'd like to thank my good friend miss ros-lehtinen for authoring the venezuela human rights and democracy protection act. i've been privileged to work with her on this important legislation. it's very important in the eyes of the world are on venezuela. as president nicolas maduro and his security forces crack down on peaceful protesters, it's an absolute tragedy that 41 people have been killed and over 100 injured at protests throughout the country. you know, i just came back from

ukraine with the chairman, and what's going on in venezuela reminds me a lot of what was going on in ukraine with the protests. i am grateful for president obama and secretary kerry's strong statements condemning the maduro government's represe reprehensible actions. at the same time i'm disappointed by the silence of oas member states many of which suffered repression at the hands of their own governments in the not so distant past. while i'm pleased that negotiations are under way between the maduro government, and segments of the opposition, i'm concerned that not enough progress has been made. this bill has been crafted to impose targeted sanctions on human rights violators in venezuela, while not harming average venezuelans who are already suffering as a result of terrible economic mismanagement by first by hugo chavez and now maduro. i hope that this committee and the house leadership will work

closely with state department in determining when it is appropriate for this bill to be considered by the house of representatives. when we return to washington the week of may 19th, i believe we should assess the state of negotiations between the venezuelan government and opposition, and the situation on the ground in venezuela, before deciding whether to bring this bill before the full house. again i thank miss ros-lehtinen, chairman royce for their leadership on this important legislation. and urge my colleagues to support its approval by the committee. finally i strongly support hrs-573, a resolution offered by my former committee colleague miss frederica wilson of florida. this important resolution condemns the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in northern nigeria by the terrorist group boko haram, an act so heinous that it's even been criticized by some supporters of al qaeda. this is only the latest in a long string of grisly and

heartless attacks that boko haram, which has burned schools and killed students, attacked churches and mosques, murdered christian and muslim religious leaders, and set off bombs in the capital city of abuja, hrs-573 strongly condemns the abduction of the girls and supports u.s. and international efforts to assist in their recovery. while i hope these efforts are successful, we must also recognize that nigeria's approach to countering terrorism has not been very effective. there is extensive reporting on human rights abuses, committed by the nigerian military, which compound the fear experienced by citizens of the north, and alienate the very community that could be providing valuable intelligence on boko harem. i hope the nigerian government will see this kidnapping as a wake-up call to re-evaluate their counterterrorism strategy, and that we can work with them to share expertise on civil and military relations, and

development for the long neglected northern region of the country. in closing i'd like to again thank chairman royce and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle for working in a bipartisan way on these important pieces of legislation. >> thank you mr. ingle. do any members seek recognition to speak on any of the en bloc items? congresswoman ros-lehtinen? >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. and thank you to our ranking member eliot engel for working with my office and mr. salmon's office, and mr. sires, to bring up this bill on the venezuela situation to mark up this morning. i'd like to recognize the many venezuelan americans who have made a long trip from new york, michigan, ohio, florida, to be here and to witness this day, and like to point out in the audience maria conchito alonzo who is a wonderful actress. i loved her role in moscow on the hudson with robin williams. it's good to see her.

thank you all for being here. for three months now as both of the gentlemen have explained the maduro regime in venezuela has committed human rights violations as it seeks to muzzle the students who are peaceful, and they have been marching with a clear call. they're calling for the respect for human rights, and democracy to really take hold in their nation. so far they have been over 40 people killed, nearly 60 reported cases of torture, more than 2,000 people unjustly detained. hundreds more injured, and let's look at what has happened just this week, mr. chairman, and members, just this week, 250 teenage protesters who had camped out in public squares to protest were rounded up at 3:00 in the morning yesterday. also just this week the venezuelan intelligence agency picked up and has put in detention rodrigo diemante, the

leader of a world without muzzle. censorship continues. this week another prominent independent radio program was pulled off the airwaves. this week, newspapers are saying that they have about two weeks left of newsprint. maduro has restricted newsprint coming into the country. the government has put many challenges in their way to provide information to the people of venezuela. and lastly, opposition leader leopoldo lopez was supposed to have his day in court yesterday, and all of a sudden his hearing was simply postponed without reason, without discussion, without explanation, simply canceled. all of this happened just this week. but even with all of this repression, mr. chairman, the students and the student unions on several campuses in venezuela continue to show bravery and courage in standing up for democracy, and for freedom of expression. that is all they're asking. now mr. chairman, ranking member, and members, some

opponents of this legislation have claimed that we must give peace a chance regarding the talks, and just two notes about that. first of all, the violence is only on the government side. the students are not the violent ones. why create the violence and then say we have to have a dialogue for peace. here's a solution for peace, stop shooting the students. also, the uno team members are in the pockets of maduro, they're followers of maduro so how can you have any real discussion taking place there. and after several rounds of so-called negotiations, the talks have yielded no results, and it's not the u.s. that is derailing the process, venezuelan leader maduro and his goons are the ones that are derailing the process because they have the weapons, and their allies are using them against the people, the unarmed peaceful protesters.

other opponents believe that we should wait and see what the peace process can resolve. well, i ask, when is it a good time. how many more people have to be innocently killed for the time to be right? it will dmefr be right. maduro is the one whose perpetrating the violence. it's simple. another topic i would like to clear up is the authorization funds in the bill. this is not new money. we already direct $5 million to civil society programs in venezuela. so the bill just ensures that we do not fall below that number, and that we do not preclude assistance for democracy, and human rights issues. which is what it should do. and again, i commend our committee, thank you mr. royce, our chairman, for your leadership. thank you mr. engel, and mr. salmon, and mr. sires, and for shining a light on the atrossies committed in venezuela, i urge my colleagues to support the bill, the venezuelan people are counting

on your support. thank you, mr. chairman. >> other members seeking -- mr. meeks? >> thank you, mr. chairman. first let me give a word on, and thank miss frederica wilson for her resolution on boko haram. you know, being the father of three daughters, this is just unbearable. and it is time for the world to unite, to make sure that those young girls are returned home, and that also those that committed this heinous act is brought to justice. and this bill, this resolution, joins with the rest of the world the focus that should be on this horrendous group that now has killed, and has these three -- almost 300 young girls and a number of others that they have killed as the chairman indicated in his opening statement, i know

of young boys that have been murdered. it is -- this resolution is kindly and i highly support it. i also thank mr. smith, because we do have to, you know, one of the most heinous acts is these sex crimes that's going across borders and all over the our place that we all earth. it's timely, and it's a resolution that i strongly support. moving on to hr-4587, the venezuelan human rights and democracy protection act. let me first say that i am deeply troubled by the violence that erupted in venezuela at the onset of protests months ago. and that i joined the people of venezuela in mourning the loss of so many lives. i remain committed to doing

everything in my power to supporting a positive outcome in that nation for its people. however, i strongly oppose hr-4587, and i believe vehemently that unilateral action is not the answer. this bill does not advance u.s. interests. it will not help the people of venezuela. and it sends the message to our regional allies that we don't care much about what they think. moreover, the obama administration has the authority to do what this bill calls for, and has shown its willingness to use its authority. so, then, what is our objective? is this intended to push venezuela to the brink? what would that do for the venezuelan people? i've had the opportunity to speak with most of our major allies in the region, and all of venezuela's neighbors. who are our allies. and i have yet to hear any support for sanctions. but there is strong support for multilateral engagement. our allies do not want to see the situation in venezuela worsen.

the unilateral sanctions bill we are considering this morning is misguided. it is, in fact, an unfortunate reminder of the history of the united states' arrogance in the western hemisphere. we have a legacy in the americas that is riddled with the long-lasting consequences. that legacy left us with a trust deficit. today, we are considering a bill that does nothing to help build trust. our standing in our own hemisphere will never improve unless or until we build that trust. while we pursue these sanctions our allies are actively supporting dialogue. members of this very committee have made it a point to denounce and even condemn regional organizations. yet one of those organizations has managed to be the facilitator of engagement between some and the opposition and the government of venezuela. we don't know yet if the mediation will lead to the effective dialogue. but the effort does deserve a

chance to succeed. it is my sincere open that those talks are successful, but at moments like this, i wonder if we prefer that dialogue fails. unilateral sanctions would be another policy mistake. i believe a very costly policy mistake. we mursz learn to work with our aol lies and individuals in the region and work collectively on this hemisphere and not be unilateral actors which further isolates us and causes us to have problems with our allies. and i yield back the balance of my time. >> we go now to mr. chris smith. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to thank you, chairman royce, for not only scheduling this but being so supportive. our staff here, we had 12 staffers working on this. both sides of the aisle. three committees, homend security and judiciary and of course our own foreign affairs staff. so i want to thank you and the

best council on the hill mark ines did multiple rewrites. this truly is a bipartisan bill and to remind some members who may not have been here years ago, we did pass the international megan's law back in 2010. and like so many of our initiatives, died in the senate and never even got a vote. hopefully this one will speed to passage over in the other body. you know the idea actually came from a meeting that i had with members of the tip trafficking persons from thailand back in 2007. as i often do i meet with people as they're traveling in, particularly countries that are on watch lists or tier three, and i ask them, if you knew that a convicted pedophile, a felon, was coming to bangkok or anyone else or phuket or anywhere else in thailand, what would you do? they said they wouldn't get a visa. and if they got in, we would watch them like a hawk.

that afternoon we began putting a framework together for an international megan's law. note parenthetically that megan kanka, the precious little 7-year-old who was brutally killed by a pedophile who lived across the street from her, nobody knew this man had been convicted and spent time in prison for sexually abusing children, he houred this little 7-year-old megan kanka into his home, brutally raped her and then killed her, and that led to the explosion now all 50 states and all territories, have a megan's law. a registry that has made a serious difference in preventing the impunity and the secrecy with which these people operate. international megan's law would notice countries of destination, stand up to angel watch program. we have worked with i.c.e. and others who have done a great job, but with extraordinarily limited resources. there was a case out in california where they had

actionable information of several pedophiles heading to south korea. they noticed south korea, and they didn't let them in. so these men were unable to abuse little children in korea. the legislation also seeks to establish a reciprocity. not unlike we did -- unlike what we did with the trafficking victim's protection act back in 2000. we want megan's law everywhere. there are some places like the uk that has a megan's law. but we don't want pedophiles coming here again convicted, not the allegation, these are convicted individuals, to abuse our children. there needs to be a watch attitude globally and that plays in to one of the major three ps of all efforts that we do on trafficking, prevention, prosecution, and protection. this will prevent, this could have a serious chilling effect on all this. finally, you know, and thank my two distinguished colleagues for explaining what is in the bill. in 2010 chlt gao found that in

2008 some 4500 u.s. passports were issued to registered sex offenders. and these men travel. and they travel under secrecy and they abuse little boys and little girls, then come back and go back to their jobs, whatever else they do. so this hopefully will at least at as a deterrent. let me shea mr. chairman very briefly on the issue of boko haram, we've had several hearings on boko haram, and have raised repeatedly with the administration, and finally in november they actually did it, that is to designate boko haram as a foreign terrorist organization. greg simpkins our staff director and i traveled there in september of last year. we went to a place called joss, a place where boko haram had firebombed churches, several churches, killed people, we met with the people who had been the survivors, and we learned, frankly after meeting with the imam and others that it's not

just christians that they target, they target muslims, as well. i had heard that but we heard it in great detail while we were there. these people are pathological. they are killers. they're like joseph kone and mr. chairman you have done so much in trying to combat that man who has killed so many and allowed his people to rape so many girls, particularly young girls. so this legislation i think helps put us all on record to express our outrage, it is good, i think the administration has deployed a number of people, including the head of africom, fbi, justice, u.s.aid, human rights bureau, they're en route as we talk, and as we made and hopefully there will be an all-out global effort, the french have stepped up, many european countries, the uk, china has even signaled their concern about this so i think hopefully those girls will be rescued and brought back to their grieving parents. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. smith. we go now to albio sires of new

jersey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me stirs start by recognizing the hard work of frederica wilson from florida and my colleague from new jersey, chris smith. i've known chris smith many years, this is a passion of his, and i'm very proud of the fact that he represents new jersey, and especially his hard work on sex trafficking. and of course, i'd be remiss if i didn't mention my colleague from florida ileana ros-lehtinen and her hard work that she has always, always put forward in efforts like this. and mr. chairman, i thank you for holding this markup. for holding this markup and authorizing the administration to impose targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for ordering and carrying out the warranted violence against empty government demonstrators in venezuela that began three months ago. since the anti-government process began in february, at least 41 people have died. hundreds have been jailed.

beaten, and injured at the hands of venezuela's government forces. and armed supporters as they express their frustration to the deteriorating conditions in their country. just this week human rights watch released a scathing report detailing the oppressive tactics by security forces and pro-government armed groups against demonstrators while noting the implicit nature of government prosecutors and judges in tolerating abuses while prosecuting. while mr. maduro has engaged in mediation talks with the opposition, such talks have thus far been of little substance. more importantly, however, promising these talks are they do not exonerate the ruthless acts of violence and human rights abuses that have been carried out against the demonstrators. this bill which i proudly support is a testament that the

united states would not condone acts over aggression limiting the freedom of assembly in our hemisphere and it equips the administration with the appropriate tools necessary to act accordingly. i thank chairman royce, ranking member engel, and ileana ros-lehtinen for their leadership and their efforts in advancing this bill, which i urge my colleagues to support. thank you. >> mr. rohrabacher are you seeking recognition? >> yes, i am. >> mr. rohrabacher of california. >> i would yield one minute of my time to mr. smith. >> i'll only take about 30 seconds. i just want to make clear, too, some of our friends on the democratic side on the judiciary committee, again, they have worked very closely with us, but i would commit to working with them toward an additional amendment before the bill gets to the floor that would alert the child sex offenders when they arrive at the airport of an angel watch's notification action. so they're fully apprised about what has happened, regarding them.

so that will be something we will do. >> thank you. yes, i would like to rise in support of this amendment, all three of them are fine examples of legislation based on those moral values that guide all of us here, and that we are so proud of that america officially stands behind. especially i'd like to thank miss ros-lehtinen for her leadership, and in providing us a vision of what goes on in venezuela and cuba and other countries, where wehave such repression. president maduro is obviously synonymous with repression, corruption, the impoverishment of his people, cronyism, brutality and yes, even murder. and we join today, we join join

people of venezuela, in demanding a respect for human rights, and yes, demanding -- demanding with them free and fair elections to try to make sure that this malady that they suffer will be removed from them. i commend -- commend you very much, and commend my colleagues fortiting this legislation, which will hold accountable people who are committing crimes against their own people, and in this case, in venezuela. i would hope that we all are committed to those principles, but we use this as a vehicle, number one,who are committing the crimes accountable, but also reaffirming that human rights

and the democratic the democrat unite the people of the world. and how this issue should be involved eventually will be a democratic election in which we join the people venezuela to help them ensure that as we did in various election s elections sure that there is an honest process to choose their own government. thank you very much. . we foe now to mr. ted deutsche of florida. >> thanks to you and the ranking member for holding today's markup. i'd like to commend mr. smith for his important legislation involving sex trafficking. i'd like to commend ms. wilson for her resolution that aims to take on the tough issue of the

abduction of these female students by boko haram. anytime we have an opportunity to stand up against terror and in support of children's rights, we should do it. but i really want to thank my friend and colleague chafor her work in moving the act forward and for doing it swiftly. i'm proud to be an original co-sponsor. this bill will empower the administration are w. tools to crack down on human rights abuses taking place against those seeking basic freedoms in venezuela. people in venezuela have the democratic right to supreme of speech, to freedom of assembly, on do process and the democratic right to a responsive government. tragically the madura regime has trampled over each of these rights. this government has continued its repressive policies.

journalists are imprisoned, protesters are subjected to serious abuses, torture and even death. and for what? simple li becauy because of ven demanding greater security where 2500 people were murdered for the first two months of 2014. or is it because people are suffering from serious food scarcity and lack of access to basic supplies. these are simple basic demands from the citizens of a democratic state. the unlandfall and unjust use of force can the not be tolerated. there is no justification for the abusive tactics used by the security forces against mostly n nonvie lolent protesters. gangs use aggressive crackdown tactics. with a judiciary clearly in the

pocket of president maduro, these gangs and security forces have been free to repeatedly commit human rights abuses with impu impunity. this this behavior exposes the true colors of the madura geem. regime. i strongly support the bill before us today. it would impose sanctions on individuals that have contributed in anyway to the violent crackdown. i thank the administration's strong stance on this issue and i believe that this bill will provide more diplomatic tools to convince madura to reach a peaceful resolution. the voices of the people must be heard. and their fundamental freedoms must be protected. we must make clear to president madura and his cronies that he has to respect the democratic rights of all venezuelans and

proet them fr protect them from undue suppression. there are a lot of issues that we grapple with around the world. but human rights matter. they matter to us and they matter to us wherever those rights are trampled anywhere in the world. this is not an issue that the venezuelan people alone care about, that venezuelan americans alone care about. this is an issue that if we care about those democratic ideals that we like to talk about time and time again in this congress, then we should all care about it. that is what this bill does. i commend my good friend. it is not that long ago that we first learned of the s.o.s. venezuela signed. the people of venezuela have sent us an s.o.s. signal and today is the first step in a serious way that this congress will respond. thank you and i yield back.

>> mr. sams salmon of arizona. >> thank you. i want to thank the gentle woman for always standing on the right of freedom and liberty. thank you for holding this markup, a truly bipartisan effort. and for those watching this hearing out in america and across the world, this is the most bipartisan committee i think that exists in the entire congress aand it's such a tribute to all the members and realize that we try tone act theed a damage that partisanship ends at the water's edge. and we're fighting for the principles we believe in.

i hear some say that maybe we could just accomplish what we need to with dialogue. dialogue doesn't get it done. and that is why when it comes to causes of human suffering and basic human freedom and human rights, this committee has tried to be very, very clear time and time again anywhere on the globe that we stand for freedom and we stand for basic human dignity. and think that a good thing. i'd like to thank the members on the committee that helped me with the technical amendments. thank you for your commitment to this effort. and i'm pleased to be an original co-sponsor of this piece of legislation which seeings to send an important message that the united states will always stand with those that seek freedom. for months we've seen the

government venezuela use violent tactics to silence opposition killing up to 41 citizens and improperly detaining protesters. and according to human rights watch, there are at least ten reported cases of protester detention that could be classified even as torture. . even children have ba been pick up and subjected to humiliating body searches. the report released this week found compelling evidence of serious human rights violations. citizens shot with rubber bullets, some at point blank. i believe due process rights have been denied and the judiciary is knowingly c

compliscent. this violence and repression has gone on way too long. and it's happening right here in our own hemisphere. and while we see a lot of folks talking about all the different things happening in our globe, shouldn't we be more coming any santa of what is happening in our own neighborhood? if we don't standany santa of what is happening in our own neighborhood? if we don't stand against these atrocities in a big way, what do we stand for. i yield back my time. . >> before i go to the next speaker, i've heard the last votes on the floor have been moved up to about 11:10. so we'll need to move to a final vote before that. so let's see how many speakers we can fit into the next ten minutes or so. but remember all members have leave to put statements in the record if you so wish.

i think we go now to mr. sacili. >> thank you for having this hearing. i'd like to recognize the work of congresswoman ros-lehtinen and thank her for her strong leadership throughout this this crisis. today's markup show this is committee is committed to protecting human rights in all regions of the world. and doing so in a swift targeted and effective way. made gur radiculopathy geem has engaged in hideous human rights violations and we must add our voices loudly in condemning this and do all that we can to impose costs for those responsible as the best way really to end these practices. and i really just want to thank my colleague for her great work and leadership. as a member of the african subcommittee, i'd also like to

thank the committee for scheduling a vote in a timely manner. abducting innocent young girls and foorcing children into marriage or slavery is unconscionable and no child in any part of the world should live in fear of that kind of treatment. we have to send a strong message that these agents are unacceptable and we must be united and strongly condemning them in the strong he is terms. in addition, i want to end by thanking my colleague congressman smith for legislation before us today. as we all agree, subjecting children to the kind of inhumane un up con shenkable acts is of grave concern. mr. smith has led on it for many

years and i applaud him for this legislation today which will help protect presumably thousands and maybe millions of children all over the world. i look forward to supporting all three bills. >> we'll go first to congressman sto stockman and then congresswoman karen bass. >> venezuela is a nation that has abundance of oil. and also had an abundance of middle class. and under this socialist policy, they have destroyed the middle class and destroyed a nation. they can't even get toilet paper now. they have a shortage of toilet paper. and we're getting blamed up here in the united states for making it happen. that is nonsense. think we need to take action. we don't need anymore talk. they have had enough talk. the people are suffering. we need to take action. and i'm sorry for my colleagues'

view point and disappointed in that view point, but i feel the pain in venezuela. s wrong what is happening to those people and we need to be vocal about it and i'm glad this committee is doing this and i appreciate the chairman's action. also on our friends in nigeria, people forget they locked before the kidnapping, they locked young children in a building and burned them to death. this is something we need to take action. if anybody has a heart, look around the world. united states is a leader. i'm tired of leading from behind. i yield back. >> we'll go to karen bass of california. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. thank you always just as my colleague just mentioned for such a bipartisan way that you conduct this committee. i do want to say that i have a lot of concern about what is going on in venezuela, but i am concerned that we might be acting a bit prematurely

especially since the administration has said that this might be a little premature as well as other countries in latin america. but i want to acknowledge the continued and tireless work of chairman royce and smith in combatting human trafficking around the world. i've had the great privilege to work with both of them and the bill before us today is just one example of the work that can be done to protect people around the world from trafficking and sexual assault. i look forward to continuing to work with all of my colleagues on this important issue. secondly, i want to thank the chairman and ranking member as well as chairman smith and for all their good work protecting the students from bow come thko. and we know the kidnapping has been heinous, however we also know that boko haram has been

slaughtering male students an conducting suicide bombings in the nigeria capital as well as many other parts of northern nigeria. it's imperative that the u.s. congress condemns boko haram and its violent acts in the strongest terms an assumsupport people of nigeria and the parents of the an ducted girls with calls for their immediate return. it is my hope that this legislation will lay the ground work to the not only bring back the kidnapped girls, but also if anything can come out of tragedy, it is my hope that this begins to mark the end of boko haram now that the rest of the world is aware of their terror. i yield back the balance of my time. >> we're going now to randy webber of texas followed by c. e

>> sometimes when you want to lead the orchestra, you have to turn your back on the crowd. we should take the lead on this and step out and do the right thing and denounce this and make sure that this this is condemned everywhere we see it and i commend the chair and i commend you all for bringing this up and i fu fully support it. thank you. p. >> mr. castro. >> thank you to all my colleagues who worked on these three resolutions. with respect to the venezuela resolution, thank you congresswoman ross for your work. our job is as to stand up for democracy and human rights without regard to what kind of political leaders are perpetrating human rights abuses. too often we've not attended enough to issues in latin america. there are things that happen in latin america that if they had happened in another part of the

world, we would jump on them more quickly. so i think this is quite frankly long overdue. and i do think that there is merit to the concern that mr. meeks raised that there is a process, in other words, this is a more aggressive step that usually we've done -- in other parts of the world, we would have done other things first. but now this has gone on for months so we must act swiftly at this point. and i want to say particularly with respect to latin america, first, we'll l rk, we realize e is unique and different. but we can't overlook the history of the region and the fact that in the '70s and '80s, you had leaders who disappeared thousands of people throughout latin america. and we can never let that happen again. so we have to be swift in condemning it and making sure that they know that the united states will take real action. with respect to the resolution

that mr. smith put forward on sex trafficking and sexual tourism, thank you mr. splmith r your work on that. the one i guess thing that i would suggest is that on the angel watch center on the leadership, that we include somebody from the justice department if we could. right now i think it's otherwise and border control. f i'm in agree with all the support for venezuela. as some of the members have mentioned that we're acting too fast, i want to remind them that this is not something that happened overnight, this has been a 15 year process. hr 4573 protect children from exploitation, strong support of that. hr 573, this is a time to stand

up to the boko haram and renouncing what they have done. and i think these are all important bills and they can be summed up best by what martin luther king said. in justice anywhere is injustice everywhere. and i'd like to add to that that tolerance of injustice anywhere would be tolerance of injustice anywhere. or everywhere. i'm proud to be on this committee. i yield back. >> any other members seeking to be recognized? if not, hearing no other speakers, or no requests, the question occurs on the items considered on block. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. and the measures considered on block hr 4573, hr 4587, and house resolution 573