be pessimistic, because i do want to get to your part of the testimony, we talk about what has been happening with the justice department and some of the success you have had, but there is i think a sense, because of the scope and the gravity of the problem, that we are not winning. i want to just ask you how you would >> we have a dual role. we prosecute the offenders. we are receiving substantial and increasing sentences. we share information we obtain from these cases with the irs who is working hard to improve filters and better identify fraudulence. that is the tax divisions role. these cases present unique

challenges and we will continue to devote our available resources in this area. >> i would ask, and i know much of what you say has to be short if you had to itemize one or two or three action items we could work on -- resources are other tools you need to do your job -- what do you hope we would do? caroline ciraolo: holding hearings like today are critical to getting word out to the american public. our elected representatives taking the message back to their home state and making sure the information is out there as

often and as loud as possible. many of these scams can be stopped if the american public is educated, and having a centralized locations for that information is a wonderful idea. it gives me hope that we will see further information in the future. >> thank you. what should congress do? >> i echoed what she said. the scam is so simple couple we would never be able to prevent people from posing as another person. when money dries up, criminals will go away. bringing them to justice and an historic way is something we want to do, but it is not a solution to the crime. is more about people not being

victimized. >> criminals will continue to be agile. the greatest thing we can do is ensure collaboration among groups in providing funding to make sure collaboration can take place. >> you still have to be able to cut off the vector that is used to receive money. identification of it is something -- we have to go -- >> i would echoed the comments about education. i travel the state and speak to mostly older adults about this fraud and it is devastating to hear their stories. after they showed them, they say they wish they had talked to me

last week. we can get more awareness and education, that would be great. >> thank you. >> i would like to join my colleagues that have been bringing up these issues of identity theft, specifically to point out that the 111th congress increased the irs responsibility while decreasing the funding. the irs is now responsible for implementing the foreign tax compliance act, in addition to the legal requirements, lawmakers will have -- the irs is being urged to combat identity theft, reduce errors and federal tax programs, and generally reduced tax fraud. we need to take this into consideration as a relates to the budget this year and make sure that the resources are there to do this. i am concerned that taxpayers will ultimately -- we need to

get a handle on what is happening in identity theft. it was found that 22% of identity theft cases, the irs was taking enough steps to resolve the account. examples include victims not receiving refunds or the irs failing to update the victim's address. in 2014, nearly 70,000 theft returns were close. -- closed. at that rate, about 60,000 taxpayers were burden by having cases closed and an immature fashion. what do we need to do to fix that? >> that is a job that would fit in our audit staff's portfolio. when they see how the irs is doing with the identity theft program, i was look at the victim interface and how the irs

processes the claims and correspondences. i know that auditors are doing work in that area as we speak. >> we will have this resolved for this tax season? so we are not prematurely closing cases? >> unfortunately, it is always in hindsight. the audit team looks at the work that was done during the following year. they need to see how cases were handled. i share the sentiment. >> anybody else have any thoughts? it seems -- we need to do something better than have taxpayers affected this way. >> i agree. it creates anxiety among the taxpayers. one of the things -- we also have services to work with taxpayers that have been comprised with their identities to make sure they have received

comfort and knowledge that the return has been properly reflected and accounted for. we need to do the same thing at all levels. >> i know that practically every committee has i just ideas of cyber security and move forward and if it our committee should look at this particular aspect in making sure that our tax filers are also secure. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you mr. chairman. i didn't want to wrap up without talking about seniors. i think we know how outrageous it is that seniors get ripped off this way. we have millions of older people in this country who are walking in economic tightrope every day to balance food bills and fuel bills and housing costs, they get ripped off and it is not

some abstraction. they really suffer. as we wrap up -- i want to finish with this -- what else to think this committee can do to beef up the fight to protect seniors from these ripoffs? >> that is a great question. it's true that this particular imposter scamp disproportionately affects vulnerable adults, especially older adults, that our home during the day and answer the phone. that is because they grew up during a time when they were taught newsroom not to answer the phone. -- they were taught it was rude not to answer the phone. i will keep beating the drum of education and awareness. if we can let people know that this is a notoriously awful scam and they should be alert to it -- it is not rude to hang up the

phone. i think that is a wonderful educational tool, especially for older adults. it is very tough. i talked to them every day. it is going to be a struggle but i think the more information and awareness been get out there, the better. i always tell people who come to my presentations or call me on the phone to share their stories with one or two other people because i think that personal story, that personal touch from somebody who maybe got that phone call and almost fell victim or did fall victim, let them know what it is important. >> thank you for the work you are doing. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your testimony. as many have noted, identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the united states. not only did the victims who are fortunately low income and vulnerable lose millions of dollars to these schemes each

year, they are also subject to months if not years of overwhelming paperwork and credit problems and inconvenience. one constituent of mine who i will refer to as sandra experienced this time a first hand she contacted my office in march, 2013, to request help to restore her identity that was stolen in 2010. she did not receive her refund for 2010-2012. she was getting nowhere with the irs. after an additional two years of working with her, the irs and the taxpayer advocates office was able to resolve the situation. is the irs doing enough to

resolve cases of identity theft and timely manner? is the waiting period sandra experienced acceptable in your. -- in your opinion? >> no, because i'm a criminal investigator and i know how horrific that experience is for an individual. i can to you that the irs has made great strides in trying to be better, faster, and more responsive to victims. one of the things they put in place was in identity theft victim pain that, in future years, they use that pin number to validate their identity. my observation for meeting the audit reports that our staff has done, is that they have made great strides. >> what would you say is the status now somebody who finds themselves in a situation like sandra? what can they expect to be the. of time in which their issue

will be resolved? >> my understanding is that it will be better than it was in previous years. whether or not it is up to par -- >> for five years with her experience. what would you say is the average now? one year? >> yes, sir. i do not happen information available. >> i would love to get a from the irs at the end of the day. let me ask this. a commissioner testified about unscrupulous tax preparers. in response to a question i race, he said, i quote, the irs is very can turned about unscrupulous tax preparers. ". i know the irs try to regulate paid taxpayers and was rebuffed

by the circuit court of appeals, which congress has not explicitly authorized such legislation. i find it strange inappropriate that many states require hair barbers to have a license that somebody filing a very compensated tax returns does not do license. how critical is it for the irs to be able to regulate tax preparers and would doing so reduce the amount of fraud and identity theft yet go >> i think it is important that anybody that is such an important job in such an important areas such as texan ministration -- -- tax administration. we work closely with the department of justice tax division. when we come across in a scrupulous tax repairer, we bring them to justice. -- scrupulous tax repairer -- scrupulous tax preparer.

>> can you quantify for me how much fraud is related to unscrupulous tax preparers? >> we share your concerns with concern to fraudulent tax repairer's. we believe -- fraudulent tax preparers. we believe they should be able to prepare an honest and accurate return. we have obtained injunctions against more than 40 fraudulent preparers and we will continue to prosecute those individuals. >> do you have any idea how me preparers there are?

>> senator i do not have that information. >> is it based on complaints or -- it sounds ago small number compared to the universe of preparers that are out there. is it based on complaints or the services own investigation? >> the tax division works with the irs in identifying fraudulent preparers and we, based on the evidence we receive, we follow that evidence to pursue injunctions. >> you have a number of complaints? >> since 2000, we filed over 500 injunctions against fraudulent preparers. >> thank you. i want to thank all are witnesses for appearing here. i want to thank all the senators

that participated. i think this is been a good hearing. any questions for the record should be submitted no later than thursday, march 19. this meeting will be adjourned at this point. thanks to all of you, we appreciate it. i would like to come down and say hello to all of you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

[no audio] >> this week, c-span is in new hampshire for road to the white house for republican candidates. we will take you to a house party in dover, new hampshire. on saturday, wisconsin governor scott walker at a grassroots workshop. sunday night, ted cruz at the annual lincoln reagan dinner.

>> tomorrow, colonel cedric leighton discusses the battle on isis. after that, kevin o'neill looks at a recent incident at the university of oklahoma, are members of opportunity were caught on tape participating in a racist chant. all on "washington journal." >> here are some of our featured programs this weekend. saturday c-span2 book tv is

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like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> earlier today ashton carter talked about cyber security issues and was his departments priorities are. he spoke to servicemen and servicewomen in maryland. this is 25 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> ladies and gentlemen, the secretary of defense.

we are blessed to be joined by the 25th secretary of defense secretary ashton carter. he is uniquely positioned to build on the work he did in his previous time in the department to take cyber to a greater level of capability and service. he is energized to see how his initial work has now become a reality. secretary, thank you for your time, sir. [applause] secretary carter: thank you all. thank you admiral rogers. we are lucky to have you in charge here, and we count ourselves lucky to have each and every one of you i see front of

me. i have been learning, then updated on the development of cybercon and nsa the two biggest groups represented here. we are grateful that you serve. this is the first troop event i have done as secretary of defense in the united states. there is a reason for that. that is the importance of what you are doing to our department and our country. that should tell you something about how vital this mission is that you will have taken on. how important it is for the security of our country, and for that matter, the security of our economy and our people in their individual lives. cyber touches all aspects of their lives.

if you do nothing else and get nothing else out of this encounter, i want you to go home tonight or make a call or tweet at your family or do it every people do but, in whatever medium you use please tell them that you were thanked today by the leadership of the department and, through us, the entire country for what you do. we do not take it for granted. you are what we wake up for every morning. your service, your sacrifice your professionalism, and your welfare and that of your family's is all we care about. we are so, so grateful for it. with all that is going on, in iraq ukraine, the asian pacific

, the domain that you protect cyberspace, is presenting us with some of the most profound challenges, both from a security perspective and an economic perspective. president had a cyber security summit a few weeks ago and, as you can see, our national leadership at every level is really seized with the need to get on top of this problem. cyber, which is what you do, is a marriage of the best people and the newest technology. that eating the case, and it being the case that there is a high demand for both of those things, the best people in the newest technology across the country, means that we, and i know that we as a government and

the department and military need to be open to those sources of good people and new technology. we need to be open in order to be good in this field. that means we need to build bridges to society. bridges that are not as necessary in other fields of warfare that don't have a civilian or commercial counterpart. to the extent that this field does. we need to build bridges and rebuild bridges to the rest of our society. that means we need to be open. of course, we cannot be open with what you do in the traditional sense.

when you to be open to new ideas, we need to be open to people we cannot always tell them what we are doing, but we need to be open enough with our government so that it knows what it is doing so that its officials can, in turn, turn to our people and say, i'm sorry, i cannot tell you everything, you would not want me to tell you everything that is being done to protect you because that would undermine our ability to protect you but you should trust that your senior officials and elected officials and so forth are acting on your behalf. and i think we do have that trust. in the people do understand that what you are doing for them is necessary and being done in an appropriate manner. we need to be open generationally. we to be open to a new generation. because we need the young and

uh to be attracted to our mission. we need people who grew up with technology that was not available when i was growing up. that will be true with even those of you who are now the young people in front of me who are now smugly nodding your head -- [laughter] -- you too will be overcome by technology at one point. our institution in general needs to be an open one. in order to be really good at anything, especially good at what you do, when you to be open to a younger generation. your leaders know that, i have talked to them about that. we know that that is the only way we will continue to have any elite corps of people like the

ones who are sitting in front of me right now. i actually think that, in that regard, the development of the cyber workforce, which we are working on now, can be a model for other things we do in the department. the freshness of approach, the constant effort to stay up and reinvent that your field demands is something that we can use everywhere in the department. we are looking to you in a sense as a model and a trailblazer for many other things we do in the department. one of the things i have said, i'm determined to bring up to our department is openness to new ideas, the only way we will remain what we are today, which is the greatest fighting force the world has ever known, we will.

for the institutions that you joined, be they military services or field agencies or new commands, they are trying to figure out how to welcome this new breed of warrior to the ranks. what is the right day to do that? had you fit in? i had lunch with some of you earlier, and we were talking about how this skill set and this professional orientation fits into the traditional armed services. it does not fit into the additional armed services. we have to figure out how to get it to fit in so that you all have the full opportunity to bring to bear on your careers

expertise at you gain here and sense of mission that you felt here and carry it into the future. i know that is a challenge in front of us. you all feel it in your individual careers. i am determined that we can create that fit, but that comes with doing something new and different and exciting, you are going to be pathfinders but we will find a path together. you are, whether you are civilians, military, contractor, all parts of our workforce. we regard you as on the front lines in the same way that, lastly, i was in afghanistan and we have people in the front lines there. it is the front line of today's

effort to protect our country and, while you may not be at risk as -- in the way our forces in afghanistan are, we require if you the level of the factionalism and dedication, and i know you show that and we count on it. nsa and cybercom, one around for a long time, and one pretty brand-new. the honest truth is that it is a work in progress we are working out that relationship. my view is that we are doing the right thing and having the leadership of those organizations be in the same

place and, one way of thinking about that is, we do not have enough good people like you to spread around. we need to cluster our hits as a country. that is what the reasons why we will keep these two together, at least for now. i want you to know that, in addition to thinking about how you are organized, a big priority of mine is going to be to make sure you are getting the training and equipment and resources you need. this is a high-priority area. if you read about sequester which is a terrible, stupid thing that we are doing to ourselves, i have nothing good to say about it, but i think that even in the era of sequester, we understand that this mission is one we cannot

afford not to keep investing in. that means that that fact together with our determination to help you chart rewarding lasting careers, in this field -- those two things together on to tell you also how much we value what you do. let me make one last point, and this is something that you will know but it is important to remind our fellow citizens and for that matter, the rest of the world. we build our cyber mission to defend the openness of cyberspace, to keep it free. we are the ones who stand with those who create and innovate.

a gift those who would steal and destroy. that is the kind of country we are that is the kind of cyber force we are. we are going to execute our mission while being as transparent as possible, because that is also who we are. that is why i wanted my remarks to you to be public, because we are being filmed here, that is an unusual thing for you, and i know some of you cannot be seen on television because of the nature of your work. it is rare that media come into the premises of this organization. but i'm not only wanted you to know -- but i not only wanted you to know how important what you do is for the country, but for everybody else to get that, as well. what that means, i suppose, is

that even though -- even if you forget or to lazy or for some other reason do not tell your family that you were thanked today, they will learn anyway. [laughter] so i suggest you beat the media to the punch and, once again, go home, call home, call a friend, and say today i was thanks by the leadership of my department and, through them, by the country for what i do. all the net. thank you very much. [applause] there are two microphones here which, in nsa fashion, our only connected by wires through the floor. have at it. any subject at all, any question or comment -- yes?

fink: in a budget constraint environment, what are your top priorities? secretary carter: first and foremost people. that has got to be number one but those, because that is what makes our military the greatest in the world. it is also technology and a lot of other things, but first and foremost, it is people. that is something we need to keep investing in. i know that is not the only investment we make and we have to have a balanced approach to defense spending, because each of you wants not only to be adequately compensated but you want to have other people to your left and right, you want to have the best equipment, and you don't want to go into action

without the best training. each of us wants to see some balance in how we spend the defense dollar. it is not just a matter of money. it does matter of caring about our people make each of the safety and dignity of our people is respected, and all of those things. number one, for me, is people. the second thing i would say is we need to be an open institution. the way we are going to stay excellent is to be the most excellent part of society, and to do that, you have to be pulling the best of society. you guys are superb. this is by people want to hire veterans so much, because you are all so good. i know that is another problem

and it only being hired away. and i can't stop you. the reason people want to hire you is because you are so darn good. >> you spoke of military trying to fit in with respective branches? where the possibilities of establishing a cyber branch of service? secretary carter: that is a very good question and we have asked ourselves that overtime. there may come a time when that makes sense. for now, we are trying to build upon our strengths. we are trying to draw from where we already are strong. not to take too many jumps organizationally, at once. why is cybercon here?

as we didn't want to start over somewhere else. maybe there will come a day when these two things will be so strong and different that they will need to be in the same place, but that is not now. there was a question and nationally about why we use so many uniformed people. they do we should use more civilians. we started we thought we had strength. i think you have to look at this as the first step in a journey that may, over time, lead to the decision to break out cyber the way the army air corps became the u.s. air force. although that still has service parts to it. we are trying to get the best of both. armed services give us years of

crowd tradition, a whole system of recruiting, training. it is not something you walk away from and say, you are going to start all over. it may come to that, and i think it is an excellent, thoughtful question. we have given some thought to that, and for right now, we are walking before we run. that is one of the futures that cyber might have. >> good afternoon. my question is in regard to cyber and authority. the massive amount of our work is done with network demonstrators. currently, most of what we report on is recommendations. what is your vision to make those recommendations a requirement for network administrators? secretary carter: that is also a very insightful question. it is sent to a fundamental issue.

let's put out on the table. the information networks that it is cybercom's first responsibility to protect -- there is no point in me buying all these ships and planes and tanks if none of them are going to work to read our kids aren't going to work unless there are networks that stitch the whole thing together. we have got to got to got to make our networks secure. if you fall in on a network, and say there are a whole bunch of people working on december, they are responding to people calling the helpdesk and driving them crazy with a problem they cannot figure out, people who want more and more and more, want faster and want to add to people, they are trying to

juggle a lot -- many of them are administering networks that are outdated. and have been around for a long time. there is can it be attention -- there is going to be a tension. we go into this with our wives -- with our eyes wide open. i will stand with you on the side of requiring protection, because it is not adequate network administration to downplay security. you are leaving it open to risk. we cannot have that. if all the network owners and operators were good at protecting themselves, we wouldn't have to -- right? --we would not have to have

these texas. but they are not. -- these national force protectors. but they are not. we are counting upon extra-proficient people to help them. there will always be a little tension when you show up at the door and they have a problem but you got to do what you got to do because they are no good to us if they are penetrated or vulnerable. i think that is all i can take for right now. let me once again thank you. and please pass that on. [applause]

i would like to look each and every one of you in the eye and say thank you and a very personal way. you also get one of the new carter coins, which are hotly minted, and the price hasn't been run down on ebay yet. [laughter] [no audio]

[no audio] >> this week, c-span is an new hampshire. tonight, we will take you to a house party in dover, new hampshire with jeb bush. on saturday, wisconsin governor scott walker at a grassroots workshop in concorde. sunday night, ted cruz at the lincoln reagan dinner. road to the white house 2016 on

c-span. >> tomorrow, col. cedric leighton discusses the latest efforts to battle isis. kevin o'neill of the for charity and sorority political action looks at an incident at the university of oklahoma, where for charity members were caught on video participating in a racist chant. all on "washington journal," on c-span. >> this sunday, the director of the georgetown university medical center watched on --

watchdog project discusses pharmaceuticals. >> the promotion of a drug happens several years before the drug comes on the market. while it is illegal to market the drug before it is approved by the fda, it is not even go to market a disease. drug companies have sometimes invented diseases are exaggerated the importance of some conditions or exaggerated the importance of a particular mechanism of a drug, for example, and then link it medical journals and medical meetings and other venues with these messages that are meant to prepare the minds to accept a particular drug to prepare the minds of consumers to accept a particular condition.

>> earlier today, rand paul talked about the criminal justice system and what he thinks should be done differently. he is a potential republican presidential candidate. this is 40 minutes. senator paul: i was scanning online and found an article that was called the mentoring of some of the things we were tried to do. we are glad to be here. clyde canard got out of prison the same month that i was born. 1963. the reason he went to prison is that his crime was that he was

trying to enroll in mississippi southern and at that time, it was difficult for a black man or woman to enroll. the second time he tried to enroll, they planted liquor on him and give him a fine. can anybody here imagine what $600 was like in 1963 if you are born in mississippi? he declared bankruptcy. he tried to enroll a third time and was arrested by local police. when he tries the third time, he declares bankruptcy and he goes by his farm to pick up some chicken feed. $25 worth of chicken feed. he is arrested. do you know what kind of prison term he is given? seven years in prison for stealing five dollars worth of chicken feed which was on his own land that the bank was reprocessing. people's lives can spiral out of

control. wolfe talks about this in his book. his life spirals out of control when he tries to get a car back to go to work. those of us who have jobs and live privileged lives do not know what it is like to have to pay fines and then pay penalties on top of fines and how someone's life spiral out of control because of this. while this was 1963 and a lot of things have improved, have gotten rid of segregation du jour segregation by law. we so have a law that is like segregation but it is somewhat like there are two sisters. as martin picking said, there are two americas. -- as martin luther king said

there are two americas. there is another america that is witness to a daily disgrace, a lack of hope and despair. why? there are still people in our society that are being hounded by fines. several cities in missouri, a third of their budget is gotten by fines. in ferguson, lester, there were 31,000 arrests -- last year there were 31,000 arrests. it is about this gradual increase. i call it an undercurrent of unease in our country. there are still two americas. most here are part of the america i can believe in life, liberty, and happiness. those you can get education, you are part of the america i can live the american dream.

there are many people who are not. it is a lack of education, but is also our criminal justice system. as i learn more about the criminal justice system, i have come to believe that it is something that is going to keep these two americas separate. there are so many things, one after another, that are unjust and making it unfair for people. if you look at new york city, $500 million in fines about one third of the budget. what reason do we have to have politicians telling police that they have to take someone down for selling a cigarette that is not taxed? could we not just give them a ticket? are there not other ways than saying -- and i do not blame the police, i blame politicians. we can change the rules at any minute. i have said i want to be part of changing some of those rules.

i was at the white house last week and met with the president. he and i do not agree on a lot of stuff, but our criminal justice, we do. there was about eight republicans and eight democrats. one of the laws that bothers me the most is something called civil forfeiture. that is when the government can take your stuff whether they have convicted you of a crime or not. i think that about most of our judicial system is that you are innocent until proven guilty. civil forfeiture does the opposite. [applause] if there is one thing i can change, i want to reinforce that in our judicial system, you are innocent until proven guilty. the problem is that civil forfe iture is the opposite.

there is a family in philadelphia, their son sold illegal drugs off the back porch. the government took their house evicted and barricaded them. i was like, how are we making anything better when we take the house? in house is the stabilizing force in the family. when we take grandma's house? but we take the families house -- not even a conviction, on an accusation of the child who does not own the house. it is way out of control. it is happening in there is venues. the washington post has a great series on this over the last six months. it is predominantly african-american, it is predominately hispanic. it is predominately people who live in poverty. it is unfair. i think we can stop it. this is up in the president and i agree upon. we have legislation that changes

the presumption to read it says that you will be innocent until they prove you guilty and i cannot take your stuff unless you haven't proven guilty. i will give you an example. in civil forfeiture, they took a motel in new jersey. why? about 10 people have stayed there who had been caught selling drugs. 10 people at of 200,000 people, and it took the hotel. you look at it, there is a program where people who take yourself get to keep it, they can to keep the proceeds. this is a perverse incentive for the government to want to take your stuff. interestingly, up at the same amount of people caught for drugs in other hotels in the same area, they didn't take them because this other hotel happen to be paid for. the government looks for things they can confiscate that are already paid for. >> can we increase your volume?

senator paul: can somebody help me with that? we will have somebody with into it. that's all i have to give you. [laughter] other than -- there, it came back. a rather than -- other than civil forfeiture, there are other things have to fix. mandatory and amongst. -- i will give you an example. there was a 24-year-old who sold $300 worth of marijuana. he got a mandatory sentence of 55 years. 55 years for selling $300 worth of marijuana. you can kill somebody in kentucky and be eligible for

parole and 12 years. something is wrong here. to compound this, there is a racial outcome to this. i don't think there is a racial intention. but i don't think people think that the incarceration problem is not skewed towards one ways. i do not think it is purposeful. but i think it is actual and real and we should do some thing about it. 55 years in prison for selling marijuana. timothy tyler was a guy -- 23 years ago he was 23 years old he was a deadhead and doing lsd but the thing is, for that crime of selling lsd through the mail and using lsd, he got life in prison. he is 46 years old. he has been in jail for 23 years. his is out of control and insane.

jill is 31 years old. she was writing a false prescription for herself for lortab, which is 95% tylenol. she is in jail for 15 years for writing a prescription for herself. she was an addict. do not put people in jail for 15 years. this is all done through mandatory minimums. i think judges should get more discussion. most judges are balking at this. they are saying, give us discretion, to listen to whether they are remorseful, whether or not they can work, listen to whether or not they can have another means other than incarceration. in 1980, there were 300,000 kids in america who don't have a father because their father was in prison. there are now 2 million kids in

america without a father in prison. for those who think family structure is good, we need to be for fixing the criminal justice system. if we look at mandatory minimums, civil forfeiture, and other proms we have in our society, one of the proms we have is employment. as republicans, we are big on saying we do not want people permanently on welfare. they look back at us and people say, how my supposed to get a job? i was a convicted felon. i did a felony when i was 21, and nobody will hire me. there has to be a way to figure out how it can get people back to work. [applause] senator paul: a friend of mine's brother grew marijuana

in kentucky 30 years ago. he is a convicted felon. he also check the box every time he goes to look for a job. and he can't vote. if we really want to get people back integrated into society not permanently unable to work and permanently on welfare, we have to figure out how to expunge their records. booker and i put together a bill, called the redeem act. it takes these minor felonies, mostly drug possession and says, if you have been punished, out of jail, he paid your debts to society, and a certain amount of time, you should be able to get rid of your records. we are talking about nonviolent crimes, in the bill also, that i have with cory booker, and gets rid of solitary confinement for teenagers. why we're putting teenagers in solitary confinement, i don't know. i can tell you one story that horrified me, in the new york

times, a couple months ago. a black man, teenager from the bronx, he was picked up for doing a crime. i don't know if you did the crime are not, but it was a crime that he was sent to writers for three years, solitary confinement. three years in prison and he was never tried. at these people not heard about the sixth amendment? a speedy trial. he tried to commit suicide three times. i don't know what happened to him and rikers, but it certainly wasn't good, fair. it certainly wasn't fair to have a man buzzed up for three years. we ought to change it. in the bill that i have with cory booker, we take some of the records and let them be expunged. they won't show up when you go to get work.

we also get rid of solitary confinement for juveniles. i also think that part of the problem with losing your ability to get employment and to vote is that we have a lot of felonies that we can make misdemeanors. i have another bill called the reset bill. we take minor felonies nonviolent crimes, and we make them misdemeanors. were not saying they are ok, but they are a misdemeanor, and you will never lose your right to vote or your opportunity to work. these are things that if we do we can radically transform our country. we have something on civil forfeiture, mandatory minimums expungement, and resetting your record. all of these things i think will help with criminal justice and will help for people who live in the two americas and people who think they aren't open to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that undercurrent of

unease out there. maybe those people will start to feel part of the american dream and will be ambitious and try to succeed like the rest of us. one of the final things is we have had a lot of discussion in our country about voting rights. whether people are excluded or not excluded and what we need to do to make it better. i think the good thing is more minorities voted at a higher percentage in mississippi and other states last time around. we have come a long way. the number one thing precluding people from voting is the felony conviction. i have a bill with harry reid to restore federal voting rights back. i think it's hard for people to

feel part of america if they cannot vote. we want people to go to work. we want people to be able to vote. how do we protect all these things and make it a better, more united america? i think we need to pay more attention to the bill of rights. the bill of rights is there to protect all of us. it is not necessarily for the prom queen. it's not necessarily for the high school quarterback, the college quarterback. those who are popular among you will always do fine. it's for the least popular among you. it's for those with unorthodox ideas. it is precisely for minorities. you can be a minority because of the shade of your skin or a minority because of the shade of your ideology. you can be a minority because you are african or hispanic. but you can also be a minority because you are an evangelical christian. there are all kinds of reasons that you can have a minority of opinion that should be protected. we have instances in the last

year or two, where we have let down our guard. i will give you a couple of examples. we have something now in america called indefinite detention. this means someone can be sent to guantanamo bay prison forever. this begs the question. who gets to decide who is dangerous and who is not dangerous? who should be afraid of this? anybody think that you may want to be afraid if you are jewish? have people ever seen animus towards jewish people? everybody ever think there's been animus towards african-americans in our country? everybody should be concerned about incarceration without a trial. the answer is, even from this president, i don't think this president will round up people based on their race.

i don't think he will do that. that's what he said when he signed the legislation. he said, i'm a good man, and i will never do this. i'm not questioning whether or not the president is a good man, but the law on the book. there have been times in our history when we have let down our guard. madison said that if government were comprised of angels, we would not need these laws. if government were comprised of angels, it would not matter if there was the potential for bias. but remember the times you did not get due process. remember the times that groups in our country, like japanese-americans during world war ii that did not get due process and were incarcerated without trial. that's why we have these rules. it's not because of this president, but the next president, or the president thereafter. we are also doing something that

i think goes against justice and the ideas of justice. we are collecting all of your phone records. every one of your phone records is being collected and stored. they won't tell us, but in all likelihood, the vast majority of phone records are being collected. if you look at the warrant, it does not have your name on it. the fourth amendment says it must specify your name, what you did, and they have to go to a judge to ask for probable cause. you look at your phone records and it says verizon on it. i do not know anybody name to mr. verizon. i don't think you can write one single warrant and get 1500 records. it is supposed to be individualized. we fought the revolution over this. you had to specify the person. specify the crime. probable cause. you should be worried about this. what does the government say? trust us. we are good people. we will never look at your

records. there has already been a couple of intelligence folks looking at their wife's boyfriend's records. people are tempted to look at your records. people are not perfect. can we still get terrorists and we do not collect records? yes. get a warrant. if there is a rapist in d.c. and you do not see him running to a house, the police do not break the door down. it is 3:00 in the morning, they call the judge and they get a warrant. we need these constitutional protections. think about the 1960's. think about how martin luther king's phone was tapped. think about how the hundreds of people in the civil rights movement phones were tapped.

think about many people who protested the war who had their phones tapped. you have to have these protections. not because there's one particular bad person in government, but there is potential. criminal justice, or the lack of criminal justice, it is not a black or white problem. it is not a black or brown problem. what it is is a poverty problem. we have to be careful to make sure the bill of rights applies to every individual. if there is one thing that i want to get across it is that we have to defend the bill of rights. i think there are two other areas in which there are two americas, still and where we need to find out how to unite the two americas. the other is in education. if you're here at bowie state or you're visiting and you went to school or college and working, you succeeded. you are part of the america that will go after the american

dream, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. but if you did not go to school or you went to a crummy high school, you are living in one of the other americas. the statistics are startling. if you look at graph after graph, those who went to school, those who waited and had kids and got married after going to school, it is night and day. there are two different americas. how do we equalize education? education is the great equalizer. there is still a lack of equality in the schools is the best way to put it. i went to public schools, they had calculus, physics, biology anatomy and physiology, i had a great school. my kids have gone to public schools. all schools are not created

equal. there is still a problem. a lot of the problem can be fixed if we allowed for more animation, competition. allow kids to choose what school they go to. if there's a better school in the suburbs, allow them to drive to that school. schools choice will allow them to be equal. right now the concern is that those making decisions are the educational establishment and not be parents. parents are doing anything they can to win the lottery to get their kid to go to a good school. we have to figure out how to make education equal across the board. finally, what we have to do is get economic equality. i'm not talking about some kind of equality of outcome. i'm talking about equality of opportunity. i think that we have to do something new. we've tried passing money out. look in my state. appalachia has gotten money for 60 years. we tax everybody in the country,

and send it to appalachia. appalachia is still as poor as it ever was. the problem is if you give me the money and ask me to give it someone, people in government don't know who to give it to. we give it to john smith and say, open a business. we don't know if john smith or mary smith are good at opening a business. the market does, though. every day you are going out and spending money, you are voting on which businesses will succeed. i think we should stimulate detroit. detroit has 20% unemployment and thousands of acres of abandoned factories. if we want to do something for detroit, why don't we cut the taxes for detroit? jack kemp was the first person to talk about this. he called them enterprise zones.

i called them economic opportunity zones. we take tax cuts to areas of high incidence of poverty, and we dramatically cut the taxes. not a little bit. we almost completely wipe out federal taxes so they can have more money. in detroit, it would be a $1.3 billion tax cut. for baltimore, about $90 million tax cut per year. why does this work better than a government stimulus? we tried a government stimulus. we did about four or five years ago. we gave a bunch of money, about $800 billion we gave out. we did not know who to give it to you. when they divided it up, it was about $400,000 per job. if you give it back to the people -- think about baltimore, there are pockets of poverty but there are businesses that are succeeding. you don't want to give it to the

brand-new person, give it to the old business. they will hire new people. give them back more of their money but in a dramatic fashion to stimulate the cities and get the cities growing again. what i'm saying is think outside of the box. what we have been doing has not been working. i think there are ways we can of criminal justice in our country, ways of having equality of education, and also ways of having economic opportunity. if we do things over and over again, that is the definition of insanity is you expect a different result. i truly think that the two americas that martin luther king talked about can come back together. i think it is imperative for us to do it. i have seen and felt this undercurrent of unease. i have been to ferguson, chicago, detroit. some of this is government. government has done the wrong

thing sometimes. politicians. police are trying to do their job for the most part. politicians have done our bad job of dealing with criminal justice. but we can't just think that things will change. finally, we have to have the debate about who best spends money. are the politicians smart enough to know how to spend it, or should we send it back to baltimore? should we have it if we want baltimore to be richer? leave more money and baltimore. can we make more jobs by not sending it to washington in the first place? i am a big believer in freedom in human ingenuity. i say if we give our back to the people, we will see success like we haven't in a long time. thank you.

i would like to introduce our moderator for the q&a. >> thank you. thank you for having me. hello, bowie state. we are going to go ahead and do the q&a with senator rand paul. i thought was refreshing to hear and talk on so many different topics, obviously that's surrounding our our life here and elsewhere. first question, senator paul could the federal government provide incentives for businesses to hire ex-offenders? senator paul: the best way to have an incentive is to get rid of the record. expunging the record is one of the best way to get ex-offenders back to work.

i think, particularly, we are talking about millions of people, as many as 5 million people who have lost the fight >> the right -- the right to vote, but they're also people who are having difficulty getting employment. there has to be some exceptions, obviously. if you are a sex offender, child molester, things like that don't go away. >> please explain your federal medical marijuana bill and the role of federal government in drug policy. senator paul: this is another bill that we introduced this week.

what we do and that is we try to say the federal government will interfere with aids who want to have a medical marijuana. one of the things we have done is there are schedules for drugs. schedule 1, 2, 3. three is just about everything. two is a little more restrictive. schedule one is most restrictive. marijuana is schedule one. so we cannot research it. most doctors cannot prescribe it. a couple examples of people who use marijuana for medical benefit. my political director's father used to use drugs. when he was in arizona, he would try narcotics. he did not like to feel from it, but he has a lot of pain. then he tried medical marijuana and he thought it helped him with his appetite, dealing with his disease, and now he is in virginia and he can use it.

i think we should allow doctors to prescribe it more easily. there are also kids. some kids have so many seizures, it's uncontrollable. 100 or 200 seizures per day. their brain does not develop and they remain stunted. they are now talking about cannabis oil without the thc. they take the thc, the part that makes people get high. they take it out and they give it and there are showing benefits. it needs to be studied. i think parents ought to have a chance. i think there's a great deal of popularity in the public. i don't know if you're congress is ready to pass it. the public is ready. >> senator paul, if you were president, how would you support u.s. gas and oil instead of importing it from other countries? senator paul: i like the

supposition of the question. one way to be independent and have a growing energy industry in our country is we have to compete with everybody around the world. one of the ways we are not competing very well is that our taxes are higher and a regulatory burden is higher. for example, the corporate income tax in our country is 35%. and ireland, it's 12%. in england, it's 20%. most of europe has a lower business tax than we do. then you bring in the regulatory burden of what we have on our energy industry. we have greater regulatory burden. our tax burden is higher, our

regulatory burden is higher. even with that, our energy production is doing pretty well. we're at the point where we should say, should we get rid of the laws that say we cannot export. there was a lot of miss everything we were allowed to. >> thank you. what are your thoughts on the progress of african-americans in this country? what would you do as president to continue that progress? senator paul: sometimes we think we have not gone very far, when i think we have come along way. i say we, collectively obviously it is not me. we got rid of most of the legal problems of separation, in the 1960's. it's taken time to take effect and transmit to the schools. i think really, the problems are not legal separation. we have the fact of. there is de jure, of the law and de facto.

i think it is economic opportunity and criminal justice. the one thing the government can do is we need to make criminal justice more fair. one thing that i did not mention, which is also a problem -- many people cannot keep up with her child support payments. instead of working out a schedule, we send them to prison. we have debtors prisons. we have all these things get -- that could be changed. >> could you make the correlation, obviously with criminal justice reform and economic opportunity. you talked about, and if you could expand on our little more, the economic freedom zones that you have proposed. what will it take to make that a reality, if you will? if you could speak a little clearer on the benefit for individuals, small businesses,

and municipalities. senator paul: i think if you look at the practical politics of this and say, what is anyone offering detroit? zero. you might meet some democrats that say let's just give them a billion dollars. we would have to borrow from china. we borrow $1 million per minute. i do not think there is a democrat legislative proposal for detroit but i have a proposal for detroit, baltimore, louisville, all of our big cities. you don't affect the infrastructure. your police, fire, roads, all that you pay for with local taxes. if you live outside detroit in your president of a bank, and i say, i will give you a 5% income tax versus at 39% income tax if you move to detroit, my guess is

that you might consider doing it. we also have hiring incentives in that to get those tax breaks, you have to hire -- i think sway >> i think 25% of your people have to live in the >> -- in the neighborhood. >> excellent. any other questions, follow-up questions? [indiscernible ] senator paul: it is true of everything on the margin. we don't have money for most things. yesterday, i had people coming in wanting more money for diabetes. there are a lot of good causes out there, but they want more

money. i told them what you tell everyone else, if you have a cause that you believe in, you have to figure out where the money comes from. you have to cut spending. i'm willing to do that also. i have said repeatedly, before i touch one penny for a safety matt, i will cut every penny of corporate welfare. that is how you save money. >> i think, senator paul, when you first came to the senate you talked about looking at eliminating, cutting spending by $500 billion. could you speak a little more about that. senator paul: this is a good point. some people will think republicans are for no government. cutting everything, leaving nothing for the poor. that is not true. we are mostly for not spending money that does not come in. when people say you are not for any government, i say, i am for $3 trillion worth of government. that's how much comes in. there is this huge disparity of

what comes in and what goes out. within the $3 trillion, you have to make some distinctions on what you do. i think the department of commerce is mostly going to rich corporations. there are 20 billion dollars worth of rich welfare to corporations. on average, there are about $200 million to 40 or 50 big corporations. you can eliminate that. there's quite a bit of different departments that could go. i'm not sure you would notice the difference. we've had the department of education for -- i don't know -- 30, 40 years now, but the vast majority that can go back to the state level and not be done on washington. >> i believe the import-export bank would be a part of that as well. senator paul: i would call the

corporate welfare, too, and i would eliminate it. >> thank you very much, senator paul. it's an honor. >> this week c-span is in new hampshire. tonight beginning at seven: 45, we will take you to a house party with jeb bush. on saturday before noon, scott walker republican party grassroots workshop in concord. sunday night at 9:40 five, ted cruz at the annual lincoln-reagan dinner. road to the white house 2016 on c-span. >> tomorrow, a discussion on the latest efforts to combat

isis. the overall state of unions in america today. then a look at the recent incident at the university of oklahoma where members of a fraternity were caught on tape participating in a racist chant. live 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. earlier this week the senate house committee -- health committee held a hearing. senator alexander: senator murray and i will have an

opening statement. then senators will have five minutes for questions. i have been looking forward to this day. this is in important hearing. i thank you for coming especially because that caused a change in plans. but we do not have two people who know more about what we're talking about than the two of you. this is in opportunity for us to discuss that. let me see if i can put this in context. we have a busy committee. in the last congress, senator harkin used to point out that we completed 25 pieces of legislation which became law and senator murray and i are working well together. and three major items that we intend to focus on in the next two years, among all the others, number one, fixing no child left behind. and we're working well together toward that. hope to have a markup on that after the recess.

second, we're working on simplifying and reauthorizing the federal government's supervision of higher education in america. we had a hearing on that recently, and it had an impressive report. senator mikulski, senator byrd senator bennett and i had asked for about simplifying regulations. and so that will be second. but the third topic is to deal with this exciting new era of medicine that we have. and take a look at what we can do as a congress working with the president to reduce the cost and the amount of time it takes to go from discovery of a medicine or a treatment or a medical device and take it all the way through to the medicine cabinet or the doctor's office. now, we know important work has been done in the congress on that not so long ago.

but we have an opportunity this year to make whatever contribution there is to make. and it's an area that we ought to succeed in because there's not really a political partisanship about this issue. in fact, the house of representatives is moving on a parallel track on something they call 21st century cures. president obama is extremely interested in precision medicine. i attended his announcement of that interest at the white house recently along with dr. collins and dr. hamburg. i've talked with him about it. and with secretary burwell. and suffice it to say that i believe every single member of this committee's interested in identifying what we can do to make it easier to move those drugs, treatments, and devices from discovery all the way through the medicine cabinet. we're not just talking about moving it through the fda. sometimes it takes two, four

six, 10, 12 years to get to the fda's front door. so we're not just talking about the fda. we're talking about the whole range of issues there. dr. collins has described it this way. he wrote in 2013, drugs exist for only about 250 of the more than 4400 conditions with defined molecular causes. it takes far too long and far too much money to get a new drug in to our medicine cabinets. this is an old problem that cries out for new and creative solutions. since dr. collins wrote, that the number of conditions with defined molecular causes has increased to more than 5400. the number of new drugs approved has not kept pace with these discoveries. dr. hamburg, who is here today has said that we are left relying on the 20th century approaches for the review of frugal and oversight of the treatment and cures of the 21st century.

president obama, in his announcement of the new precision medicine initiative, said 21st century business will rely on american science technology, research, and development. i want the countries that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine, one that delivers the right treatment at the right time. in some patients with cystic fibrosis, this approach has reversed the disease once thought unstoppable. he introduced at that white house announcement a 27-year-old young man whose cystic fibrosis has been cured because he's one of the 4% of the sufferers with that disease caused by a mutated gene for which there's now a drug. and i think the legislation senator bennett, senator burr worked on may have helped to contribute to that opportunity. so this is the discussion that can affect nearly every american and in which we're going to take very seriously.

senator burr identified a report that issued a white paper that we've been working on for some time. it focused on the issues that we thought the committee ought to identify, and we've submitted that to senator murray and to the rest of the members of the committee for their consideration. costing too much to bring medical products through the discovery process and development process taking too long. whether fda's responsibilities include unrelated activities to what the focus should be. the disparity and scientific knowledge of the fda and the fast pace of biomedical innovation. those are some of the issues that we focused on. but what we hope to learn today from two distinguished leaders of our government is exactly what should we be focusing on? we don't want to waste our time. we can't do everything. this train is moving through the station in the next 12 months, and if our goal is to get from discovery to the medicine cabinet of the doctor's office

what are the two or three things that we ought to spend our time on? i believe we can do that working together. we're excited about it. it's a chance for your agencies and the rest of the government to let us help you get the obstacles out of the way that might be in the way of your getting your job done. some of them relate to money. some don't. some relate just to the pileup of administrative regulations at our hearing on higher education, there was talk about hiring a boston consulting group to assess the cost of rules and regulations to operate vanderbilt university for one year, and the answer was $150 million, $11,000 on the -- to every student's tuition at the university. so there are a whole range of things. i'm looking forward to this. i thank you, dr. collins. i thank you, dr. hamburg. i'll now turn to senator murray and we'll then turn to the witnesses.

senator murray: thank you very much, chairman alexander. dr. collins, dr. hamburg, great to have you both here. i have a lot of appreciation for the work that you do to encourage innovation and improved health and well-being. dr. hamburg, as you step down from your role at fda, i especially want to thank you for your many many years of service and we're all very grateful for your leadership. so thank you very much from all of us. i'm very pleased to be working with chairman alexander and other members of the committee on ways that we can continue to advance biomedical innovation for patients. i believe that we are at a truly fascinating moment in medical innovation right now. we increasingly have the ability to move away from a one size fits all model of treatment. and instead treat patients according to their unique characteristics. we've seen enormous growth in life sciences as the source of economic strength and job creation. my home state of washington is a great example. life sciences are the fifth largest employment sector in my state, and it's growing.

these are good jobs, in a industry with global reach, and our country needs more of them. so it's critical we secure and build on the united states' leadership in medical innovation. to do this, i believe congress has to look at how we ramp up investment in the kind of research and development that helps drive this private-sector growth. that's something i will be very interested in exploring as part of our bipartisan efforts in the coming weeks and months. dr. collins, i know that you are very concerned about the impact of sequestration and what it has done to nih, and i am, as well and i hope that we can talk about that today, as well. i'm also eager to hear more about the many efforts at nih to ensure the united states remains the global leader in biomedical research and discovery. the fda drug and device approval process is another topic that i know we will receive a lot of focus. dr. hamburg, you recently announced that in 2014 the fda approved 51 new drugs, which is the most in almost 20 years. you should be very proud of what

that means for patients and families across the country. i look forward to hearing from you today about ways that we can build on that progress. another priority i will be focused on is the needs of women and young children in the research, development, and approval process. when we looked at the fda approval process back in 2005, senator kennedy reminded us that when patients open up their medicine cabinet, they deserve every assurance that the medicines they take are safe and effective. and that is just as true today. so as conversations about advancing medical innovation move forward, i'll be guided by his vision of upholding that assurance. in the weeks and months ahead, i hope we can reach an agreement on policies that help get us safe, effective treatments to patients more quickly. that would be good for our economy and could really make all the difference for so many families we represent. so thank you, again, to our witnesses for being here today. and thank you, chairman alexander, for holding this hearing. senator alexander: thank you

senator murray. we have good attendance already of senators. i would say that we've formed a working group of staff, a single working group, on this subject for the purpose of identifying how we'll proceed. and after this hearing, the next few weeks, the working group and senator murray and i will sit down and talk about how we can have a bipartisan process and take into account and focus our efforts in a way that gets a result. in that, we'll be aware of what the house is doing, and we'll work with secretary burwell and with the president, especially on their precision medicine initiative. each witness we've asked -- i'll ask each of you to summarize, if you can, in about 10 minutes your testimony so the senator also have a chance to have a conversation with you. i thank you both for coming. dr. collins first. thank you. director of the national institutes of health, the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world. he's been director of nih since 2009.

he's known for his leadership of the international human genome project which led to the first completely sequenced human genome in 2003. next we'll hear from dr. hamburg, commissioner of the food and drug administration. according to our staff, 25 cents of every consumer dollar that's spent in the united states you regulate when you regulate prescription drugs, medical devices, food, and tobacco products. dr. hamburg has been in this role for six years. we're glad she's retiring. i especially thank her for coming to this hearing -- [laughter] senator alexander: i don't mean i'm glad she's retiring. i'll start that one over again. i'm glad she's here. and i'm glad she's here because she is retiring and she has this wealth of knowledge accumulated

over the last six years, and i especially asked her to come for that purpose because i knew the committee would want to hear from her. dr. hamburg, thank you very much for your service to our country. and even though you may be retired, we hope you'll continue to advise us, especially during this next year as we work through -- as we work through these issues, and i thank senator murray and senator mikulski for keeping me straight on my comments. right. dr. collins? dr. collins: well, good morning, chairman alexander, ranking member murray, members of this important committee. it is an honor to appear before you alongside my friend and colleague, fda commissioner peggy hamburg. our agencies have much to gain by working to the, and we have been doing so and we're committed to that effort. in fact, peggy and i spent a productive three hours just yesterday afternoon along with senior leaders from both of our agencies who make up the nih/fda leadership council discussing a wide range of projects we are working on together.

i'd like to, on behalf of the nih, our employees, grantees and patient community, to thank members of this committee for your continued support and for holding this bipartisan hearing today. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss how we as a nation can drive innovation through federal investments and scientific research. breakthroughs generated by nih research -- and i'm going to show you a few visuals here if you can see the screen -- are behind many of the gains our country has enjoyed in health and longevity. for example, over the past 60 years, deaths from cardiovascular disease have fallen by more than 70%. meanwhile, cancer death rates have been dropping, about 1% annually for the last 20 years. likewise, hiv/aids treatments have greatly extended lives and prevention strategies are enabling us to envision the first aids-free generation. today i want to share with you a few of the many promising opportunities for biomedical research innovation. i can assure you the potential

of scientific research has never been brighter than it is today. nih remains strongly committed to basic science. fundamental research that serves as the foundation for discoveries that have long made america the world leader in biomedicine and accounts for no less than 145 nobel prizes that have been awarded to our scientists that we support through nih grants and through our intramural program. one exciting example in basic science is the brain initiative. this bold, multiagency multiyear effort is enabling development of innovative technologies to provide a clearer, more dynamic picture of how individual brain cells and neural circuits interact in time and space. this initiative will ultimately give us the tools for major advances in brain diseases. from alzheimer's and autism to schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury. nih is also innovating in translational science for basic

science findings are developed in clinical benefits. let me give you a few examples. recent advances in technology have led to the discovery of more than 1,000 risk factors for disease. but drug development is a terribly difficult and failure-prone business. a major reason for failures is that scientists often just don't know how to choose the right pathways to target for the next generation of drugs that they want to develop. so with this in mind, we were excited just a year ago to launch the accelerating medicines partnership, or amp. this is an unprecedented precompetitive, public-private partnership using cutting-edge scientific approaches to choose the most promising targets for therapeutic intervention. besides nih, amp partners include importantly the fda, ten biopharmaceutical firms and a number of nonprofits, including patient advocacy groups.

initially, amp is focusing on three disease areas that are ripe for discovery at the next generation of drug therapies, alzheimer's disease, type ii diabetes, and the autoimmune disorders rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. through this approach we believe we can learn how to treat and cure disease faster, and we can do it together across this whole ecosystem. nih is also working to streamline the therapeutic development pipeline through effort at our newest center. more than 30% of promising medications fail in human clinical trials because they're bound to have unacceptable toxicity despite promising preclinical studies. could we do better? well the tissue chip for drug screening initiative is developing 3-d human tissue biochips that model the structure and function of organs, such as the lungs, liver, and heart. these organoid chips, and you can see the heart chip is beating in real time because the cells that are on that chip are cardiac muscle cells that are

synchronized to beat just as they would if they were in a heart. these give us the opportunity to mimic complex functions of the human body without putting humans at risk. enabling scientists to predict more accurately how effective a therapeutic candidate would be in clinical studies, eliminating toxic or ineffective drugs earlier in the development process. scientific advances are also accelerating progress toward a new era of precision medicine. historically, doctors have been forced to base their recommendations for treatment on the expected response of the average patient. but recent advances, including the plummeting costs of dna sequencing, are now made possible a more precise approach to disease management and prevention that takes into account individual differences in genes, environment, and lifestyle. with this in mind, nih is thrilled to take a lead role in the multiagency precision medicine initiative that you all have already mentioned in the opening statements and which we

at nih are very excited about. in the near term, this initiative will focus on cancer, to accelerate efforts, this project will support research aimed at understanding why cancers develop drug resistance, using noninvasive methods to track therapeutic resonses, the so-called liquid biopsies, and exploring new treatments including combination therapies targeted to the genetic profiles of a wide range of adult and pediatric cancers. as a longer-term and very bold goal of this initiative, nih will launch a national research cohort of 1 million or more volunteers who will play an active role in how their genetic and environmental information is used to prevent and manage a broad array of diseases. a project of this magnitude will lay the groundwork for new prevention strategies and novel therapeutics. there's no better time than now to embark on this enterprise, to revolutionize medicine, and move this precise personal approach

into everyday clinical practice. in closing, to make this clear in terms of its impact on human health, allow me to share a story that highlights the early promise of precision medicine. when a person was diagnosed with stage 3-b carcinoma of the lung in 2008, it was completely unexpected. she was 36 years old, never smoked a day in her life. yet her tumor was very large. almost seven centimeters with a very low likelihood of survival beyond a year or two. as maki began the recommended standard chemotherapy her doctors, who were ahead of their time in precision medicine suspected she might have a particular mutation in a gene called the epidermal growth factor receptor, or egfr. genetic testing confirmed their hunch. she was prescribed a drug that precisely blocks egfr's signal. and after three months of

treatment, maki's large tumor shrunk dramatically, as you can see. this was followed by surgery to remove cancerous tissue plus retreatment with the drug. today, seven years after her diagnosis, her doctors can detect no signs of cancer. what's more, maki has now completed a triathlon, landed her dream job as a biology professor at ithaca college, and welcomed a healthy baby girl. maki is the face of scientific innovation, made possible by sustained investments in biomedical research. with your support, we can realize the vision of accelerating discovery across the vast landscape of biomedicine, from basic science inquiries to more precise personalized approaches to treatments and cures. so thank you, mr. chairman. my colleagues and i welcome your questions. senator alexander: thank you

dr. collins. dr. hamburg? dr. hamburg: thank you, mr. chairman, and members of the committee. i'm very pleased to be here today to discuss our shared goal of speeding innovative treatment to patients. i look forward to working with you on this important effort. as you have noted, this will be my last appearance before the committee, as i'm stepping down. but i want to thank you for your support over the years, and our constructive engagement with this committee to advance fda's public health mission. i came to the agency at a time of considerable uncertainty and change in the biomedical product industry, a time when dramatic advances in science and technology, some that my colleague dr. collins just outlined, demanded new models, and approaches. in turn, we took a very serious look at our role in advancing biomedical product innovation to ensure that we would be a gateway, not a barrier, to the delivery of better, safer, and more effective treatments and cures.

and, in fact, this has been a high priority for me throughout my tenure, and i'm very pleased that as senator murray noted last year we approved the most new drugs in almost 20 years and more orphan drugs than ever before, and 41% of these new approvals were first-in-class products, resulting in a breathtaking array of truly innovative new therapies for patients. today, fda approves drugs faster on average than all other advanced nations 40 days faster than japan, 70 days faster than canada, and 174 days faster than europe. and fda has made substantial improvements in the efficiency of medical device reviews, as well. moreover, we've accomplished this while remaining the gold standard around the world for safety and effectiveness. yet despite these successes, too many diseases still await treatments and cures. serious public health needs such as treatments for alzheimer's

disease are not being met. and rising r&d expenditures are not matched by a proportionate discovery of new treatments. in this context, i want to address concerns raised by some that fda regulation is the principal obstacle to the development of innovative treatments and suggestions that fda's authority for procedures must be fundamentally restructured. as a physician, i know that if you incorrectly diagnose a patient's condition, the treatment that you'll prescribe is unlikely to work. unless we correctly diagnose why cures are still lacking for many diseases, we're unlikely to find the solutions that will actually deliver us those cures. so let me give you three examples of misconceptions. first is the incorrect but commonly repeated assertion that fda's approval of new drugs lags behind other countries. the reality is starkly different. over 75% of the new drugs approved by japan, e.u., canada,

australia, switzerland, and fda, between 2014 to 2013. were approved first by the fda according to a recent report by the british-based center for innovation and regulatory science. and the result is that americans are in fact far more likely to get first access to new medicines. second, fda is said to be rigid and inflexible in its approach to requesting and using data for approval of a new drug. in fact, fda's clinical trial requirements have been steadily increasing in flexibility. 45% of new drugs are approved based on a surrogate end point. 1/3 are approved based on a single clinical trial. last year we used expedited approval processing for more drugs than ever before about 66%. and thanks in part to the new authority that you gave us, 74 drugs have received the new breakthrough designation. my final example is a concern

that investment in biotechnology has dropped precipitously in the united states and that the fda is to blame. but in the words of the national venture capital association, biotechnology investment dollars rose 29% in 2014 to $6 billion placing it as the second largest investment sector for the year in terms of dollars invested. and jonathan leff, the leading biotechnology investor affiliated with nvca, said that one of the two reasons for the increased investment in biotechnology is the improved regulatory climate in recent years at fda. i cite these examples to suggest not that the world of biomedical research and product development is all fine, but to urge that we start with the right diagnosis. we do not want solutions based on inaccurate diagnoses. i caution against solutions that seek to lower the safety and effectiveness standards for approval of the medical products on which americans rely.

remember that the great leaps forward in evidence-based medicine of the last 50 years have come in part because of the high standards for product approval that congress put in place after a series of disasters involving unsafe and ineffective medical product. those standards have also boosted the confidence that americans place in medical product and that the world places in the american biomedical product industry. together, we can build on the progress that has been made in recent years to further advance biomedical science and improve the lives of patients. and there are some areas from the fda perspective that i believe we can all agree need to be improved. first, patients are uniquely positioned to inform medical product development. treatments can better meet their needs if we can capture science-based disease-specific patient input to incorporate in the development and review

process. second, more attention needs to be given to the development of biomarkers and surrogate end points. these can help scientists identify and target successful medical treatments and shorten drug development times, as dr. collins was noting in his remarks. fda has accepted hundreds of biomarkers and surrogates such as blood pressure changes, blood sugar reduction, and tumor shrinkage, yet biomarkers are still lacking for many diseases such as alzheimer's. the biggest obstacle is that scientists do not sufficiently understand the causes of alzheimer's and other diseases. to identify drug targets or identify which patients will benefit from certain drugs. to solve this problem, we must support the establishment of strong public-private partnerships, bringing the best minds together to develop the science that we need. third, real world data provides a vital tool to monitor medical product in use in the marketplace. fda sentinel initiative with more than 170 million lives is

one of the largest uses of big data in health care and proving vital for monitoring safety in emerging safety concerns. the science of using big data to establish product effectiveness is still in its infancy. real progress demands we develop the methodologies needed to harness the promise of real world data. and, fourth, fda and industry agree that the agency must be able to attract and retain talented scientists to review cutting-edge products. and we look forward to working with you to improve our ability to hire and retain these experts. so let me close by underscoring that speeding innovation, while maintaining standards for safety and efficacy, serves patients well. supports the needs of our health care system and has enabled the medical product industry in this country to thrive. and so i thank you for your support, for our efforts at fda, the work that you're going to be doing going forward, to advance that work and the work of all of our colleagues in the biomedical research community so that we can deliver on the promise of science for patients. thank you.

senator alexander: thank you dr. hamburg. we'll now have a round of five minute questions. i'll start. i only have two questions. i've got a short one which i hope to get a short response from dr. collins, so each of you will have a chance to answer the second question. the first one is this -- the national academies have done a couple of studies that show that 42% of an investigator's time is spent on administrative tasks. the taxpayer spends about $30 billion through nih, 80% of that

goes in to research. in a conversation they had at national academy said about 10% would be a reasonable amount of time for an investigator although it would vary depending upon the investigation. what are the opportunities for reducing that 42% down more toward 10% or 12% or 15% for saving money so that we could have more multiyear investigations? dr. collins: we are concerned that as ms. traders are using more of their time. we are part of that survey that shows the number had not change from 2005 two 2012. we are hundred teddy what we can do to eliminate oversight, but it comes from other directions. things that we have done our to standardize the biographical sketch the -- something that can be done is the revision of the common

which does not currently take account of the risk involved in the study and applies a great deal of oversight to some studies that are truly low risk, as if they were invasive. >> would you be willing to work with us to identify what those things are specifically. i want to ask you this question, we don't want to waste our time in the next year. we can't do everything. could you say now, and if you want to submit it later, what or one or two things that we should focus on to make the greatest contribution to the goal of moving medicines devices, and treatments, from discove