the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 24 the nays are -- are 242 the nays are 184, with one voting present. the bill is passed. without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the house will be in order. all members please take your conversations off the floor. the house will be in order. please clear the well of the

house. the house will be in order. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition? >> madam speaker i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you. if i could have everyone's attention please. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. please take your conversations off the floor of the house.

the gentleman from washington is recognized. >> thank you, madam speaker. i just wanted everybody to hear this because this is a very important week. this is national police week. mr. reichert: on friday is peace officer memorial day. today i have with me my two good friends who have served in law enforcement, and there are some others, i think in our body that have had that experience. i brought some backup today with me. but i think that, you know, everybody year we take a moment to recognize our law enforcement officers across this great nation, the men and women who wear the uniform, who wear the badge who protech our families and communities this year, 273 names will be added to the memorial wall. 273 names. already this year we have lost

44 police officers in the line of duty. 44. already this year. that is one police officer dying in the line of duty every 3 1/2 days. every 3 1/2 days. ladies and gentlemen, madam speaker, these men and women deserve our praise, they deserve our thanks, and they deserve recognition that we can give them today on the floor of the house. they have families here who have lost loved ones at the service friday. the president will be there to address them and we rise today, the three of us together, ask for a moment of silence to honor those who have lost their lives in the line of duty. the speaker pro tempore: all members present will rise.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection five-minute voting will continue. the unfinished business is the question on passage of h.r. 248 on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 77 h.r. 2048 a bill to reform the authorities of the federal government to require the production of certain business records, conduct electronic surveillance, use pen registers and trap and trace device and use other forms of information gathering for foreign intelligence, counterterrorism and criminal purposes and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on passage of the bill. members will record their votes by electronic device.

this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 338 and the nays are 88. the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the house will come to order. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal which the chair will put de novo. the question is on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. and the journal stands approved.

for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: order in the house, please. the gentleman from california. mr. royce: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that debate under clause 1-c of rule 15 on a motion to suspend the rules relating to h.r. 1191 be extended to one hour. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, it is so ordered. mr. royce: thank you mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the house will come to order. does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i do, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material

on h.r. 1735. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. pursuant to house -- the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to house resolution 255 and rule 18, the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for the consideration of h.r. 1735. the chair appoints the gentleman from louisiana, mr. graves, to preside over the committee of the whole.

the chair: the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of h.r. 1735 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: a bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities of the department of defense and for military construction, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year and for other purposes. the chair: pursuant to the rule, the bill is credit the first time. the gentleman from texas -- considered as read the first time. the gentleman from texas, mr. thornberry, and mr. smith is recognized for 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: thank you mr. chairman. i yield myself four minutes. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thornberry: mr. chairman the committee is not in order. the chair: the gentleman is

correct. the committee will be in order. the gentleman is recognized. mr. thornberry: mr. speaker, i'm proud to bring to the floor h.r. 1735, the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2016. this measure was reported by the armed services committee by a vote of 60 members voting for and two members voting against. of the two members there was one from each party. this bill follows the bipartisan tradition of the committee working collaboratively with an integrated staff to support the men and women who serve and protect our nation. all members of the committee have contributed to this product and i'm very grateful

for all of their efforts throughout the year. i'm especially grateful to the efforts of the ranking member mr. smith, for not only for his contributions and for his partnership in the committee but doing so at a time where he's been dealing with surgeries and a variety of things. but it has been a true pleasure and continues to be to work with him for the benefit of our nation. mr. chairman, this bill authorizes spending for the department of defense at a level that is consistent with the congressional budget resolution and a level that is consistent with the president's budget request. so there have been differences and there will continue to be some differences about how that spending gets categorized but when you add it up all together, this authorization measure meets exactly what the president has asked for which is essentially $611.9 billion

for national defense. and included is a program-by-program authorization for all of that spending, whether it's in the overseas contingency account or the base budget it is all authorized program by program. this bill contains some significant reforms, including acquisition reform to improve the way the department purchases goods and services. we've been working with the pentagon and with industry to thin out regulations, simplify the process and make it easier to hold industry and government personnel accountable for the results. this bill has overhead reform to reduce the amount of money that we are spending on overhead and bureaucracy so that more resources can be devoted to the men and women on the front lines. and this measure has reform in

the area of personnel pay and benefits. of the 15 recommendations by the personnel commission, this measure does something in 11 of those 15 so that we can be in better shape to continue to recruit and retain the top quality people that our nation needs for decades to come. now some people say, well, there's too much reform here. some people say there's not enough reform here. there isn't enough. if enough means you solve all the problems, but there's a start at significant reform that helps make sure we get better value for the money we spend and also that the department is more agile in meeting the national security challenges we face. mr. chairman, this morning in reading the papers, i made some notes about the headlines. just in one newspaper today, may 13, 2015.

and some of those headlines are cags kerry meets putin" "u.s. ways to meet china in the south china sea" "fresh earthquake rattles napal." and i know those involved in the helicopter, which hasn't been found certainly, are certainly in our thoughts and prayers because it is -- mr. chairman, i yield myself one additional minute. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. thornberry: our military is called upon to do humanitarian efforts. "somali man plead guilty in terror the plot," "assad still has chemical plans." the list goes on and on. this is the world we face. this is the world we send our men and women out into to protect us and to defend our nation. they deserve the best from us. they deserve something other than political games. they should not be used as

pawns to make a point. they should -- we should give them our best by doing our job under the constitution just as they give us their best in defending this country. therefore, mr. chairman, i think this bill, 17 -- h.r. 1735 deserves the support of all members in this house, and i hope they will do so. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from texas reserves. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. smith: thank you mr. speaker. i yield myself five minutes. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. smith: thank you. i want to congratulate the chairman. this is his first year as chairman his hard work on this bill and there are lots of good things in this bill. most prominently is the reform the chairman mentioned, the compensation reform. we formed a commission to study how we do personnel compensation and the retirement system and a very rare move we actually followed some of the advice of the commission in this bill and made, i think some very positive reforms to the personnel compensation

system. there were a variety of other reforms that chairman worked on that are important and there's also a whole slew of provisions in there that do in fact do an excellent job ever providing for the men and -- job of providing for the men and women who protect our country. there are positive things about this bill and i appreciate the hard work of everyone involved. unfortunately for the first time in 19 years i am going to be opposing the ndaa on the floor for two reasons but one is the big one and it is understanding how our budget has worked. we have not had a normal budget appropriations process since 2011 and this has affected every single government agency. and keep that fact in mind. not just the department of defense. i'll talk about the department of defense at length, but the lack of a normal appropriations budget process has impacted every single federal agency. transportation, infrastructure,

education, housing on down the line. ever since 2011 they have faced but one government shutdown and a succession of threatened government shutdowns and continuing resolutions. this has made it absolutely impossible to plan long term, and also has cut a pretty dramatic amount of money out of all these agencies and it's been particularly hard on the department of defense that tries to do a five-year plan when they're figuring out what they can procure. this sort of halt, stop, we're going to fund you, we're not going to fund you, we'll shut down the government, c.r. has had a devastating impact to fund the government. the budget resolution passed by the house and the senate this year does not fix that because it relies on the overseas contingency operation fund which is limiting. it's one-year money. it, again does not allow the department of defense to be planned. i want everyone to know that secretary of defense ash carter in the senate is opposed -- in

the senate testified on why o.c.o. funding $38 billion of defense bill through o.c.o. was unacceptable and he doesn't support it and doesn't support this bill. but the reason we oppose this -- and this is very important to understand -- to fix the problem, to get us to the point where we can fund defense and everything else in a reasonable way, we need to get rid of the budget caps from the budget control act. that's the only way. and we do not do that here. we take money out of the overseas contingency operation fund to give defense $38 billion additional. in one sense mr. thornberry is wrong when he says in all senses what we do here matches what the president did. within the defense budget, the number is the same, but the president's budget also lifted the budget caps for the 11 other appropriations bills. and i know we serve on the armed services committee and i've heard members of the armed

services committee say don't talk to me about that stuff. i serve on the armed services committee. i want to know what neighborhood those people live in because roads and bridges and schools and housing, it affects all of us and those budget caps remain in place. what this defense bill does unfortunately is it locks in the republican budget. it locks in the deal they made with the senate to continue to provide devastating cuts at the budget control act level for everything else and then let defense and only defense out of jail in an awkward sort of back door way through the overseas contingency operation, so to agree to this bill is to agree to cut in those 11 other bills, to cuts in transportation, to cuts in research the cuts at n.i.h. and c.d.c. and all of these programs that we care about. if we accept this, then those

cuts are locked into place. . i support this level but i also support lifting the budget caps for all of the other areas of our government that are facing the same sort of devastating cuts and difficulties that the defense department has. so if we agree to this, we lock in the budget -- we lock in the budget. lastly, i want to point out that the president has said he does not support this process. he opposes all the appropriations bills and he will oppose this defense bill. and the president hasn't gone away. and there is not a sustainable veto override number for those appropriations bills in the house and the senate. so everything that we are doing on this bill and in the appropriations bills -- i yield myself two additional minutes. ch the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: everything we're done on this between now and october is, and i know the republican plan is to hope the president just sort of changes his mind and signs all those bills, i consider that highly unlikely, so what's going to happen is we're going to get to october and this is all going

to blow up anyway because the president's not going to sign it. he's still there. i know the republicans won the senate but the president didn't go anywhere. the constitution didn't change. nothing becomes law unless he signs it. so what i urge is that the president, the house and the senate all -- senate, all three, sit down and come up with a budget solution that ends the budget caps for all of these bills, so we can start working on something that's real. i mean, this $38 billion is great like i said between here and when it heads up pennsylvania avenue it's going away. then we're going to have to double back and try to fix this anyway. i guess all i'm saying is, we should start now instead of risking another government shutdown risking another continuing resolution and get a true budget agreement. that actually addresses the budget control act in its entirety, doesn't just find a sort of awkward work-around through the overseas contingency operation just to take care of defense. i support this level but not this way.

it has two devastating impact -- too devastating impact on the rest of our budget and as secretary of defense said, o.c.o. funding is no way to fund the defense department, if it's not legitimately for o.c.o. expenses. with that i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas is recognized. >> i yield myself 30 seconds. i have enormous respect for the distinguished ranking member. i think it's a hard argument to make that we're going to oppose the bill that takes care of our men and women in the military because we want to try to pressure congress and the president to reach an agreement on spending on other stuff. mr. thornberry: i think that's -- if -- how could that possibly happen in this bill? it can't. that requires other legislation and i think that's a poor reason to oppose this bill. mr. chairman i would yield at this point two minutes to my friend and colleague, the chairman of the subcommittee on

readiness, mr. witman. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. wittman: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to commend chairman thornberry and the members of the armed services committee on a very strong mark and i especially want to thank my distinguished ranking member for working with me to address some of her most critical readiness diagnose our -- our most critical readiness challenges. this makes notable strides in restoring full spectrum readiness and helping move us away from cha the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff referred to as the ragged edge of being able to execute the current defense strategy. specifically this year's ndaa prohibblets the department there from pursuing -- prohints the department from pursuing an effort aimed at locking in reductions during a time of uncertainty. but does task the department to conduct an assessment of where we may be overcapitalizing facilities so congress can make informed decisions going forward. we must be strategic about our long-term decisions so as we

treat our headquarters and civilian personnel, we need to keep those things in mind. they do important work for this nation and on their behalf we owe it to them to take the time to look at how provisions in this bill could negatively effect their efforts. this year's ndaa also restores many cridcal -- critical shortfalls across the force. for example, for the navy the bull fund fuly funds the operation and maintenance accounts for an 11th carrier and the 10th air wing, aircraft maintenance reset and ship operations. for the army the bill fully funds collective training exercises resulting in 19 combat training center rotations for brigade combat teams, as well as fully funding the initial entry rotary wing, training program, and restoring funding to meet 100% of the flying hour program requirement. the bill also provides the marine corps with additional resources to meet aviation readiness requirements, to ensure adequate members are numbers of mission capable

aircraft. for the air force the bill provides additional training resources for high-demand areas such as pilots, for unmanned systems joint terminal controllers, cyberoperations insider threats and open source intelligence. finally the bill addresses several other shortfalls by resourcing many of the department's most pressing unfundsed requirements. i am proud of what we've accomplished in this year's bill and encourage all of my colleagues to support its passage. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you. i yield for 30 seconds to myself to respond brief will to mr. thornberry's remarks. the problem is why this won't actually fund our troops. it is o.c.o. funding, to begin with. as the secretary of defense said, it makes it very difficult to do it in any sort of comprehensive way. but more importantly, when we get to the end of the process if the president doesn't agree to it, then we haven't funded the troops at this $38 billion additional level. if that's where he's at on the veto on these appropriations

bills, then we haven't done it. we simply run the clock out for another four or five months. we have to get to a budget agreement that the president agrees to or we're not going to fund the troops at the level that i agree we need to fund them at. with that i yield three minutes to the ranking member of the subcommittee on military personnel mrs. davis from california. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for -- the chair: the gentlewoman is recognized for three minutes. mrs. davis: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank chairman heck and the committee staff for working on this bipartisan manner and i want to thank chairman thornberry and ranking member smith for their leadership during this process. the bill takes important steps toward personnel reform by including recommendations from the military compensation and retirement modernization commission and i think we all want to them for their work. a key provision -- want to thank them for their work. while maintaining the 20-year defined retirement, a 2015 savings plan is added. not just for retirees, but for all service members.

this will positively impact the 83% of the force, i'll say it again 83% of the force that leaves prior to the 20-year mark. the ndaa continues the committee's critical work toward a prevention of and response to sexual assault. several provisions will increase access to better trained special victims counsel prevent retaliation against service members and crease awareness and training to better aid male victims of sexual assault. once again, the bill does not contain the department's request to administer change to the economy air is system, reductions to the housing alliance or tricare reform. but we must address these issues in some way. in the future. reform of the military health care system is crucial to ensure that care is elevated to a level befitting our service members, our wounded veterans, retirees and their families. important issues were dressed -- addressed in this bill and i support many of the provisions

and all the hard work that went into it. however, national security is born from many factions including the education of our people, investment in science and technology and the support of sustainable resources and infrastructure. all of these realms, maim, must be funded adequately -- mr. chairman, must be funded adequately and properly in order for our military to remain most elite force in the world. i'm disappointed that this ndaa although meeting the president's budget number request, does not follow the funding rules we have abided by in the past. thereby placing our national security in jeopardy. thank you mr. chairman, i yield back. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: mr. chairman, i yield two minutes to the chair of the subcommittee on sea power and projection forces, the gentleman from virginia, mr. forbes. the chair: the gentleman from virginia is recognized for two

minutes. mr. forbes: thank you, mr. chairman. i rise in support of the national defense authorization act of fiscal year 2016 and i want to commend the leadership of chairman thornberry and bringing this bill to the floor -- in bringing this bill to the floor. his leadership has been instrumental to getting this billfished on schedule. that being the case, i am absolutely perplexed by a president that would even suggest that he would veto a bill or members of congress who would suggest they would support him in vetoing a bill that gives every dime he requested for the support of the men and women who are fighting to defend this country and for the national security of this country unless he gets everything he wants for the e.p.a. and the i.r.s. and whatever part of his other political agenda he wants to keep. mr. chairman, it's time that we put national security in the -- and the men and women that defend this country first and leave politics for another day.

as to the sea power and projection forces subcommittee, this bill fully funds the carrier replacement program, two virginia class submarines, two destroyers, three combat ships. it reverses the administration's request to close the tomahawk production line and keeps the class cruisers in active service it. also accelerates the modernization of our existing destroyers and increases valuable undersea research and development activity and sustains our next generation tanker and bomber programs. i'm pleased with the sea power and projection forces effort in this bill and believe that it's another positive step in a long road to adequately support our national security. perhaps that's why the bill passed out of committee with such an overwhelming bipartisan margin of 60-2 with so many people on the other side of the aisle being for it before they were against it. i urge my colleagues to support the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2016 and with that mr. chairman i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time.

the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: thank you mr. chairman. i now yield three minutes to the ranking member of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, ms. spear from california -- ms. speier from california. the chair: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. speier: i thank you. i want to thank the chairman and ranking member for their accepting amendments to address military sexual assault increase oversight transgender rights whistleblower protection and equal access to con that acception for military women -- contraception to military women. i cannot support this bill in its current form. instead of making tough decisions with our limited resources, this bill uses an accounting gimmick to further parochial and political interests above the readiness of the men and women protecting us and the interests of taxpayers we represent. we chose to address the sage grouse rather than the elephant in the room. by irresponsibly sheltering $38 billion above the self-imposed budget cap in the o.c.o. account, this bill attempts to decouple national security from economic security.

in reality, these are one and the same. our military leadership gets it, but this seems to be lost on us. admiral mullin, former chairman of the joint chiefs, stated that the deficit that we are unwisely adding to in this bill is the single greatest threat to our national security. rather than empowering our military to align our force structure with the capabilities we need, we tie their hands. rather than addressing wasteful overhead, needless spare parts or outdated weapons systems, we chose to ensure that corporations that move their headquarters overseas to avoid taxes continue to get defense contracts. provisions of this bill also attempt to force the d.o.d. to keep our detention facility in guantanamo bay open. gitmo is a propaganda for our enemies and a distraction for our allies. those aren't my words they are george w. bush's. and 15 to 20 retired generalsed a -- and admirals. another provision of this bill -- generals and admirals.

another provision of this bill is about costly fueling operations and convoys that are extraordinarily dangerous. because the existence of climate change is a political talking point, somehow service members' safety is second rate. the military's not separate from the rest of the country. along with defending us, members of the military need to drive on roads that are not crumbling, cross bridges that are not falling and spend their -- send their children to public universities that are not bankrupt. it also makes it difficult to fund basic research, which has been a key element to our global competitive advantage and the source of much of the technology that our military relies on. in choosing to spend vast quantities of money on planes that the military does not want while refusing to address problems that everyone in the nation, including military members, needs fixed. we have to face the reality that we can't keep our nation secure if we let our country rot from the inside. i urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and i yield back. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her

time. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: i yield two minutes to the chair of the subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities, the gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson. the chair: the gentleman from south carolina is recognized. mr. wilson: thank you mr. chairman. i rise in strong support of the national defense authorization act and also to thank chairman thornberry for his leadership and hard work to bring this important bill to the floor. . committee bipartisan support was strong, 60-2. i'm honored to serve as the chairman of the subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities that oversees some of the most critical aspects of the department of defense including defense-wide science and technology efforts, special operation forces, cyber command and the cyber forces of the department of defense. in many other programs and activities that many deal with weamed, to putin's aggression against ukraine and iraq and

isis, the subcommittee has been active in conducting oversight of all of these important areas. it is worth noting that much of the oversight conducted by the subcommittee is classified and takes place behind closed doors where we review and remain current on activities and programs involving the department of defense intelligence capabilities, special operation forces and cyber forces. the subcommittee takes this sensitive oversight role very seriously and we consider the department of defense programs that enable these sensitive activities. overall, our bill provides for stronger capabilities and safeguards our superiority and enables or forces with the resources and authorities to counterterrorism unconventional warfare threats and defeat weapons of mass destruction. i would like to thank my friend

mr. langevin of rhode island. and with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: i thank you, mr. chairman. i yield two minutes to the ranking member on sea power and that is the the gentleman from connecticut. mr. courtney: i extend my complyments to the chairman for the way he conducted a 19-hour markup that went to close to 5:00 in the morning and the ranking member who provided just real great leadership in terms of moving that process along and the strong vote that came out of the committee. the seapower committee that mr. forbes kicked off some of the priorities, i want to add just one item i think is important to note. in terms of the future challenges for the shipbuilding of this country, the replacement program for the ballistic submarine program is going to

cost roughly $80 billion been identified as the top priority of the defense department as well as the department of the navy. so the question is not about whether or not we are going to build that sub, it's the question is what is going to happen to the rest of the ship building account. this bill activates the national sea-base deterrence fund which is an off-budget account to build this multi generational program using clear precedent. the national account took that program off the ship building's budget shoulders and we are using that same approach to meet this critical need. the ohio replacement program isn't going to suffocate the account. $1.4 billion is going to be infused into this fund with defense authorization act and again, that's going to provide a

path forward to make sure we meet the critical need and make sure we have a viable 300-plus-ship navy which every defense review has identified as critical. this is an important item which i feel is part of this evening's debate and should be identified and something that was a bipartisan effort on both sides of the seapower subcommittee. i look forward to a vigorous debate over the next two days. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: i yield to the chairman of -- the gentleman from ohio, mr. turner. mr. turner: i rise in support of the nd a a. and i want to thank my ranking member, loretta sanchez for her support incompleting the markup of this bill and i extend my

subcommittee chairman, mr. cook. i had a sentence where i said i was thanking ranking member smith because of his support for this bill when it came out of the committee, but due to his recent opposition to this bill, i'm going to cross that part out. the committee's focus has been on a bipartisan basis and you will hear the members talk about the provisions that we worked on on a bipartisan basis and it deserves everyone's support. it supports our men and women of the armed forces and the families and the equipment they need. i believe the committee's bill strikes the balance between equipping our military to carry out its mission and providing oversight. congress provides additional funding for new national guard black hawk helicopters and joint strike fighters, unmanned aerial systems, improved recovery

vehicles and aircraft survive built of the apache tank helicopters and support the national guard component. it provides additional funds in the equipment account to address shortages and modernization equipment. this bill also calls for continued action to eradicate sexual assault in the military. i thank my ranking member sanchez and susan davis for working on a bipartisan basis. this bill provides greater access to special victims' council and addresses issues of retaliation against victims and those who report sex crimes and enhances sexual assault and mental health records without an order from a judge and provides additional training. i urge my colleagues to support this bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: i yield two minutes to the ranking member of the subcommittee on readiness, mrs.

bordallo from guam. ms. bordallo: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to thank ranking member adam smith and my dear friend, chairman wittman for working with me on the readiness section of this ndaa. this bill provides our servicemen and women what they need to be prepared to face, the challengeses that are thrown at them by a dangerous world. however, as chairman thornberry likes to remind us, this gets us to the bare ragged, lower edge of what is required to respond to the full spectrum of challenges we face. in addition to funding our readiness requirements, our bill looks to the future by requiring reports on army and air force training requirements review of the pacific program and assessment of the adequacy of support assets. these reports will provide the

information necessary to enable us to determine whether the programs are achieving their intended purposes or allow us to take corrective action, if they are not. the bill authorizes a 2.3% pay increase for all service members of the the bill also continues our strong tradition. here is the house of supporting the rebalance of the asia hafe pacific region. it supplies funding for marines from japan to guam and improves critical infrastructure on guam. further, we have provided clear language that for the first time ever shows support from congress on the need for continued progress on the development of a replacement facility as the only option for the marines in japan. this requires the administration to develop a presidential policy directive that would provide guidance to each of the agencies and departments on how to

resource and support the rebalanced strategy. as i have been saying for some time the best thing we could do to increase our red anyness is to eliminate sequestration and get away from the gimmick of using o.c.o. funding to add to our nation's credit card bill. i agree with the president and secretary of defense that o.c.o. funding is not a permanent solution and hampers' d.o.d. ability to utilize funding and to plan for future years. so i do hope, mr. speaker that this congress can once and for all find a solution and fix this bill to end sequestration across the board. again, thank you, mr. speaker. and i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: i yield two minutes to the chair of the chair of strategic forces mr. rogers.

mr. rogers: i rise in strong support of h.r. 1735, fiscal year 2016 national defense authorization act the 54th consecutive defense authorization act which passed out of the armed services committee by 60-2. i thank the chairman for his leadership in getting us here today. without his guidance, we might have had a bill that failed to provide the money requested by the president for national defense. and i wouldn't have been able to support that bill. but we do have one that does meet the minimum needs outlined by chairman martin dempsey. and i'm proud of the subcommittee's jurisdiction where we authorize $475 million for the israeli missile defense including the u.s.-based co-production. and u.s. capabilities to counterrussia's nuclear forces treaty.

putin must recknizz that his actions will have consequences. the you is deploying to poland and capable of self-defense. it is simply immoral to remove intrinsic defense capability. we strengthen our decision made last year to end u.s. reliance on russian rocket engines by putting new money behind the new rocket program. we set priorities by controlling the size of the bureaucracy ending inefficient nonproliferation programs and tackling the $3.6 billion in deferred maintenance backlog that we suffer. we can no longer ask the best and brightest to work in bad infrastructure. the language was included to include the furloughs like the

army depot. also included in my amendment with congressman rob bishop is one that would exempt civilian jobs funded by the working capital fund from the planned 20% reduction at headquarters. it is one of the largest employers in alabama and most efficient production that the army has. with that, i urge favorable consideration and favorable vote on the ndaa. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. mr. smith: mr. speaker, we will reserve our time. mr. thornberry: i yield two minutes to the chair of the subcommittee of oversight and investigations the gentlelady from missouri, mrs. hartzler. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. hartzler: i rise in support of fiscal year 2016 ndaa and i

thank the chairman for bringing this bill to the floor. we have a proud tradition of supporting our national defense in a bipartisan manner and i hope that tradition will continue this year. this country is facing a vast array of threats both from state and nonstate actors and i'm pleased that the ndaa provides for the resources needed to address the threats of today and preparing for those of tomorrow. as oversight investigations subcommittee chairwoman we are addressing issues relating to detainee transfers. i am concerned about the lack of cooperation in the taliban five transfer. i consider it prudent to withhold funding from d.o.d. until more information and support is given so we may continue proper oversight. this bill is good news also for the men and women at fort leonardwood. one of my top priorities has been to support requests for construction of the consolidated

operations and nuclear alert facility. this facility is included in this ndaa and will bring substantial, immediate and long-term benefits to the base. i requested a provision to authorize 12 additional f-18 superhornets. they are needed in the fight against isil and if necessary. after marathon 18-hour long debates throughout the day and night, our colleagues have produced a bipartisan bill that allocates vital funds for our nation's defense. i'm proud of this bill and i urge members to support its passage. i yield back my remaining time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from connecticut. mr. courtney: continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: i yield two minutes to the chair of the subcommittee on military personnel the gentleman from

nevada, dr. heck. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. heck: the military personnel provisions of h.r. 1735 is a product of an open, bipartisan process. the mark provides the care and support they need, deserve and earned. some highlights from this year's proposal is continued emphasis on the sexual assault and response program by addressing shortfalls in the program. rigorous oversight of the recommendations made by the military compensation commission, specifically, the mark would require the secretary of defense and the secretary of vet rarans affairs that includes medications for the individual undergoing treatment relating to sleep disorders and behavioral health conditions and requires the secretary of defense to oversee medical services to the armed forces and other d.o.d.

medical beneficiaries and modernizes the system by blending the current benefit plan with a defined contribution plan allowing service members to contribute to affordable accounts that includes a government contribution and matching program. it requires the secretary of defense and the military service chiefs to strengthen and increase the frequency of financial literacy, establishing a morrow bus program for service members and their families. . we were joined by subcommittee members and their recommendations are clearly reflected in the ndaa for fiscal year 2016. mr. chairman, i've always said i thought myself lucky to serve on the armed services committee because i thought it was the most bipartisan committee in congress. we for the last four years have been unified in making sure our men and women in uniform have the resources they need to keep themselves and our nation safe. that's why today i find myself very confused and disappointed by the comments made on the floor. this is the national defense

authorization act whose sole purpose is to provide for the common defense. not education, not transportation, not any other government function. to vote against this bill is to breach the faith that we have with our men and women in uniform and is unconscionable. it is therefore i urge my colleagues to support this bill and yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. who seeks recognition? mr. courtney: we continue to reserve. mr. thornberry: i yield two minutes to the vice chair of the subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities, the distinguished gentleman from arizona, mr. franks. the chair: the gentleman from arizona, mr. franks, is recognized for two minutes. mr. franks: i thank the gentleman. mr. speaker, i rise today to join in this chorus of support

for the fiscal year 2016 national defense authorization act. i want to sincerely congratulate chairman thornberry in this his inaugural bill, as chairman of the armed services committee, which passed with a small vote of 60-2. while this bill sets d.o.d. policy, it also reflects the house-passed budget figure for authorized spending at the department of defense, it represents the will of congress that we ought to be spending more on national security as nearly every corner of the world has become less safe under president obama's continued foreign policy failures. and the f.y. 2016 ndaa makes needed reforms to civilian -- to strengthen civilian retiree packages and begins to reform the way that we buy weapons and other systems at the pentagon, which will save tax dollars for years to come. i also want to thank the chairman and committee for including some of my amendments to re-establish the e.m.p. commission begin initial

concept for development of a space-based missile defense system and guarantee assistance to the kurdistan regional government. as we know president obama has unfortunately issued a veto threat toward this bill. mr. chairman the ndaa has been passed year after year for 53 straight years under both democrat and republican administrations. now, among the provisions the president stands ready to rereject are a joint formulary to ease troops' transition from the department of defense to the v.a., providing aid to ukraine in the midst of russian-backed attacks, providing full funding to the department of defense which he himself requested. a stronger missile defense and cybercapability, a greater accountability for political reconciliation in iraq, greater protection of our troops from sexual assault and better pay and benefits to those who serve us so that we may stand here and debate this bill today. these are among the provisions of mr. obama's opposition. i want to reiterate to my colleagues that this bill did

pass out of the armed services committee 60-2 and this list of accomplishments are too long. so i'll just express congratulations again to mr. thornberry and for his leadership on this massive undertaking. i urge adoption and yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from washington. the gentleman from connecticut. mr. courtney: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to the gentleman from washington, the ranking member of the armed services committee, mr. smith. mr. smith: i just want to respond briefly, when called unconscionable to oppose something, besides being unbelievably arrogant, it is wrong to say that there is no reason whatsoever to vote against this bill. i mentioned earlier that there were -- i'm sorry, is there -- if he can call me unconscionable, i suppose i can call him air ganlt. i don't know. seems fair -- arrogant. i don't know. seems fair. at any rate, there's another reason not to vote for this bill. and that is that it underfunds

readiness, once again it says this matches the president's budget. and overall it does. but it has $2.4 billion less in money for readiness. last year's bill had $1.5 billion less in readiness. why? because every effort that the department of defense makes to cut just about anything, the movements that they want to make to start brac, the changes they wanted to make to the national guard to save money, the plan they had to lay-up 11 cruisers, the efforts to get rid of the a-10, efforts to move anything around are blocked by this can committee and they take that -- blocked -- blocked by this committee and they take that money out of readiness to fund what really amounts to a personal priority. and what does it mean to take money out of readiness? it means that our troops do not get the training that they need to be prepared to fight. it's just that simple. readiness money is the money for the ammo, it's the money

for the fuel, it's the money for the mechanics to fix equipment. that has been going down and down and down as we block every effort to save money in anyplace else. just about anything the pentagon's going to do is going to affect somebody's district. the a-10 is in somebody's district. every other project is made in somebody's district. we protected all of that at the expense of readiness. i think that is the worst thing that we can do, is create a situation where we may well be sending our men and women off to fight unprepared and untrained. and you talk to the people who are serving, they're not able to fly as much as they used to, they're not able to train as much as they used to, they're not able to use their weapons as much as they used to, because of those continuous cuts to readiness, because we fund other priorities. that's number one. number two, funding through o.c.o., as the secretary of defense has said, is not the same as actually funding the department of defense through a regular appropriations process. it is one-time money.

what the secretary of defense has said is that giving us this one-time money makes it impossible to plan. you can't have a five-year plan under o.c.o. money. you are restricted in in where you can spend it and how you can spend it. this is not adequately funding our troops. i do take offense at the notion that opposition to this bill means that you just don't support our troops. that is the bumper sticker -- sorry, i won't use that word, it's wrong to say that about anyone owe who opposes this bill -- anyone who opposes this bill. i oppose this bill because it doesn't adequately fund our troops it. doesn't take care of the budget -- troops it. doesn't take care of the budget -- troops. it doesn't take care of the budget problems. the only way to accurately fund our troops is to get rid of the budget control act so we can fund it under regular order with a normal amount of money that allows the plan for over five years. lastly, i'm sorry, but the infrastructure of this country matters. the fact that bridges are falling down matters.

the fact that we don't have enough money to do research on critical disease matters. yes, it is important to defend this country. yes, that is the paramount duty. but if the country itself crumbles while we have a military to defend it, that too is a problem. one i think worth fighting for. worth standing up and saying, we're not going to accept a budget that guts all of these other things and uses the overseas contingency operation as a work-around to fund defense. it's basically acting like this is free money. it's not free money. it costs and it undermines the entire rest of the budget. let's get rid of the budget control act. let's get rid of the caps. let's get rid of sequestration. we don't do that in this bill. it is my contention that if we don't do that, then we are not adequately funding our troops and adequately funding our defense. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: mr. chairman, i yield myself 30 seconds.

the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thornberry: mr. chairman i'd just make two brief points. one is, the extra o.c.o. funding that has been so criticized is 100% for operations and maintenance. for readiness. that's what it all is devoted to in this mark. secondly if we start holding our troops hostage because we want more spending over here or we want some other change in law over there, where does that stop? where does that stop? what are -- when are we not going to hold our troops hostage to because a senate and a house and a president can't agree on some other issue? i think it's dangerous to start down that road. at this time, mr. chairman, i'd yield two minutes to the vice chairman of the subcommittee on strategic forces the gentleman from colorado, mr. lamborn. the chair: the gentlewoman from colorado is recognized for two minutes. mr. lamborn: thank you and i thank the chairman of the se are committee for his great -- of the committee for his great work on this bill and for recognizing me. mr. chairman, i rise today in support of the national defense authorization act of 2016, this is an important bill that

provides funding and authority for the men and women in uniform who are willing to go in harm's way to keep our country safe. this bill takes some of the important steps to reform the department of defense, both in acquisition and in retirement benefits, it includes a number of provisions that i worked on regarding military space, missile defense and tunnel detection, to name just a few. this is a bipartisan bill, dozens if not hundreds of provisions were authored by democrats. it came out of committee by a vote of 60-2. only one democrat voted against it in committee. nothing substantive has changed only now nancy pelosi is calling the shots and democrats have flip flopped. i understand that nancy pelosi and the democrats want to increase taxes and increase spending on domestic programs, but that debate should not be fought on the backs of our troops. if you vote against this bill, it is a vote to cut our defense budget. it's even a vote against president obama's requested

defense budget. today we have troops doing humanitarian relief in any na pal dropping bombs -- in napal, dropping bombs on isis, and supporting our european allies in the face of russian aggression. now is not the time to cut the defense budget. let's support our troops, not nancy pelosi's partisan agenda. vote yes on h.r. 1735. thank you mr. chairman, i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from connecticut. mr. courtney: mr. speaker, could i inquire how much time is left on both sides? the chair: the gentleman from connecticut has 9 1/2 minutes remaining and the gentleman from texas has seven minutes remaining. mr. courtney: continue to reserve. the chair: the gentleman from connecticut reserves. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: mr. chairman, i yield two minutes to the vice chair of the subcommittee on readiness, the gentlelady from new york ms. stefanik. ms. stefanik: thank you mr.

speaker. i rise in support of the national defense authorization act and i would like to first thank and applaud chairman thornberry on his leadership and commitment to this thoughtful and comprehensive bill. additionally, i am grateful to our subcommittee chairs for their exhaustive efforts and while the end results may not be perfect it is a strong bipartisan piece of legislation that i'm proud to support. our committee spent 19 hours debating this bill and all members put forward their ideas. we worked together across the aisle which led to significant strides in maintaining and establishing our nation's defense policy. today's unstable global environment, we are asking our armed forces to do more with less over and over again. and as a representative of fort drum, home of the 10th mountain division, such a high operational tempo unit, i too am concerned about long-term impacts due to the budget cap constraints. recently i had the honor to attend a small congressional delegation visit to a.o.r. on this trip i was able to get a first hand perspective on the

detrimental effects these budget caps have on our nation's overseas missions. thankfully the f.y. 2016 ndaa provides our u.s. armed forces with the tools and resources to maintain current efforts and it passed out of our committee on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 60-2 and i want to remind my colleagues 60-2. thank you again mr. chairman, for putting forth a great bill that i'm pleased to support and i urge my colleagues to support this bill. particularly those colleagues on the committee who already have. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. the gentleman from connecticut. mr. courtney: continue to reserve. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: mr. chairman, i yield two minutes to the vice chair of the subcommittee on military personnel, the gentleman from new jersey, mr. mcarthur. the chair: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for two minutes.

mr. macarthur: thank you, mr. chairman. i rise today in strong support of the national defense authorization act. it's a bipartisan bill that passed the full armed services committee with nearly unanimous support. as we've already heard. this bill meets our national security needs, it cares for our troops invests in next-generation weaponry and brings necessary reforms to the pentagon. no bill is perfect and i urge my colleagues not to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. and there is certainly a lot of good in this bill. . i'm proud of our work to care for our troops and their families. this bill acts on 11 of the 15 recommendations of the commission on military pay and benefits, including things like revamping our military retirement system to bring it into the 21st century providing increased financial literacy for our troops. i'm pleased that the bill

includes an initiative i proposed to help our retiring military personnel to transition to civilian jobs. importantly, this bill precludes another round of brac, which threatens to shut military bases around the country. brac is not cost effective. and in my home state of new jersey, we have seen the devastation it brings to local communities. the last round of brac cost $14 billion more than it was supposed to and the savings reduced by 73%. it doesn't break even for 13 years. i'm a businessman and spending more to safe less while you weaken our military makes no sense. finally this bill fulfills our constitutional duty to provide for the common defense of our nation. we face new threats like the islamic state, a newly resurgent

russia and our military has to be ready to face them head on. this bill funds the pentagon at the level it needs and avoids the blind cuts of sequestration that hurt our military's capabilities and readiness. i urge my colleagues to support this bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from connecticut. schmidt smith we continue to reserve -- mr. smith: we continue to reserve. mr. thornberry: we are prepared to close. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves. mr. smith: i yield myself the balance of my time. there are a lot of good things in this bill. no one agrees with what was said there. mr. thornberry has taken a leadership role and that is a huge positive. there are a lot of programs in this bill that are absolutely critical to our national

defense. but the most critical thing i think to our national defense is getting us back to the normal budget process, getting us out from the budget control act and the budget caps and having a normal appropriations process. and if we vote for this bill, we allow that unnatural process where the pentagon does not have long-term funding and long-term predictability to continue. and the biggest thing that has changed, the president did not issue a veto threat and i had a conversation with our leadership in our committee and the fact that the president has said he will not support this bill with the additional o.c.o. funding is a major change. it means what we are working on here is not going to happen. and that's not political, that is substantive. we have to have a bill that the president will sign if we are going to fund our troops. and the second thing that happened was the budget

resolution. that was being debated back and forth. the house passed it and the senate passed one and it became clear that the budget resolution was the budget resolution and they were looking -- locking in place that creates -- tax advantage of the o.c.o. fund to create free money, money that doesn't count under the budget control act. and once that was locked in and the president looked at that and said he would not support that appropriations process we created a situation that what we are doing here is not going to pass, is not going to be sustainable and not going to fund our troops doing it this way unless we make those other changes in the budget process, we just aren't going to get there. i want to emphasize the gentleman's comments, all the military has bavengly said they are 20% overcapacity and spending money on facilities

that they don't need to spend just because they can't close those bases. yes, in the short-term, it costs more money, but in the long-term the first four rounds of brac have saved us hundreds of billions of dollars over the long-term, so not being willing to do brac and not being willing to make cuts in certain programs is undermining readiness and we took the o.c.o. money and because it is fungible, you could do it this way. and fund it in the programs that the pentagon was trying to cut and backfill as much as you could with the o.c.o. money, and that's better than not but left it short of what the president's budget was on readiness and we are short changing readiness to fund priorities that are more political and that is something that i mentioned last year put me on the edge of whether or not i could support last year's bill. because at the end of the day, the one thing i owe our troops

we send them into battle they are ready and trained and ready to fight. and if they don't have the equipment or readiness dollars, they won't be. for those two reasons, i'm opposing this bill. i'm hopeful that we can reconcile this issue, that we can adequately fund the military and work through this because i agree we need to do this. there is a bill doesn't adequately fund our troops in a way to give them the training they need and give the pentagon leadership in terms of budgeting to have a decent defense budget. i will oppose this bill. and i do not view this in any way as the end of the bipartisan tradition of our committee. we work very closely together inputting together this bill and we will work together to find a bill that can pass through the entire process. but again, the president doesn't

sign it, then all of our work is for naut and the troops will suffer. we have to find a way to reach an agreement. and i pledge to continue to do that. and i do want to thank the chairman and the republicans on this issue. i think they have done a fabulous job on working on this bill. i just disagree on that one fundamental point that has more to do with the budget committee than it does with our committee, but it does have a profound impact on our product. with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from washington yields back. the gentleman from texas. mr. thornberry: i yield myself the balance of the time. mr. chairman, let me just take up where the gentleman from washington left off. you've heard from a number of speakers that the product before us is a bipartisan product, that our committee works in a bipartisan way, just to put a little quantification on that, over the course of our markup in

committee, 96 amendments sponsored by democratic members of the committee were adopted. and prior to that, at least 110 specific requests by democratic members of the committee were incorporated into the committee and subcommittee marks. so it leaves one wondering if democratic members are forced to oppose the bill because of something the budget committee hasn't done, how can this bipartisan tradition continue and that is one of the things that concerns me, because it is something that i think we are all very proud of, that we work together, that we put the national defense interests ahead of these other differences that we have. this makes it harder when when we don't fix the budget or we don't fix their health care or we don't fix an environment or

don't fix taxes there is no end if that's the way that this is going to go. i think it's ironic mr. chairman. i'll speak for myself, you i believe we need to find a better way to impose fiscal responsibility in our government than the budget control act. and i'm absolutely anxious to work with any member who wants to find a better way to go ahead, but we can't do it on this bill. it's impossible. and so what we're doing for those who would oppose this bill is to hold the pay and benefits of our troops, all of these decisions that get so much prays, we are holding it hostage to something we can't resolve in this measure. as the gentleman from washington said, this isn't the end of the process. this is a step in the process.

there's a lot of things to go with appropriation bills and conference reports and so forth before the president ever has an opportunity to veto a bill. as a matter of fact mr. chairman this president has threatened to veto all the defense authorization bills some point in the process. that's not a reason for us not to take the next step. we should build upon the bipartisan work that came out of committee. i suspect there will be bipartisan work with amendments from republicans and democrats on the floor and we should pass this measure, go to conference with the senate and keep working towards the end of the process where hopefully we can have something better than the budget control act. to say i'm not going to support our troops unless we do that first i don't think is the proper way to go. this is a normal budget process. we have a house and senate budget resolution for the first time in years. of course.

mr. smith: this is not where we are coming from, not supporting the troops. mr. thornberry: i do not mean to say that is the intention of the gentleman or those who oppose the gentleman. that is the effect. there are 40 essential authorities that have to be in a defense authorization bill and one of those is to pay the troops. without those authorities, it doesn't happen. mr. chairman, i believe this bill should be supported. the speaker pro tempore: all time for general debate has expired. pursuant to the rule, the committee rises. the speaker pro tempore: mr. chairman. the chair: the committee of the whole house on the state of the union having had under consideration h.r. 1735 directs me to report that it has come to no resolution thereon

the speaker pro tempore: the chair of the committee of the whole house reports that the committee has had under consideration h.r. 1735 and has come to no resolution thereon. the speaker pro tempore: on behalf of the speaker and minority leader of the house of representatives and the majority and minority leader of the united states senate, joint reappointment pursuant to section 301 of the congressional accountability act of 1995. 2 u.s.c. 1381 as amended by public law 114-6 of the following individuals on may 13, 2015. each to a two-year term on the board of directors of the office of compliance.

the clerk: ms. cay mmp ans and ms. holsworth of rockford, illinois. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to sections 5580 and 5581 of the revised statutes, 20 u.s.c. 42-43 and the order of the house of january 6, 2015 of the following member on the part of the house of the board to the board of regular events of the smithsonian institution. the clerk: mr. becerra of california. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment according to 20 u.s.c. and the order of house january 6 2015 of the following member on the part of the house of the board of trustees of the harry s. truman scholarship foundation.

the clerk: mr. deutch of florida. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment and the order of the house of january 6, 2015 of the following members on the part of the house to the board of visitors to the united states military academy. the clerk: mr. israel of new york and ms. loretta sanchez of california. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to 2 u.s.c. of 501-b and the order of the house of january 6, 2015 of the following members of the congressional mailing standards. the clerk: mrs. davis of california mr. sherman of california, and and mr. richmond of louisiana. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to section 8162 of public law 106-79 as

amended and the order of the house of january 6 2015 of the following members on the part of the house to the dwight d. eisenhower memorial commission. the clerk: mr. bishop of georgia and mr. thompson of california. . the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment of the fol rowing members on the part of the house to the congressional executive commission on the people's republic of china. the clerk: mr. walz of minnesota, ms. kaptur of ohio, mr. honda of california and mr. lew of kale. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker appointment pursuant to u.s.c. 2003 and the order of the house of january 6, 20 15, of the following members on the part of the house to the committee on

cooperation in europe. the clerk: mr. hastings of florida, ms. slaughter of new york, mr. cohen of tennessee, and mr. grayson of florida. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following communications. the clerk: the honorable the speaker house of representatives, sir, pursuant to u.s.c. 2081, i am pleased to reappoint the honorable marcy kaptur of ohio to the united states capitol preservation commission. thank you for your consideration of this appointment signed sincerely, nancy pelosi, democratic leader. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to section 4c of house resolution 5 114th congress, i am pleased to reappoint the honorable james t. mcgovernor of massachusetts as co-chair of the tom lantos human rights commission. thank you for your attention to this appointment.

signed, sincerely, nancy pe he see, democratic leader. the honorable the speaker house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the national foundation on the arts and humanities act of 1965, 20 u.s.c. 955c note, i am pleased to reappoint the honorable betty mccollum of minnesota to the national could be sill on the arts. thank you for your attention to this appointment. signed, sincerely, nancy pelosi democratic leader. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following personal requestses. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. brady of pennsylvania for today, and ms. cap from california for may 12 through may 1. the speaker pro tempore: without objection -- through may 1. -- 21. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the requests are granted. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2015, the

gentleman from arizona, mr. franks is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. franks: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it's been an amazing day. passed a major bill today mr. speaker that i think is going to have some significant reverberations in this country for a long time. you know, i know that whenever the subject has been abortion,

that somehow the rules always change. somehow we don't see it the same way that we do other issues. we don't apply the same principles of logic and reason and even compassion. it seems like that gets lost in it all. seems like we sort of overlook the reality of it alm. but the real question with abortion mr. speaker, is does abortion really kill a baby? if it doesn't, then people like me would be completely satisfied to never bring up the subject again. but if it really does take the life of a child, then those of us living here in the seat of freedom the freest country in the world are living in the midst of a great human genocide. and it's something we cannot and must not turn our backs upon.

mr. speaker, i know that it's been a long time that we debated in this country. i remember in 1965, the governor of colorado signed a bill that would allow abortion in rare circumstances. and it created a great outcry because people knew that might lead to more widespread abortion on demand. and at the time, those who were concerned about that were ridiculed and ignored many times, but yet that is in fact what the supreme court did in 1973 when seven justices decided for all americans that it was a constitutional right to take the -- to hire someone to take the life of a child. and mr. speaker, i sometimes

wonder how we miss the reality of it all. i know that there are sincere people on both sides of the issue but it just seems like that ultimately we keep coming back to that central question. is there another life here? because if there is, in order for america to be true to her greatest ideals, then the american people are going to have to precipitate a change either in their leadership or to convince their leadership to precipitate a change in their own hearts. because after all i believe there's only two ways we can change public policy in this country and that is if the people -- that is that the people either have to elect the right leaders or somehow they have to make the -- beg the wrong ones to do the right thing. for a long time, our people have

tried desperately to get their leaders to do the right thing. on this issue. but we've been hamstrung by a supreme court decision. once again, the supreme court was never meant to make law for the country. they were meant to decide cases not issues. even though we have put the supreme court in the position of deciding those cases an giving us opinions on constitutional analysis, when each of us as members of congress swore to defend and uphold the constitution of the united states, we put our hand, as we swore to do that, to support and defend the constitution. we didn't say that we will support and defend the constitution if the supreme court says it's all right. we said we would do that. and the founding fathers knew that there had to be this

tension between the three branches of government. and that each one of those branches had a responsibility and a sworn oath to defend the constitution the best they knew how, on their own. and certainly we give deference to opinions of the court on cases, but if this body, if this body says that the supreme court is the ultimate arbiter of the constitution, then we have to quit taking that oath. and if this body says that the supreme court is the ultimate arbiter because of their ability and the power that we would ostensibly give them to answer all constitutional questions, if we say that, then mr. speaker, we can go outside here and board these windows shut and the congress can go home and we can finally quit pretending to be that great republic that the

founding fathers dreamed of. because we will have become at that time a judicial oligarchy where unelected judges have given to themselveses the power to answer all, really, all legal questions. and then this magnificent dream that the founding fathers had would be vitiated completely. and i just somehow hope that we understand that the supreme court of the united states is a critically important part of our republic, but it is not the sole arbiter of the constitution. again, if it is, the republic is dead. now mr. speaker, today we debated the pain capable unborn child protection act. it's kind of -- it occurs to me that we've had to parse this out

in ways that the opposition could finally understand. the unborn child protection act doesn't protect any children in the first five months even though i think they should be protected and if we don't protect them then what will we find in terms of political courage to protect any kind of liberty for anyone. but this act today only protected children beginning at the sixth month until birth. now that shouldn't be a hard question. but it dot -- that it got any dissenting votes is a disgrace that beggars my ability to express. and i truly believe that those who voted against the bill that would simply have protected children in the sixth month, beginning at the sixth month and beyond that when they lay their head down on that pillow in the nursing home, if there's any

conscience remaining, that there will be great regret for such a vote. because in coming years, i believe that we will understand more and more how real and how human these little babies really are. we will begin to understand as a people and as a country that we overlook them, that somehow these little forgotten children of god just escaped our notice and with all of the new technologies and all the new ways that we do things mr. speaker, i foresee a day when we will be able to have such a clear look into the lives of these little children and we will see this as we have so many times before in past days where there was a victim and no one was really paying much attention

to them and i hope that somehow we can consider our own history and back up a little bit and say, you know we don't have to continue to let ourselves be blind. mr. speaker for too long, a great shadow has loomed over america. for more than 42 years. a tragedy called row vs. wade was first handed down and since then -- called roe vs. wade was handed down and thins then, since that decision, the very foundation of this nation has been stained by the blood of 55 million of its own little children. exactly two years ago today one kermit gosnell was convicted of killing a murder and murdering innocent, late-temple pain capable babies in this grisly torture chamber they call an abortion clinic. when authorities entered the clinic of doctor gosnell, they

found a torture chamber for little babies that defies description within the constraints of the english language. according to the grand jury report, quote, this is a quote if the grand jury report mr. speaker -- dr. kermit gosnell had a simple solution for ahn wanted baby he killed them. he didn't call it that, he called it ensuring fetal demise. the way he did that was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. he called it snipping. over the years there were hundreds of snippings, unquote. ashley baldwin one of dr. gosnell's employees described a baby that was two feet long that had no eyes or mouth and said it was making a screeching noise and it, quote, sounded like a little alien. for god's seak, mr. speaker is

this who we truly are? kermit gosnell now rightfully sits in prison for killing a mother and murdering innocent children yet there was and is no innocent protection for any of them. if he had killed these babies five minutes earlier before they passed through the birth canal it would have been legal in many states. we have sanitized dr. fwmbings osnell's clin exbut we cannot sanitize what happened to these little babies. if there's one thing we must know it's that dr. gosnell is not an amom i -- anomaly, he's just the face of this lucrative enterprise of murdering babies.

thousands of late-term abortions are taking place every year. it harms mothers and tortures their un born child. a woman seeking abortion at 20 weeks is 25 more times likely to die. at 21 weeks or more, she's 91 times or more more likely to tie than in the first trimester. regardless of how supporters of abortion on demand may try to say it, the risk from a mother's health from abortion increases as the gestation increases. there's no valid debate on that incontrovertible reality. supporters of abortion on demand have tried -- tried for decades to deny that unborn children feel pain. even those they say at the beginning of the sixth month of pregnancy, as if somehow the ability to feel pain magically

develops the very second the child is born. almost every civilized nation on this earth protects pain-capable babies. and every poll shows that they are overwhelmingly in support of protecting these children and given these little babies less legal protection than the protection we have given farm animals under the federal humane slaughter act. it is a tragedy that begs expression. but today, mr. speaker, i am filled with hope the winds are are changed and beginning to blow and the tide of blindness and blood is finally beginning to turn in america, because today, today, mr. speaker, we

voted to pass the pain-capable unborn child protection act in this chamber and no matter how it is shouted down or distorted what-ifs or twisting of words, changing the subject or blatant falsehoods, this bill and its pass age today are a deeply sincere effort beginning at the six-month of pregnancy to protect mothers from the atrocity of late-term abortion on demand and it is a bill that all humane americans will support when they truly understand it for themselves. the voices who hailed the merslyless killings will grow louder, especially the ones who profit it from them the most. we should remember the quote of

president lincoln when he said those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and under a just god cannot long retain it. mr. speaker, for the sake of all of those who founded and built this nation and dreamt of what america could someday be and for the sake of all those since then who have died in darkness so americans can walk in the light of freedom, it is so very important that those of us who are privileged to be members of the united states congress pause from time to time and remind ourselves of why we are really all here. do we still hold these truths to be self-evident. i think sometimes we forget the majestic words of the declaration of independence. we hold these truths to be self-evident. that all men, all are created

equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. oh i wish so desperately that every member of congress could truly absorb those words in their hearts, because it's very clear that it's a statement that it's almost a theological statement because it recognizes all of us to be created in the image of god, that we are created. and that makes all the difference, mr. speaker, because if we're created, if we have a purpose if there is something miraculous about this magnificent gift of life, then we should all pay very close attention to what that purpose is. and if our rights don't come from government, if they don't

come from the hand of men and come from the hand of god, then we have a great responsibility to try to protect them from one another and for one another. mr. speaker, the declaration goes on to say, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. that's why we're here. mr. lincoln called upon all of us mr. speaker to remember that mag knife sent of america's declaration of founding fathers and quote, enlightened belief that nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was to be trotted on. he -- when in the distant future, some man, some faction, some interest should set up a doctrine that some were not entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, that quote, their pros tert, that's us, mr. speaker, might look up

again to the declaration of independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fatters began unquote. wow! . thomas jefferson whose words marked the beginning of this nation said the care of human life and it's happiness and not its destruction is the chief and only object of good government. the phrase in the fifth amendment capsulizes and says no person shall be deprived of life, lint or due process of law. no state shull denny to any person the equal protection of the law. mr. speaker, protecting the lives of all americans and their constitutional rights especially those who cannot protect themselves is why we are all here. it's why we came to congress. you know, not long ago i heard

barack obama speak very noble and poignant words that whether he realizes or not, so profoundly apply to this subject. let me quote excerpted portions of his comments. he said, quote, this is our first task, caring for our children. it's our first job. if we don't get that right we don't get anything right. that's how as a society, we will be judged. president obama asked, are we really prepared to say that we are powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard. are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of freedom. the president also said, quote our journey is not complete until our childrenr quote cared for and cherished and always safe from harm. that is our generation's task he

said to make these words these rights, these values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every american. mr. speaker, never have i so deeply agreed with any words ever spoken by president obama as those i just quoted and how i wish, how i wish with all of my heart that mr. obama and all of us could somehow open our hearts and ears to this incontrowvert i believe statement and ask ourselves why his wrords that should apply to all children cannot include the most helpless and vulnerable of all children. are there any children more vulnerable than these little babies we are discussing today? you know mr. speaker, it seems like we're never quite so eloquent as when we decry the

crimes of a past generation, but how we often become so staggering blind when it comes to facing and rejecting the worst of atrocities in our own time. what we're doing to these little babies is real and the president and all of us here know that in our hearts. medical science regarding the development of unborn babies in the sixth month of pregnancy demonstrates that they do experience pain. many of them cry and scream as they are killed, but because it is amniotic fluid going over the vocal cords instead of air, we don't hear them. and it is the greatest human rights atrocity in the united states of america today. mr. speaker, let me close with a final contribution and wise counsel from abraham lincoln that i believe so desperately applies to all of this in this

moment, he said fellow citizens we cannot escape history. we in this congress will remember in spite of ourselves. no personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. the firey trials through which we now pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation. mr. speaker, the passage of h.r. 36 will be remembered. it will be considered in history and the councils of eternity, protecting little pain-capable unborn children and its mothers are is not a republican or democrat issue but a basic test of our humanity and who we are as a human family. and today, we begin to open our eyes and allow our consciences to catch up. today, members of the united states congress began to open their hearts and souls to remind themselves bill protecting

themselves who cannot protect themselves is why we are really here. and i hope, mr. speaker, that it sparks a little thought in the minds of all americans so that we might all open our eyes and our hearts to the humanity of these unborn children of god and the inhumanity of what is being done to them. i don't know if that will happen or not but mr. speaker as of today when we passed the pain-capable unborn child protection act we have come a step closer. and for that, i'm grateful. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you, mr. franks. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6 2015 the gentleman from california mr. swalwell is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

mr. swalwell: thank you, mr. speaker. tonight we are back with the future forum, a group of young members of congress here to discuss an issue that is near and dear to our hearts and one on the minds of eff each of us on a daily basis and that is the issue of our veterans. we are joined by some members and we are going to start by asking everyone who is watching across the country to tweet at us or find us on instagram under #futureforum to give us your suggestions and ideas and challenges facing veterans. #futureforum.

we are going to hear from a veteran, first term member of congress who served four tours of duty in iraq as a marine infantryman. seth moulton will talk about his experience as a 9/11 veteran and what he's hearing in the boston area and what we can do hear in congress. i yield to mr. moulton from massachusetts. mr. moulton: veterans are coming home from our wars and want to serve again and that's one of the most amazing things about our veterans and millenials and their desire to serve the country. one of the toughest jobs to get out of college is not a job on wall street but a job serving america. and one of the amazing things i have found those who served both in civilian service and veterans, is we get out and want

to serve again. frankly, when i went into the military, i thought i would do my four years and check that box and no one would question for the rest of my life whether i wanted to serve the country again and i got out and found i missed it and missed that sense of public service, that sense of duty, that sense that every single day, my work impacted the lives of other people. veterans come home and they just don't want a paycheck or a retirement and health care, they want to contribute to the country back here at home, but in order to do that, they have to transition here back into life here as a civilian. that's tough today, because many of the basic health care needs of veterans are not being taken care of and not given the opportunities to pursue jobs in the private sector. so that great opportunity for our nation's veterans to serve again is squandered because we aren't taking care of them when

they get home. there are some statistics about how successful veterans are in the civilian work force. veterans are disproportionately homeless. how does that happen? . . mr. swalwell: we asked people to chime in on twitter with their thoughts, one comment is let's leverage veterans toward rebuilding our infrastructure. do you see a role for veterans as we try to repair and rebuild america's infrastructure? mr. moulton: absolutely. there's so much veterans can do back here at home. the point of my story about how veterans are disproportionately successful and also disproportionately homeless, it comes back to the transition. if you're a veteran who can come

home and navigate the transition to work in the civilian sector, because you get the health care you need if you have post-traumatic stress and get it taken care of you can use the skills and experience you had in the military, the readership train, experience performing under the toughest circumstances on earth. you'll use that for success in the business world and back here at home, whatever you do. if you don't make that transition successfully if you don't get the health care you need to take care of whatever conditions you have from your service, then you can literally become homeless. that's why this transition is so important. but the point is, the point is that veterans have a lot to give back to our country. so i think most americans understand that we have a moral obligation to take care of our veterans. that for all they have done for us overseas, risking their lives, we ought to take care of them when they get back. most americans get that but it's also just a smart investment.

it's a smart investment in our economy. it's a smart investment in america's future to take care of our veterans. mr. swalwell: you talked about the leadership training you get serving your country in the military. myself in this job, had the pleasure of going to afghanistan. i went with mr. kilmer back in august of 2013 and just a couple of weeks ago i was in baghdad. i observed our troops in theater and what i observed was, of course, the military training and leadership training they're getting but they're also using everyday software applications to carry out their duties. how do you see their knowledge and experience with the various technologies they're using in the field, how can that translate at home when they try to go into the work force? >> we live in an information economy. you're from silicon valley, represent silicon valley, there's so much need for tech-savvy technically trained employees in our work force.

you get ex-trordnary training in the military, whether you're in the infantry, on the ground in one of those toughest jobs where your ability to lead in the most difficult serks imaginable is critical, or even if you're sitting, controling a drone back in arizona and just understanding how our most advanced technology works and you're able to manage that, then you're going to be incredibly valuable back home. but we've got to take care of our veterans to get there a lot of veterans post-traumatic stress. it's created this -- this stigma that if you hire a veteran you might get someone who has some mental issues. but the reality is that post-traumatic stress, first of all, it's a normal thing to expect after what many veterans have gone through overseas. but it's entirely treatable. so it's not, it shouldn't be unusual to think that someone who went through thery fwors of

combat, the tragedy of war, would be affect -- the rigors of combat the tragedy of war would be affected by that but it can be treated appropriately and veterans can serve again when they get back home. mr. swellwell: we got a question just a moment ago from@leeahahn. he asks how is the v.a. coming along, and more than that how would you see the treatment so that vet cans -- veterans can come hope and -- come home and have a job. the veteran employment rate for those who served since september 11 and the iraq war, it's 6.7%. last year it was as high as 7.%, it's been as high as 9.9% in the last two years always above the national unemployment rate. what can we do at the v.a. was

we fund and authorize programs there to treat ptsd and make sure veterans aren't losing jobs or losing opportunities in the work force? mr. moulton: first of all, we need a lot of reform at the v.a. this has been much publicized across the country. there are some v.a.'s doing all right, doing fairly well, and there are others what are completely failing our veterans. shouldn't matter where you're from or where you live, you should be able to go to a v.a. facility and get the care you need the care you've earned. a lot of veterans aren't seing that. some people ask me how often do i hear from fellow veterans who are struggling to get the care they need at the v.a.? i can tell you i've heard from two marines in my second platoon in the last week. they have asked for my help as a new congressman just getting the access to care that they need. that -- you shouldn't have to go to your congressman to be able to get the care you need at the v.a. some interesting statistics

about the v.a., the peak of claims from world war i the year when the most world war ii veterans sought care at the v.a. was not 1920 or 1925. it was 1969. 1969. so that tells us two things. first it says that the v.a. as we know it today was really built to deal with a different generation of veterans. not iraq and afghanistan veterans, not even vietnam veterans. the second thing it tells us, if iraq -- if the v.a. can't take care of the iraq and afghanistan veterans today, we haven't even begun to see the problem. a lot of vietnam veterans are just now coming to the v.a. because they realize their cancer or other problems are a result of the agent orange they were exposed to years ago. i think the new secretary is doing a good job and moving in the right direction but we need radical change and it remains to

be seen how effective his work will be. mr. swalwell: thank you, mr. moulton. i'm hearing now from duncan he, said #millenials vets stood up when the kun country needed them. we need these people po up -- to run for office and stop the cynical attitude about politics. i think he's right. we have some other post september 11 veterans congresswoman tulsi fwabard of haye, representative gallego of arizona and also yourself. thank you for participating this evening. mr. moulton: i love that question. we have never had fewer veterans in congress in our nation's history than we do today. i don't think it should be a litmus test that you have to be a veteran to run for congress, not at all. but at a time when we face unprecedented challenges across the globe, when we're involved in so many conflicts oversea the perspective of veterans is

important. we can't just have the perspective of older veterans, we need younger veterans too. veterans of wars in the middle east veteran who was faced terrorists across the globe. those are the fights that we are figuring out how tissue those are the challenges we're figuring out how to meet in congress. i think it is important that we have the perspective of veterans. if they are -- if there are veterans out there listening, i hope you will consider running. we need you. we need new leaders. we need your perspective. we'd love to see you serve the couldn't reagain. mr. swalwell: couldn't agree with you more. i think this is a richer body because we have veterans like you in it. mr. kilmer, you and i went to afghanistan back in august of 203, i know you have a number of service members in your district and people who were service members and i'm just wondering, you know, you look at ethis number, 6.%, higher than the average unemployment rate, and

what are you hearing out there in the tacoma area in washington and what can we do in congress? mr. kilmer: one, i think -- one i thank you, mr. swalwell for your leadership. i actually represent more veterans than any democrat in the united states congress and i actually think my region is a whole lot stronger as a result of that we have men and women who have served our country who choose to make the olympic peninsula their home. mr. swalwell: how many veterans do you represent? mr. kilmer: i don't know the exact number but we have a slew of them. we have a couple of bases and after they there they choose to make it their home. my background was working in economic development. when you talk to employers in our region, by and large they get it, that the veteran -- veterans bring a lot to the table. they bring a skill set, a unique

skill set from their prior experience. they wring a work ethic a sense of patriotism. so our work force is a stronger work force because of the service of those men and women who want to attach into the civilian work force. certainly there are some challenges in that regard and that means, we ought to be focused on that for example, embracing programs like helmets to hard hats. you heard the reference earlier to trying to deploy our veterans to build up america's enfra structure. it means ensuring that our veterans don't face discrimination when they pursue employment. in my state we added military and veteran status to our state's nondiscrimination statute to ensure that when someone was seeking employment their military status wasn't used against them either for the reasons mr. moulton suggested around concerns about ptsd or something like that, but also guard members and reservists who when we had

hearings on that legislation at the state level were told, i'm concerned about hiring you because what happens if you get called up again? that's not right. people who choose to serve our country, who fight for our country overseas, slont to fight for a job when they come home. that should be a focus of this congress as well. it also means applauding the firms, large and small who make it a priority to hire veterans. we have plenty in our neck of the woods who have made a strong effort to hire veterans. legislatively, there are things we can and should do. making sure those who have served overseas are able, who have served in the military period, are able to transplate the -- translate the skills and experiences they have learned into a civilian job. mr. swalwell: i want to ask you to expand, i have heard and mr. moulton and i were talking about this earlier medics, people who serve in the military, they have you know, medical training to help others who are wounded

or get sick, they're having a hard time and i'm hearing this in the bay area. when they come home they want to work as an e.m.t. or parametic -- paramedic and they're finding their training is not being accepted by the local schools or the state requirements. are you hearing about this? mr. kilmer: absolutely. a few years back, i visited clover park technical college in the 10th district of washington danny heck's dribblingt. when i was in the legislature i visited that college and i was meeting with a group of students and one said i was a battlefield medic wanted to enter the nursing program. my prior experience didn't count toward the pursuit of that college credential. we actually changed state law, requiring our state colleges and universitys to acknowledge that prior military experience. whether that be in a medical profession or you talk to folks who drove trucks as part of logistics everts through the

battlefield of afghanistan and want to get a commercial driver's license. we directed our state department of licensing to acknowledge that prior military experience and have it count toward some of the requirements for pursuing either a college degree or a professional license or certification. but that's something that i think we really have to rededicate ourselves to, to ensure that that travenssigs a smooth one. i want to share with you some veterans in our area are doing pretty cool stuff. at the university of washington-tacoma, they stood up a veterans -- set up a veterans incubator for veterans looking to start a business. one of the businesses that was started was from a young veteran, a guy named steve buchanan from my district, i invited him to the state of the union he had a cool idea for a company and he made it happen. he worked with his c.f.o., also a veteran, chris shepherd, and they hit on a way to connect veterans with a flexible jobs.

they created an online marketplace for veterans who had skilled on one side of the equation, to people who had something that immediated to get done. sort of an online marketplace for anything from remodeling or landscaping to i.t. work. and anyone can visit their website and you can plug in your task of what you're looking to get done and find a veteran with those skills and a desire to work. and you know, it's a great way to give veterans a chance to get some flexible work. directly from folks who need their help. and it's a great platform for the community to show their support for our nation's heroes. mr. swalwell: you're hitting on -- steven brown asked can your government offer incentives to veterans who want to start small businesses. he asked that on twitter. what do you think? mr. kilmer: sure it's always

good to look at whether it be through the s.b.a. programs and access to capital to one of the things we're looking at doing is focused on businesses who hire our veterans. already through things like our procurement process. there are some advantages for veteran-owned businesses. but one of the things we're looking at is could you create an incentive for those who hire veterans so they have some incentive to do that hiring as well. . mr. swalwell: thank you for your participation. i know the veterans in your area are grateful to have you. standing up on the house floor to champion various issues and getting them in the work force. we are now joined by jared polis of colorado and my question comes from a tweet and he says,

veterans took care of us, we need to take care of them. what do you think of that? mr. polis: that's what brings us here and that's what brings us here. this is an opportunity for us to talk about what we as democrats want to do to make sure we honor and support those who served our country. i had a round table last week. we had the ranking member of the natural resources committee and designating some of our public lands and some in eagle county in our constituent. vale is a wonderful place to visit. and we had a round table and we had one of the people, hikers, bikers, local merchants that sell equipment. we had a veteran that served in the middle east and he got up and he said that when he was

serving overseas in afghanistan and he went to a visual display and had the national anthem and what they showed the images on the screen were not our tall buildings were not our politicians or our actors, it was our beautiful public lands, it was the grand canyon, it was the mountains of colorado, it was the great coasts of california. and that was what he and his fellow service members drew their pride from. and he further expressed such an excitement about the wilderness bill we were working on. he said our public lands were a place of healing for veterans and he said if we don't protect these beautiful lands, what the hell did i fight for. and it moved everyone at the entire table, to say, you know what? that is part of that american

spirit that we derive in the spirit of con -- conservation and made me glad to know we were helping to heal some of the veterans that served us under difficult circumstances overseas. mr. swalwell: this week, we are considering the national defense authorization act. we've done v.a. funding in the past couple of weeks. what are you hearing in your congressional district about whether we are taking care of our veterans especially and tonight we are talking specifically about post-9/11 generation veterans who have just by and large been underemployed at a much higher rate than the rest of the country. what are you hearing at home? any stories? mr. polis: we need to do a lot more and i recently introduced post-9/11 conservation bill which would help employ our

veterans to protect our public lands and waters so it can be part of their healing and part of making sure that our public lands are well maintained and help veterans restore and protect our national state and tribal forest parks wildlife refugees and cemeteries, allowing us to attack the jobless rates and help address the enormous enormous backlog at our national parks. that is what veterans get excited about. they want to see something that shows we deeply respect the work. that their work is valued here at home. and it's the absolute wrong message to send when we are slashing veterans' benefits and not founding our new v.a. hospital that needs to be built in aurora, colorado, when we are slashing the benefits that

people get. beyond the impact of those financial dues that they receive, it's the message they are getting, that somehow you know what instead of returning to civilian service corps or counseling and health support services that we need, where we're turning to a thatless america and we democrats want to do something about that and we have a great pack acknowledge of bills to honor and respect those who served us in the post-9/11 wars. mr. swalwell: i talked to veteran groups at home and not until i took this job that i heard the phrase of a ghost veteran and service member who has come back from iraq or afghanistan and has completely fallen off the radar. they are not associated with the v.a. or not signed up for the

benefits and not participating in the american legion or the v.f.w. and the theory is because we have done such a poor job of fully funding the v.a. and giving benefits and time to people who deserve it having issues with the hospitals and the back claims as well as the g.i. benefits not fully taking care of people, do you think that makes people pessimistic? is that going to make you more or less participate in some of these programs that we put out there? mr. polis: i met so many veterans that meet that exact definition and i think it's a combination of things. it is part of the fact that they don't think they are going to get anything any way because it has been cut and it is part of the need that we have and the v.a. has to adapt our veteran-serving institutions to meet the veterans.

the returning veterans are not interested in filling out paperwork and not interested in beating their head against the wall to try to get some benefit. they served our country. they have a lot of great capacity in there to do great work. they want us to enable them to live great lives and we pasted the 9/11 g.i. bill and working on the veterans' conservation corps, whether it's making sure they have support to start their own business. what they don't want is to wait in line to fill out more forms that may or may not result in them getting something someday. that's what i hear from some of the folks. really meet the definition of what you are talking about, ghost veterans. once they got out, they didn't want to deal with an out of

touch apparatus that doesn't give them the support they need. mr. swalwell: the g.i. bill works. it provides eligible veterans up to 36 months of education benefits. you and i probably -- we would like to see that greatly expanded to include a full education. 1,700 colleges and universities are supplemented. 51% of student veterans earn their degree from an institution of higher education. 2009-2012, increase of veterans using their benefits by 67%. when we are faced with the question and when it comes to veterans' funding or ndaa considerations that we make, should we be expanding the educational opportunities for our veterans or should we be reducing them? mr. polis: i'm excited to

represent two universities, colorado state university go rams and university of colorado boulder. and we have interns that were able to attend because of the g.i. bill post-9/11 veterans where at a time when we know it is costly. you californians play $35000 but our in-state folks are paying $9,000 a year and not a lot of families can afford that when you add in food and lodging. but those who served our country are able to avail themselves to the g.i. bill and renew our commitment to those folks and make sure it's there to fund their education and have the skills they need. would like to see more ways where they can get credit for

some of the skills they learned in the military and they should be granted cried at institutions of higher education. so many veterans that i have interacted with are so grateful. and i know democrats are standing in the line of defense of the post-9/11 g.i. bill. mr. swalwell: others that were in the last congress, and i was a big supporter of the veterans transition act that made the tax credit for veterans and that would direct the department of defense to make information available to members of the armed forces at every stage of their training for occupational specialties. in the future forum we launched last month we went to new york and boston and san francisco and we went to a number of -- mr. polis: coming to denver

soon? mr. swalwell: you are go to go host us out there in denver and make a mile-high difference for young people and i look forward to that. at these conversations that we've had under the #futureforum whether they are in the audience or tweeting at us, young people today veterans and millenials, their top issues i believe from what we've heard student loan debt access to entrepreneurship, equality and making sure we have equal pay for equal work as well as climate change. but when it comes to veterans every audience we were in front of had a veteran there and every audience thought we weren't doing enough to take care of our veterans. i think the message i want to put out there tonight and continue the conversation on

social media is that we must stand up and serve our veterans as well as they have stood up and served us a country. i leave it to you on closing thoughts on how to best serve our veterans. mr. polis: particularly in the west and districts like mine many veterans who have settled in the boulder area have seen their experiences and interactions with the outdoors and environment as a part of their healing experience. we have seen great support from nonprofits that get veterans out hiking and about biking and the young veterans are in support of wilderness proposals and would benefit from a veterans conservation corps that would get them out there working with their hands and hearts and working with that natural heritage, while our national

anthem played in afghanistan and iraq gave them the inspiration they needed to continue serving our country. i yield back. mr. swalwell: thank you, mr. polis. and thank you to mr. moulton and mr. kilmer. future forum, we will be back in a few weeks talking about a variety of issues facing our young people. this is not us talking to you. i read a number of tweets, live here on the house floor and was tweeting as we were having this conversation. so our goal is to talk about the issues, have a conversation, but really listen to you and what you care about as millenials and look forward to be back here on the floor and out across america, looking out for what's best for millenials and standing up here in congress. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time.

the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to

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♪ >> sunday night on c-span's "q&a" chris hatfield produced many videos on his activities on the iss and shared scientific and personal aspects of life in space. >> the only time i felt a shiver of fear was on the dark side of the earth, looking at one side of australia, eastern australia in the darkness, and watching a shooting star covenant between me and the earth. at first i had the standard reaction of wishing upon a star, but then i had the sobering realization that it was a huge rock going 20 miles per second,

that missed us. if it had hit us -- you could have seen it. we would have been dead. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." >> nowlin update on yesterday's amtrak accident in philadelphia, which resulted in seven confirmed deaths. the ntsb has investigators on the scene. we find out what caused the passenger train to derail. they held a news briefing earlier today to discuss what they have learned so far. this is 20 minutes. >> good afternoon. we will be briefed today by mr. sumwalt.

>> good evening. i am a board member with the national transportation safety board. the ntsb is an independent federal agency investigating transportation accident and issue safety regulations to try to keep these accidents from happening again. before i go any further, i would like to offer our sincere condolences for the loss of lives in the injuries that people have sustained, and our thoughts and prayers are truly with them. ntsb investigators began

arriving in philadelphia between 4:00 and 5:00 this warning, and the majority of the team was in place here in philadelphia by about 9:30. upon arrival here on the scene we coordinated with the local officials, the first responders, and then we conducted a thorough walk-through of the accident site to be able to get an idea of what we were dealing with, the lay of the land. at noon, we held an organizational meeting, where we established our investigative protocol. the investigator in charge is mike flanagan. he has 40 years of railroad experience and more than 15 years of accident investigation experience of the ntsb. he is leading a multidisciplinary team of accident investigators that will be looking into the track, the

signals -- the train control signal system -- the operations of the train, the mechanical condition of the train, to include the brake system, the recorders, survival factors, and emergency response. in addition to our investigative team we have experts from the ntsb's office of transportation disaster assistance. they are here to help facilitate the needs of the victims and their families. here is the factual information that we presently have. last evening amtrak 188, and amtrak northeastern regional trade, departed philadelphia's 30th street station at 9:10 p.m.. it was bound for new york city's

penn station. the train consisted of one locomotive and seven passenger cars, and according to amtrak there were 238 passengers and a crew of five, for a total of 240 occupants of the train. at approximately 9:20 1 p.m. while traveling a left-hand turn, the entire train derailed. just moments before the derailment, the train was placed into an indian -- into an engineer induced breaking, meaning that he provide that she used full emergency brake applications. maximum authorized speed through

this curb was 50 miles per hour. when the engineer induced brake application was applied, the train was traveling at approximately 106 miles per hour . three seconds later, when the damage terminated, it was at 102 miles per hour. these are preliminary figures serve -- the gears and subject to further validation. it is a pretty complex thing -- you don't just press a button you have to measure the wheel speed but we are pretty confident that the train was traveling pretty close to those speeds within one or two miles per hour. the train had recorders.

it had an event today recorder. both are being sent to our laboratory for analysis and will stop we did get these initial speeds from an initial download. we released the track back to amtrak, and they will begin rebuilding it very soon. the locomotive and all that to passenger cars are currently being moved to a secure location , where detailed examination and documentation can occur. throughout the next few days the investigators will work on scene to thoroughly document the accident site and gather factual information. we will be doing a more detailed documentation of the rail cars and the scene.

we plan to interview the train crew and other personnel. we would like to interview the passengers of the train. we will be conducting a site distance test. we'll be testing the signal system, the train control signals, we'll be testing the braking system and detailed analysis instead of the cursory analysis that i mentioned earlier of the recorders, we'll be doing a very detailed download and analysis of those recorders. our mission is to find out not only what happened, but why it happened, so that we can prevent it from happening again. that's really what we're here for, is learn from these things so that we can keep them from happening again. i suspect that our investigators will be here in philadelphia on scene for about a week. i want to emphasize that we're not here on scene to determine

the cause of the accident while we're on scene. we're not going to speculate our purpose for being here. i like to describe it as we are here to collect perishable evidence which is that information that will go away with the passage of time. that's what we're here to do, collect that information that will go away with the passage of time. we can go back and do the analysis later but capture those data carefully now. i feel like arriving on scene this morning i feel like the preliminary information that we have is robust, but we still have a lot to get. i know that you have a lot of questions. we have a lot of questions. and our commitment to you is that we are, as we are discovering factual information, we will be releasing it. i will be looking for the press conference by this time tomorrow to tell you what we've learned tomorrow.

that's the way it works, our investigators are out in the field doing their jobs during the day, and they report back to me, so i can report to you. i would encourage you to follow us on twitter, our twitter handle is @ntsb. as i wrap it up, i'd like to thank the first responders for all of their efforts. they've been out here through the night, through the early morning, all day, trying to secure this area. we want to thank them for their hard efforts. now, i will call for questions i'm going to call for questions. what i'd like for you to do is raise your hand, i will call on you and once i call on you please, state your name and your outlet. >> i had a chance to talk to the engineers, he did not comment on what happened before the curve. [inaudible] >> have we talked to the engineer the answer to that is no but we plan to. this person has gone through a very traumatic event and we want

to give him a day to convalesce for a day or two. >> you talked about 106 miles per hour, the speed. how long did it take him to get up to 106, in other words, had he been aggressively getting faster and faster, did he have a time line for that and also, were there any whistles or bells going off warning him in the cab that he was speeding? >> so the question is, at what point did the train reach 106 miles per hour. our initial examination of the data, we have not gone back that far because it is a very detailed analysis of reading those data. we wanted to find out the speed so we could report those to you. we will be coming up with the time line.

that's one of the things we will do. we don't have those exact figures at this point. >> any alarms? >> the alarms in the cab of the locomotive and we will discover that information. we should through the cockpit data, sorry, from the cab, from the event recorders. yes, sir, right here. >> are you confident, chris o connell from fox 29. are you confident all the fatalities have been accounted for. you say most of the rail cars have been removed. you say there are one or two left. do you know there are any more fatalities? >> the question is do i know if there's any more fatalities and the information concerning the fatalities i don't want to sound bureaucratic, we are here to investigate the accident and that's our lane. the release of the information on the injuries and fatalities is the domain of the philadelphia office of emergency management so they would have that information and so that's the answer to that.

>> rosemary connor, nbc 10, you mentioned that the engineer applied full emergency braking system. would that have been enough to bring this speed under level was it too late? >> the question is, the engineer applied, put the train into emergency braking a few seconds before, moments before the derailment, and in the next three or four seconds the speed of the train only decreased to 102. as we know it takes a long time and distance to decelerate a train. >> how long would it typically take to try to, would have had to apply the brakes? >> how long would it take to get the speed down below 100, below the track speed of 50 miles an hour? well, he was already in the curve at that point. you're supposed to enter the curve at 50 miles an hour. we'll take a question right here. >> [inaudible] is the black box, recorder, at the center?

>> the question is, is the black box, is the event data recorder, is that at amtrak? is that what your question is? >> yes. >> we took it to -- that's the question. we took the event recorder to amtrak's facilities because they have the equipment locally to download it. we took it there for the preliminary look now we're taking it to our own labs in washington, d.c. question right here. >> how many of the recorders are there? >> how many event recorders are there? one event recorder and that's in the locomotive, in addition to the event recorder, there is a forward-facing camera. question here. >> cbs radio. was the train equipped with any sort of system that could have or should have slowed a train that was going too fast prior to the curve? >> was the train equipped with any type of device that could have or should have slowed it down to keep it within its

limits. and amtrak, throughout a good pit of bit of the northeastern corridor has advanced civil speed enforcement, called acses, throughout most of the northeast corridor for amtrak, hour it is not installed for this area where the accident occurred, where the derailment occurred. that type of a system we called it a powerful train system, that type of system is designed to enforce the civil speed to keep the train below its maximum speed, and so we have called for positive train control, for many, many years. it's on our most wanted list. congress is mandated that it be installed by the end of this year. so we are very keen on positive train control. based on what we know right now

we feel that, had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred. right here. >> is there a dead man switch in the train or any alert set up? >> some trains have it and some don't. oftentimes in place of the dead man switch they have an alerter. if there's no activity from the engineer within a certain period of time, the audio and visual alerter will activate in the cab of the locomotive and then if an engineer makes a throttle movement or something that will deactivate. we want to know exactly what was in that car. >> you don't know? let me call on you. i'm going to take a question here. >> when was the last time the rail was inspected? >> when was the last time the rail was inspected post accident, before accident and post accident.

rail geometry car went other across the track yesterday, and as far as our thorough examination of the track, you got to understand there's been a lot of activity out there right now. the cars have been piled up out there, so our real thorough examination of the car, of the track will begin after those cars are thoroughly removed and i expect we'll be out there documenting that tomorrow. question right here. >> there were some tankers nearby. do we know if they were filled with fuel and are there any precautions being taken because the wreckage is so close to the tankers? >> so there's some rail tank cars that were very close to the point of derailment. were they empty? i'm told, i want to further verify this, i'm told they were not full at the time of the accident. there's a question right here. >> 11 news. do we know how long he's been on this route and how long he's been with amtrak. >> do we know how long the

engineer operated this route and how long it he been with amtrak? that's the type of information i don't consider that perishable evidence. that's data that we can get to two weeks from now. what we're trying to do right now is get out there and measure everything that won't be here in two weeks, so to answer your question, we don't know. i can't tell you right now because i don't know how long he had been there, but that's information we will get. so we want to interview him, we want to review his training records, his employment records, that's standard. question right here. >> when did the train start moving faster than the -- >> the question is when did the train start moving faster than the speed limit. we did not -- we have not gone back far enough in the data to see what occurred. the speed limit through the curve is 50 miles an hour.

right before the curve the speed limit is 80. so it's 80 mile-an-hour speed limit and entering the curve the engineer is supposed to slow the train to 50. we will be putting together a time lane. we have got good data from the event recorders and our priority was just to get an idea of what the speed was at the derailment. there's a question here. >> could the speed alone have caused this? >> that's analysis and exactly what we want to find out is why did this train derail. question here. >> bbc. in your initial assessment were there any signal problems, anything that stuck out? >> are there any obvious mechanical or signal difficulties that we found, and we have not. again, we just basically got here. we a lot of the emergency response has been going on until about 2:00, so we haven't been able to get that very thorough

up close and personal view of the track. we will be downloading the signals to look at those. we will be doing a brake test of the train. we will be doing a site distance test. there's a lot of work that needs to be done that will be done and we'll let you know periodically how we're doing. again look for another press briefing tomorrow and that's it. i want to thank you for your time. we'll see you tomorrow. >> new jersey senator bob menendez went to the senate floor today to talk about the amtrak accident. his remarks or 10 minutes. g officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president i rise to bring attention to the

tragic amtrak derailment that took at least seven lives and caused over 140 injuries including an associated press member from new jersey, jim gaines of plainsboro, new jersey. and our thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost their lives. to those of us from new jersey and those who live along the northeast corridor, they are our neighbors, our friends our relatives. they could be us and it hits especially close to home. i know because i take amtrak virtually every week back to new jersey. there was a period of time last night when i didn't know the whereabouts of my son rob who was scheduled to be on amtrak back to new york. but i later found out that he was on the next train immediately behind the one that derailed and thankfully he was

safe. i'm grateful for that. but others were not so lucky. but "luck" should not be america's transportation policy. it's imperative that the cause of the derailment is fully investigated so that we can prevent tragedies like this in the future. i've already been on the phone with transportation secretary anthony fox and continue to closely monitor the situation. i want to recognize the extraordinary work of our first responders. once again firefighters, police officers emergency responders showed us what bravery is really all about. they ran to the crash site to save lives while others were running away and for that we should all be grateful. now, we don't know what caused this accident but we do know that we need to invest in 21st century systems and equipment and stop relying on patchwork

upgrades to old rusted, 19th century rail lines. you know, i -- i travel amtrak, as i said, virtually every week. i travel the accela, which is supposed to be the high-speed rail. it's like shake rattle and roll. as a member of the senate foreign relations committee i've traveled in other countries in the world like japan and they have a bullet train for which you virtually cannot feel anything while you're on the train going in speeds far in excess of what we call high-speed rail. now, there are still many questions we don't know the answer to. was there human failure? was there a mechanical failure? were there infrastructure issues? or was it a combination of issues? what we do know is that our rail passengers deserve safe and modern infrastructure. new jersey, for example is at the heart of the northeast corridor. it has long held a competitive

advantage with some of the nation's most modern highways and extensive transit network and some of the most significant freight corridors in the world that the confluence of some of the largest and busiest rail lines, interstates and ports. in a densely populated state like new jersey, the able to move people and goods safely and efficiently is critical to our economy and critical to our quality of life. but unfortunately in recent years, new jersey and the nation as a whole has fallen behind. we have 20 years maximum -- maximum -- before the hudson river tunnels are taken out of service. 20 years may sound to maybe some of our young pages like a long time. but it's a flash of the eye. think about what happens if we take either or both of those tunnels out of service without an alternative. tunnels that are absolutely essential to moving people and

goods in a region that contributes $3.5 trillion to our nation's economy. 20% of the entire nation's gross domestic product. nationwide 65% of major roads in america are in poor condition. one in four bridges in our nation need significant repair. there's an $808 billion backlog in highway and bridge investments needs. on the transit side there's an $86 billion backlog of transit maintenance needs. maintenance needs. not expanding just maintaining that which we have. and it will take almost $19 billion a year through the year 2030 to bring our transit assets into good repair. these are just a handful of the statistics underscoring our nation's failure to invest in our transportation network.

but we have to get beyond looking at the numbers on a page we have to talk about what congress' failure to act means to the people we represent. to every community every community -- every commuter, every family, everyone who travels every day and every construction worker looking for a job. failure to act means construction workers now face a 10% unemployment rate at a time when our infrastructure is crumbling around us. they won't get the work they need. it means a business can't compete in a globalized comep because their goods can't get to market in time. -- economy because their goods can't get to market in time. it means a working mother is stuck in traffic and can't get home in time for dinner with her kids. and in the very first cases -- cases like we saw yesterday on amtrak -- it might very well mean that a loved one is lost in a senseless tragedy. in congress, we too often read it infrastructure like it's an

academic exercise, like it's numbers on a page that we adjust to score political points or balance a budget or make an argument about what types of transportation are worthy of our support. but that's not the real world. in the real world the choices we make have an impact on people's lives on their jobs on their incomes. they have an impact on our nation's ability to compete. they have an impact on the safety of americans and america's ability to lead the economy globally in the world. we in congress are failing to recognize the real-world impacts of the choices we make about our transportation infrastructure. we have a passenger rail bill that expired in 2013. we have a highway trust fund on the brink of insolvency with no plans -- no plans -- to fix it sustainably. we have a crowded and outdated aviation system that we refuse to adequately fund. we have failed to upgrade with

presently available technologies that can reduce the number of failures. we have a appropriation bills aiming to cut already low funding levels of amtrak in particular to meet an arbitrary budget cap for the sake of a political point. i can't understand that. i can't understand it. we are living off the greatest generation's investment in infrastructure in this country and we have done nothing to honor that investment to sustain it or to build upon it.and yet mr. president nothing we're doing is aiming at fixing the problem and our inaction comes at an extraordinarily high cost. so i -- i can tell you as the senior democrat on the subcommittee on mass transit i categorically reject the idea that we can't afford to fix our transportation system.

the truth is we can't afford not to fix it. the amtrak disaster last night is a tragic reminder that we have to act. we are reminded of the tragic consequences of inaction and the impact of inaction on the lives of workers and families on their lives and their ability to get to work and do their jobs with confidence that they will be safe. so as a member of the finance committee and a ranking member of the transit subcommittee, i've been advocating that we act as soon as possible. we can't keep pretending the problem is going to resolve itself if we just wait long enough. we simply can't afford to wait. and i hope that everyone in this chamber, democrats republicans and independents alike will come together, will work together and make real progress in building a future that we can be proud of. we can start by putting politics aside and think about the safety of the american people think about the future think about

america's competitiveness and finding common ground to do whatever it takes to invest in america's railroads ports highways and bridges and invest in our future. so let's not wait until there is another tragic headline or to see the consequences of what flows as people along the entire northeast corridor are trying to figure out alternatives in the midst of a system that is now shut down for intercity travel. and all the transit lines of states and regions within the northeast corridor that depend upon using amtrak lines to get to different destinations for their residents. to get people to one of the great hospitals along the northeast corridor. to get people to their nation's capital to advocate with their government. to get people and their sales forces of companies to work.

to get home. let's not wait until we have another tragedy to think about the consequences of our transportation system, what it means to the nation. or to see until the next time which lives are lost.i think we can do much better, mr. president, and i have faith that hopefully this will be a crystallizing moment for us on >> e-house hearing today was on the annual transportation spending bill, which includes funding for amtrak. several committee members at that meeting spoke about yesterday's accident and funding for the national rail system. we will hear from harold rogers, mario diaz-balart and nita lowey. >> before we begin today, i'd like everyone to keep in their thoughts and prayers the

passengers employees, first responders victim's, families, who were involved in last night amtrak derailment just outside philadelphia. a number of agencies in this bill the department of transportation federal railroad administration amtrak, are partially funded through the federal transit administration and the national transportation safety board. they are all working to responded to the derailment and investigate the cause of the accident and provide aide and comfort to the victims and their families. it is likely to be a while before we get answers on the why and how this happened. the ntsb is on-site starting their investigation. i know the federal railroad

administration and amtrak are there to cooperate and assist in any way possible. that is why it is so important that the committee complete its work so that these agencies can do their chores. with that, let me turn now to the chairman of the subcommittee mario diaz-balart on his maiden voyage through these choppy seas. mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. good morning to all of you. before we begin i want to extend our thoughts and prayers to the passengers, to the victims, to the families of the victims, of last night's disaster into the first responders who always do such a great job. i know that we can speak for everyone on this community and

around the country that our thoughts and prayers are with them. it is a sad and frightening event. as the chairman said, as with any transportation disaster, the ntsb will conduct a arrow and professional investigation and issue a report of their findings and from those findings, congress must look at what we can do to try to avoid this from ever happening again. >> i know our hearts and prayers are with all those families who lost their loved ones at this horrific accident. to all those families, as a new yorker we worry about those who are in hospitals or doctors offices with serious serious serious affect as a result of this crash. i do hope we can keep the

accident in mind, my colleagues, throughout today's markup. maybe it serves as a reminder of the importance of safety programs that are underfunded in this bill. these programs that are underfunded in this bill has to be looked at with eagle eyes and the power of all of us. i know it is going to take months for us to finally resolve this budget so we can have real bills that can affect future of our country, and in this bill, we are talking about capital investment. that not only affects the safety of the program, but provides real jobs for working families.

i look forward to the report of the ntsb, i hope it will be soon. again, i know the thoughts of all of us are with those grieving families. i'd like to congratulate chairman diaz-balart ranking member price, the chairman, and ranking member of the subcommittee. i thank them in chairman rogers for their work. the chairman has been attentive to many of the concerns of members, and i do want to sincerely thank him for working with me to highlight ing safety in the aftermath of the crash that killed six people in february. i think it is important that we look carefully not just that this accident but at the other

accidents that have taken place. this bill is $6.8 billion below the president's request for transportation $6.8 billion. and that includes safety and capital programs. >> on the "washington journal," hakeem jeffries on amtrak and his efforts for police reform. peter roskam will discuss congressional oversight to prevent irs targeting of political groups and a proposal to create a new inspector general to oversee implementation of the aca. politico transportation reporter heather cagle with the latest on the crash investigation, and a houseboat to cut amtrak budget. "washington journal," live each morning on c-span.

♪ >> sunday night on c-span's "q&a," chris hatfield produced many videos on his activities on the international space station and both scientific aspects of life in space. >> the only time i felt a shiver of fear was on the dark side of the earth, looking at one side of australia, eastern australia and watching a shooting star come in between me and the earth. at first i had the standard reaction of wishing upon a star,

but then i had the sobering realization that that was a huge rock from the universe go 20 miles a second, that missed us and made into the atmosphere. it was a big enough one that you could see it -- if it had hit us, we would have been dead. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> house foreign affairs committee hearing, religious and ethnic minorities attacked by isis talk about their experiences, as well as the militant groups targeting of cultural and religious sites. tempers are considering legislation to provide a system to displace minorities. ed royce chairs this hearing.

>> this committee hearing will come to order. today, we focus on the minority communities, the many minority communities that are under brutal attack. some of them on the brink of extermination by isis. by isis principally in iraq and syria, but elsewhere as well. and we're joined by individuals who have personally faced this threat and are familiar with the extreme hardship, with the grief that displaced minorities face in that troubled region. isis has unleashed a campaign of brutal violence, depraved violence, not only against shia muslims and fellow sunnis who do not share their radical beliefs, but against vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities.

and as ms. isaac put it simply in her prepared testimony, we cherish ethnic and religious diversity. isis hates it. many americans may not realize that iraq and syria are home to dozens of ethnic and religious minorities with ancient cultures, with deep roots. these communities, syrian and caldian christians, yazidis and others are under mortal threat in their ancestral homelands. and the mass execution of men, the enslavement of women and children, the destruction of religious sites is part of the isis effort to destroy these communities, to destroy all evidence of the preexistence of these communities. in fact, isis maintains a special battalion, and they call it the demolition battalion. and that battalion is charged with going after art and going after artifacts, religious and historic sites that it considers

heretical and its job is to simply destroy history. the situation for some of these groups was precarious even br isis. according to some estimates, more than half of the ethnic and religious minorities have fled the country over the last dozen years, but what they face today is ie nilelation by isis. and the influx of isis extremists has become a plague. uprooted two million souls, two million human beings. members will recall last august to break the siege at mount sinjar, where thousands of yazidi refugee families have been trapped by isis. the physical security and welfare of displaced minorities

is an immediate priority. options for u.s. assistance range from additional material support to friendly forces. all the way to creating safe zones, or no fly zones. and while it's important to weigh the cost of each option, we cannot lose sight of the fact that people are being kidnapped, people are being tortured, women are being raped, and children, and they're being killed every day. beyond that, we need to focus more on their psychological well-being. many of those people, especially women and girls, have been subjected to unspeakable traumas. the young men are mostly just slaughtered. and as with any displaced population, as their vulnerability increases, so does

the threat of human trafficking. what can be done to better protect women and girls at risk of slavery? finally, what can and should be done to keep these evacuations from becoming permanent? it would be a tragedy if well intended resettlement fulfilled the goal of isis itself. in other words, to drive these believers out. are there ways to support the reconstruction of local institutions in civil society so that post-isis, and there must be a post-isis, these communities can return and thrive in their ancestral homelands. i'll now turn to the ranking member, mr. eliot engel of new york, who has been a true leader on syria and on the humanitarian and human rights disaster in the region, for his opening comments. >> thank you very much, mr.

chairman, and thank you, as always, for calling this important hearing. and let me also thank our witnesses for joining us today. we're very appreciative that you're here. this committee has taken a hard look at the brutal campaign isis is raging in iraq and syria. we've learned about the broader threat isis poses across the middle east and around the world. we know how dangerous this group is. we heard how many people have lost their homes and their livelihoods and their lives in the wake of this violence. and today, we will focus on the heartbreaking struggles of christians, yazidis and muslims who defy the barbaric perversion of islam espoused by isis. we will hear about the dangers that these communities face every day, how isis has killed raped, and enslaved those who don't fall in line with their fanaticism. and i hope their stories will remind us and our partners and allies around the world that we must do everything possible to help these people. we will also hear about the attempt by isis to erase the

history of these communities. we've all seen videos and reports of isis destroying ancient sites and historical artifacts in the territories they control. these are not random acts of vandalism. isis is deliberately targeting cultural property for two reasons. firstly, the to loot and steal cultural artifacts to fund their violent campaigns. and secondly, to destroy what is left in a calculated effort to eradicate minority cultures. this form of psychological warfare against yazidis, christians, muslim minorities, and anyone else that refuses to bow to their oppression, from the tomb of jonah in mosul, to yazidi shrines in the sinjar region, isis is trying to rewrite history. we have seen this tactic before. the buddhas destroyed by the taliban in afghanistan. the nazi destruction of jewish religious property during world war ii.

we cannot allow another vicious group to reshape our record of the past. we need to cut off the profits isis gets from trafficking looted artifacts and to ramp up our efforts to save cultural property from destruction. a few weeks ago, this committee unanimously passed to protect and preserve into national property act, which i introduced with representative smith, chairman reus, and representative keating. this would help save cultural property from isis's campaign and we need to get this bill to the president's desk. we also need to stay focused on bringing belief to those living under the yolk of isis. i hope our witnesses can shed some light on what religious minorities living under isis control need the most. the administration's response to degrade and destroy isis is a good start. but it's a start. united states has worked to cut off financial support to isis, to stem the flow of foreign fighters, to deliver robust rue

humanitarian assistance, to provide support to our partners including through air strikes and to push back against the violent ideology promoted by isis. but as we will hear today, people are still suffering in isis-held territory, and i hope today's testimony will underscore from my colleagues the need to pass a new authorization for the use of military force or aumf. i have said this before and i will say it again and again and again until congress acts on its responsibility and passes a new authorization. finally, i want to say that some of us are wearing red today. i'm wearing a red tie. my good friend is wearing a red blouse. and we're doing this because we want to focus on the girls who have disappeared under boko haram. while boko haram is not isis certainly affiliated. their tactics are just as brutal and its terrorism all around the world and we need to stand up in this congress and show that we will thwart it in any way

possible. once again, i thank our witnesses and i look forward to hearing your testimony. and thank you, mr. chairman, for your leadership as always. >> thank you, mr. engel. our panel that we're joined by here today include sister diana momeka, located in mosul, iraq. sister diana, one of many thousands forced from their homes by an isis offensive last year has been involved in providing assistance to other internally displaced iraqis currently residing in erbil and raising awareness of the plight of minorities displaced from nineveh. ms. jacqueline isaac is the vice president of roads of success, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women and minorities in the middle east. ms. isaac's work has included refugee to aid missions and

helping victims in iraq, jordan, and egypt. ms. hind kabawat is the director of interfaith peace building at the center for world religions diplomacy, and conflict resolution for george mason university. ms. kabawat has trained hundreds of syrians in multi-faith collaboration, civil society development, women's empowerment, and in negotiation skills throughout the middle east, including in aleppo, syria. dr. katherine hanson is a fellow at penn cultural heritage center for the university of pennsylvania museum specializing in the protection of cultural heritage. specifically on the threats to me -- she recently served as the program director for the archaeological site preservation program at the iraqi institute for the conservation of

antiquities and heritage in erbil. without objection, the witnesses all prepared statements, will be made part of the record. members are going to have five calendar days to submit comments and questions on any material they might want to put into the record. with that, sister diana, please summarize your remarks. and sister diana, she'll push that button, that red button there for you. >> thank you. thank you, chairman royce and distinguished members of the committee for inviting me today to share my views on ancient communities under attack. >> sister, i'm going to suggest you move the microphone right in front there. just project a little bit. thank you. >> okay. thank you. november 2009, a bomb was detonated at our convent in mosul.

five sisters were in the building at the time and they were lucky to have escaped unharmed. our sister asked for protection from local civilization authorities, but the pleas went unanswered. as such, she had no choice but to move us. on june 10th, 2014, the so-called islamic state in iraq or syria, or isis, invaded the nineveh plain. starting with the city of mosul, isis overran one city and town after another, giving the christians of the region three choices, convert to islam, pay tribute to isis, leave their cities, cities like mosul, with nothing more than the clothes on their back. as this horror suppressed through all of the nineveh plain, by all 6th, 2014, nineveh was empty of christians and

sadly for the first time since the seventh century a.d., no church bells rang for mass in the nineveh plain. from june 2014 forward, more than 120,000 people found themselves displaced and homeless in the kurdistan region of iraq, leaving behind their heritage and all they had worked for over the centuries. this uprooting of everything that christians owned, body and soul, stripping away their humanity and dignity. to add insult to injury, the initiative is that iraqi and kurdish governments were at best modest and slow. apart from allowing christians to enter the region, the kurdish government did not offer any aid either financial or material. i understand the great strain that these events have placed on baghdad and erbil.

however, it has been almost a year and christian iraqi citizens are still in dire need for help. many people spend days and weeks in the street before they found shelter in tents, schools, and homes. thankfully the churches stepped forward and cared for displaced christians. doing her very best to handle this disaster. buildings were open to accommodate the people. food and non-food items were provided to meet the immediate needs of the people and medical health services were also provided. moreover, the church put out a call and many humanitarian organizations answered with aid for thousands of people in need. presently, we are grateful for what has been done. with most people now sheltered in small containers or some homes, though better than living on the streets or abandoned buildings.

these small units are few in number and are crowded with three families. each with multiple people, often accommodated in one unit. this is, of course, increasing tension and conflict, even within the same family. there are many who say, why don't the christians just leave iraq and move to another country and be done with it? to this question, we would respond, why should we leave our country, what have we done? the christians of iraq are the first people of the land. you read about us in the old testament of the bible. christianity came to iraq from the very earliest days, through the preaching of st. thomas and others of the apostles and church elders. while our ancestors experienced all kinds of persecution, they

built a culture that has served humanity for ages. we as christians do not want or deserve to leave or be forced out of our country any more than you would want to leave or be forced out of yours. but the current persecution that our community is facing is the most brutal in our history. not only have we been robbed of our homes, property, and land, but our heritage is being destroyed as well. isis has continued to demolish and bomb our churches, cultural artifacts and sacred places, like a fourth century monastery in mosul. uprooted and forcefully displaced, we have realized that isis plans to evacuate the land of christians and wipe the earth clean of any evidence that we ever existed. this is human genocide.

the only christians that remain in the nineveh plains are those who are held as hostages. to restore and build the christian community in iraq, the following needs our urgent. helping us return. coordinated efforts to rebuild what was destroyed through slaughter, and electrical supplies and buildings including our churches and monasteries. incouraging enterprises that contribute to the building of iraq and interreligious dialogue. this could be through school and academic projects. i am but one small person. a victim myself of isis, and all of its brutality. coming here has been difficult for me.

as a religious sister, i'm not comfortable with the media and so much attention. but i am here, and i am here to ask you, to implore you for the sake of our common humanity, to to help us, stand with us, as we, as christians, have stood with all the people of the world and help us. we want nothing more than to go back to our lives. we want nothing more than to go home. thank you and god bless you. >> thank you, sister. ms. isaac. ms. isaac: honorable chairman royce, ranking member engel and distinguished members of this committee, i'm honored to be here today. thank you so much for having a crucial hearing that really is a matter of life or death. i'm not talkin