military service. he served five years in the u.s. army with the 82nd airborne division. congress has provided additional funding to pay for veterans to help from other hospitals and to increase v.a. staff. latitude tove more fire managers. mcdonald sees much to be positive about at the department. he told a house committee

recently, maybe you could hold a hearing on its progress. i would welcome that. giving alcome me in warm welcome to veterans affairs secretary robert donald. [applause] robert mcdonald: thank you so much. war, the ymcal has been a friend of veterans. forerunner of the g.i. bill. today i am pleased to announce the v.a. and the ymca has agreed by furthering our partnership. this makes it easier for v.a. facilities and ymcas to help in service members to

connect resources they need. to you and the entire organization for your enduring help to veterans. the benevolent protection of alex has been friends to too.ans for a long time, the hospitals they built in boston in 1918 was a forerunner of today's v.a. medical centers. committed, the elks $4 million over a four-year. -- over a four-year time span to help and veterans homelessness. paul, thank you and the elks across this great country for your generosity and loyalty to our nation. [applause]

the ymca, the elks -- these are strategic partnerships we are starting as part of my transition, which are making profound differences. let me also welcome a great employee, patty andrews. 100,000esents more than employees who are veterans themselves. ask her why she works there, here is what she will tell you. veterans helping veterans is nothing short of a dream job. thank you for your example and your continued service to the nation and to the v.a. [applause] like john, i would like to recognize all the veterans here happyand wish you all veterans day. thank you for your services and

veterans. i was in kansas city, i had lunch with a vietnam veteran named larry parrish. he agreed to let me share his experiences with you. he is an active man. but over the last two years, his health deteriorated over a have problem -- a hip problem. pounds, and i 278 was only 61. i was suicidal because of the pain, and nobody seemed to care. on the advice of a trusted friend, he turned to the the v.a. they gave me my life back. they turned around and 24 hours. they were the most comprehensive, efficient, and most cordial of any therapist i have worked with -- public or private. when his doctor recommended a

hip replacement, he chose the v.a. his private health insurance deductible was about $5,000 more than he can afford. but more important to him was this, i wanted to go to the same place because they were so damn good. every time someone saw me, they hugged me or patted me on the back and said thank you for your service, welcome home brother. doing it exactly right, world-class experience veterans earn and they deserve. 's the values of integrity, commitment, advocacy, respect, and excellence. those stories are out there in abundance. they are too rarely reported. i want to begin by telling you how we are improving access to health care and meeting

increasing demand with expanded capacity. how we double the capacity required to meet last year's demand by focusing on four pillars. productivity,e, and community care. we have more people serving over 15,000. we've activated 1.7 million square feet and increase the number of exam rooms in fiscal year 2014 so providers can care for more veterans every single day. we have added 2.2 million square feet in fiscal year 2015. in the wake of the crisis, the aggressively increased access to care. in the 12 months following the to 2015, june of 2014 we completed 7 million more appointments than during the same. e period the previous year.

4.5 million of these were in the community. this fiscal year, we completed 61.5 million appointments, 3.1 million more than the last fiscal year. more than 2 million more at v.a. facilities, one million more in the community. altogether this year, 2.6 million veterans were authorized care in the community. that is a 9% increase over authorizations the year before. right now, 97% of avoidance are within 30 days. withinwithin 14, 87 are seven, at 23 are the same day. average wait time is six days. primary care is four days. mental health care is three days. those averages are excellent for most. but if you are the one in the tail of the curve, like a

veteran living in a city seeing dramatic population growth, they are not acceptable. so we are to take advantage of the scale of the affiliates and partners to have a one day axis standdown to make sure every veteran gets the appropriate care. we are making progress addressing homelessness. over 230,000 veterans and family members have been permanently housed, rapidly re-house, or prevented from falling into homelessness. altogether across the country, there has been a 33% decline in homeless veterans. toklog claims are down 76,000. from an historic peak of 611,000 in march of 2013. claimsleted 1.4 million

in 2015, the highest in our history emma and 67,000 more since last year. today's veterans wait 93 days for decisions. that is six months fewer than in march of 2013. and the lowest in this century. met one are noticing, i last week at the washington, d.c. medical center. father served in vietnam with the first infantry division and the 101st airborne division and his grandfather fought in world war ii. he bought a great point. my personal experience as the people are but some not experienced the same quality of work i got. he advised what we need to work on is consistency across the board. he pinpointed the reason that my

transformation is shaping a seamless, unified, high quality customer experience across the entire enterprise and across the entire country. . will modernize culture, processes, and keep abilities to put the needs and interest of veterans and their beneficiaries first. it is focused on five main objective. we have to improve the experience. second, we have to glue the employee -- improve the employee experience. we need to establish a culture of continuous improvement and fifth, we need to enhance strategic partnerships. two of them great examples here. i've suggested, as john pointed out, that the chairman and ranking members of our ranking committee that we hold a hearing

on the reformation, rather than continuing the garage of of hearingsbarrage to years ago. here are some updates on our progress transforming v.a. realigning to facilitate internal coordination and collaboration among business lines from nine disjointed, disparate structures to a single framework. this means that downsizing from 21 service networks to 18 that are aligned in five districts that are defined by state boundaries, with the exception of california. the realignment means local level integration and it promotes the consistently customer service that keith described. veterans from syracuse to seattle will see one v.a. our office is fielding a staff

of customer service experts who will help us get to keith's vision. every veteran everywhere getting the same world-class service. we will be securely focused on quality and the highest qualities of professionalism and integrity. the north atlantic office opens at the end of this year, we follow-up with the southeast in february, midwest in april, and working details on the continental and pacific offices. this is about making it easier to meet customers. we launched the my v.a. community model across the country. everything other service providers, advocates, and others to improve outcomes for veterans and their families in that community. my communities are not run by v.a. there chaired by local leaders. i was in connecticut when we established the first board in

august, 37 others across the country and adopted the model. in 25 cities last may, we kicked off veteran economic unity v.a., theys, like my promote local collaboration and partnership amongst organizations servicing veterans and their families. we have seen the success, and we're doubling down on 25 more committees next year. we are investing in employees. and the last federal employee viewpoint survey results show that employee experiences are improving, trending slightly higher than last year. the best customer experience organization in the world, not surprisingly, are also the best choices to work. ,o we are training leaders

great customer service companies use human-centered design to understand what customers want and need. and the design customer experiences to meet those needs. they make these effective, efficient, and repeatable. we started training leaders on lean 6 sigma last month. we intend to have 10% trained. we are using a combined top-down and bottom-up approach to train a cadre of leaders. we started in october and are looking to train 5000 employees over the next year. improving employee experience is inexorably linked to improving veteran experience. there is not a good customer service company in the world that has unhappy or untrained employees. we kicked off our leaders developing leaders model with 300 senior leaders last month.

i was told it was the first time the top leaders of the v.a. had got together on that scale. we are equipping leaders to dramatically improve services to veterans and to create a better work environment for our employees. this month, we will complete initial training for all senior leaders. so employees are better informed on the broadest spectrum of benefits and services, so they understand all of the thv.a. we are giving them training we call v.a. 101. over 60 sites have received the training so far. we have 170,000 trained by next december. it also helps employees better appreciate the value they bring. some notable progress on health care delivery, the claims backlog, veteran homelessness, and our my v.a. transformation. we have made undeniable and

tangible progress. every health care system has challenges, and v.a. has its fair share. but some of them are unique. you may have read the independent assessment of the health care delivery systems. you read about the stark differences from facility to facility. about the bureaucratic leadership and staffing challenges and failures and access in quality. about cultural challenges employees and leaders experience. as i testified to the house committee on veterans affairs in october, the assessment has given us new ideas and a great deal of information on some known problems. it also confirms our own analysis, indicating we are headed in the right direction for some time now. but as long as one veteran does not have the larry parrish experience, we have more work to do. so let me address some challenges for we open things up

or questions. access to care has improved. but here is the inevitability. improved access means more demand. and remember, we completed 7 million more appointments in the year following the crisis and we did the year before. that should have satisfied the pent up demand twice over. for the number of employments not completed in 30 days has grown from 300,000 to nearly 500,000. why>? because more veterans come for care. and the more that come, the harder it is to balance supply and demand without additional resources. that kind of imbalance predicts failure in any business, public or private. the health care industry is no different. the 2014 access crisis. it was a significant mismatch of supply and demand. it was exacerbated by greater

number of veterans receiving services. more veterans like larry parrish choose v.a. for good reason. it is more convenient, ever others like larry, is about quality and cost. the average medicare reimbursement for a knee replacement is $25,000. with a co-pay of 20%. the v.a. saves veterans $5,000 per knee replacement. we cover all hearing loss, not just service-connected. something in the neighborhood of $4000 for hearing aids, and veterans know this. challenges will persist. private sector turnover is about 30%. our turnover rate is about 9% -- pretty favorable. but we need more than 4300 positions and 10,000 more

nurses. and we need to fill 41 senior-level vacancies in the field. that growing shortage of candidates is a national problem. for our own problem: we are working with the dean's of medical schools. working with congress and asking for more residencies, asking for scholarships and loans reimbursements from congress. working with universities and state governments to create new medical schools. one of our more pressing challenges is the appeals process, delivering timely decisions in a manner veterans deserve. the process is too complex to confusing, and too lengthy. the board of veterans appeals served over 55,000 veterans, more than we have in recent memory. over 12,700 over 12,000 hearings. that is not enough.

, they have notws evolved since world war i, and it cannot serve veterans with a modern system. we work with organizations to reengineer the process, and now we're working with congress to pass the laws necessary to bring the process into the 21st century/ . we still have challenges in veteran experiences. last month, i received an urgent e-mail from a vietnam veteran named mike hughes. he submitted a fully developed compensation claim that was incorrectly rejected. calls to his regional office were unproductive and frustrating. the office could not access the information necessary to answer his questions and correct the problem on the spot. even though that is one veteran and one account, it is not the kind of customer service we aim to provide read we more.

we are employees who serve veterans more. they deserve the tools and trading that empower them to get every veteran and world-class experience. for benefit call centers, we are strengthening our model so that it is more that are in-centric. we are empowering certain claims at the point of the call and to take action while a veteran is on the phone with them. and as of this september, we are processing claims at the point of call so agents can, for instance, at a minor child or spouse reclaim. as we strengthen the model, call center agents would take more and more action while the veterans are on the phone. other initiatives i have will over overtime, help us achieve the

customer service goals. we own these challenges. we are working hard to do our part, aggressively tackling issues in our control. in a relatively short period for enterprise of this time and complex become a we have mistreated meaningful change -- demonstrated meaningful change. achieving a place amongst the highest performing health care systems in the world, and we will. but we know we cannot accomplish all we need to do for veterans without the help of congress. veteran service organizations and many other stakeholders, the elks, they are more than hundreds of thousands of partners working with the v.a. from businesses to other federal agencies. but let me be clear, while these partnerships are important, our most essential one is with

congress. they hold the keys to many of these doors. congress legislates the benefits. we provide a veterans.and is congress , it has to affirm the benefits it legislates. from 25 of the independent requirents, they congressional action. not without the right support, we cannot do it alone. here are five specific requirements that will make a significant different to veterans. and i have repeated them during testimony and it every other opportunity. i do not mind reciting them again. first, we need congress to fully fund the president's budget request. we need congress to give us the possibility to align resources. third, we need congress to act on the proposal we submitted may 1 to end the uncertainty about aspects of purchase care. that are outside the veterans

choice program and accommodate provider participation in other care in the community programs. fourth, we need congress to address the many statutory issues burdening v.a. with red tape and bureaucracy -- like the appeals process. five, we need congress to streamline and consolidate all care in the community programs into one. we reiterated this for veterans. for year, a variety of different programs have provided care in the community for veterans. it is all very difficult to understand. veterans do not get it, employees do not get it, medical providers do not get it. so we sent our plan, veteran choice program, the new one, to the hill last friday. it is our long-term vision were delivering timely and high-quality care. veterans need to see congress act on it quickly.

this week, i had breakfast with the chairman and ranking members of our senate and house committees. there is tremendous unanimity to press these measures. to work together to transform the v.a. and provide more consistent and delightful experiences for veterans. remember mike hughes? that veteran who cannot get answers about his claim? a week after he wrote me, he wrote again. "one one day after my e-mail to you, i received a call from a regional office, assuring me my complaint had been heard. and that my claim was indeed one that would be handled probably." that is response might have gotten to begin with. we will get there, and we are well on our way. i look forward to your questions. thank you. [applause]

>> you mention the progress that you have made. looking back to the problems of two years ago, have you now held everyone accountable that needs to be, and if not, do you need any additional authorities so that you can hold them accountable? >> let us talk about accountability. my good friend, jim collins, wrote a book that talks about the need to get the right people on the bus, in the right seats. 16direct reports, 10 of the are new since i was confirmed. 10 of 16. also, over 90% of our medical centers have new directors or new leadership teams. 14, 1100 people were terminated from the v.a. in 2015, 1500 people were terminated from the v.a.

since july 29, since i was confirmed last year, 280 people have been terminated from the v a proposed to us but very action from the plating -- disciplinary action for manipulating schedules. in augusta,l and goin georgia was indicted. the charges bring a $250,000 fine and potential for five years in jail. we are working with the ig and the office of special counsel, the fbi on other investigations that are ongoing. over the last year, we have had a total of 62 criminal convictions that have been discovered by our inspector general. now i have to say that account ability is a lot more than firing people. it is about giving people the

responsibility, giving them the training, and in working with them and training them to perform at a high level. one of the things we have done over the last year, building into people performance review plan, all of the things i've talked about. improving customer service, the my v.a. transformation, the call centers. it is now being built into performance plans. we have a lot more to do, lots of investigations currently underway. and as time goes on, you will see the results of these investigations. >> a question about cost control. what mechanisms and you put in place to control costs? how are you ensuring payments are proper and in line with fair market values? >> cost control is important. one of the things i one of the things that i believed in in the procter &

gamble company, there were two things i believed would drive it. one was innovation. the v.a. is a great innovator for this country. we spend on innovation, $1.68 billion research. that research is not only critical to american medicine, but also to the american people. secondly, productivity. productivity is critically important to us. we measure value units, which is a common measurement in the medical industry. it is a measure of productivity. our productivity is up 8% over the last year, versus a budget increase of 2.8%. i am asking for ways to improve our productivity every day. there is no question that demand is increasing for our services. i do not feel capable of going to congress and asking for more money, unless i can show them that we are trying to save money. if you look at my testimony over the last year, what you see is i told congress that we had 10 million square feet of unused space.

unfortunately, it is all in somebody's congressional district. if we could close that space, that would save the v.a. and the american taxpayer $25,000 per year. please look at my testimony. 10 million square feet, $25 million a year. we are eager to work with members of congress to close that space. and we are going to have more space because we have digitized the claims process. by digitizing the process, we eliminated 5000 tons of paper. 5000 tons of paper. >> standardizing care. how will the v.a. standardized policies nationally so that the veterans will have the same access to care, no matter what v.a. they attend? the example they give is the various and limitations and qualifying criteria of

caregivers, post 9/11 veterans to receive a stipend. sec. mcdonald: great question. i think i addressed it in my remarks, but let me add to it the new undersecretary for help, one of the new leaders at v.a., this is his number one job, how to identify the current best practice in the industry and v.a. and bring all the v.a. up to the current best practice while at the same time trying to innovate to improve the best practice. let me give you an example. if you are a veteran and your address changes you have to , change your address nine different times in the v.a. there is not one backbone with every customer listed. a group ofther people all involved in this, and we are going to go to one data backbone with one list of address, which keeps track of

every interaction with each of our customers. that is one example. that will cost money and will take time, but now is the time to do it. we have a new assistant secretary for the office of information technology. her name is laverne council. i recruited her. she was the i.t. leader at johnson & johnson and dell. she knows how to do this. now is the time to get it done. >> how have the changes that you initiated with my v.a. helped to effect culture change at the department and improve morale? sec. mcdonald: again, i think i addressed that. morale is slightly better but not where we need to be. the all-employee survey was taken this year before we did the leaders developing leaders program. i think our leaders developing leaders program has been a breakthrough.

we are working with noel tischi, he was jack welsh's mentor at g.e. and founder of the training university. his daughter works for the v.a. he has helped design a training program which has been outstanding. interestingly, the leaders do the training. i do the training. sloan gibson, my west point classmate and friend of 40 years, does the training. our leaders do the training. we do not hire consultants to do the training, we train them ourselves. we have done 300. those 300 are going to go back and train their own organizations. we used videos from our 300 training. we put together a packet, a training packet, and they will go train their subordinates. some of our senior leaders will attend that training. i attended one last week in kansas city. i was thrilled with what we were

re.omplishing the while i can talk about my vision need is for, what i every employee to talk about how their vision for their organization cascades from my vision or the organizational vision. the test for any high-performing organization is, can you walk into a medical center, and ask the person in housekeeping how what they are doing that day contributes to the vision of a larger organization. that is what we are shooting for. it is like if you ask the person sweeping the floor at kennedy center what they are working on and the answer is i'm putting a man on the moon. >> hillary clinton got some attention recently when she said the v.a. scandal has not been as widespread as it has been made out to be. do you agree with her? sec. mcdonald: i told you, we have made progress, and have more work to do. [laughter] [applause]

>> cnn reported that long waits continue for many v.a. patients seeking medical services. in august, more than 8000 requests for care had wait times longer than 90 days at the phoenix v.a. why do these delays continue, and what can be done to cut down on the wait time? sec. mcdonald: 70% of veterans have a choice. they had that choice before. 78% of veterans have medicare, medicaid, their own private health insurance. 78% of veterans have a choice. they exercise that choice. today, on average, the average veteran, and of course there is no average veteran, but the average veteran uses v.a. for 34% of their medical care. only 34%. that 34% might be the hearing aids that save $4000, or the

knee replacement that saves $5,000. only 34%. as we have improved our care, as we have improved our culture, as people have learned about the great things that the v.a. does, as we have opened up more facilities, as we hire more providers, more people are coming. more people are coming, and those already in the system are looking for more of their care from the v.a. if that 34% becomes 35%, a 1% increase, i need a $1.4 billion budget increase from congress. $1.4 billion for a single percentage point. as many of you know, the budget problems we got into last year, because of a miracle hepatitis c drug that was invented in 2014-2015 -- that budget was talked about two years before that. we will have to do something with our committees to create

the kind of processes that exist in business for how you have budget flexibility and agility to meet customer demands. otherwise, what will happen is as more people come into the system, if we do not get that budget flexibility, then the appointments might not be within 30 days. maybe the average mental health appointment -- not mental health, that would be about example, but primary care appointment has to go from four days to five days, or six days because the budget is given to us by congress and the benefits are defined by congress. all we are trying to do is make the two match. >> a question about the v.a. complex in los angeles. admiral mike mullen is investigating issues. some reports suggest decades of mismanagement. how extensive are the problems, and will people be held accountable? sec. mcdonald: mike is a dear friend and he is there on my

behalf. i do not quite understand the question. no, we have problems in west l.a. when i became secretary i , discovered there was a lawsuit in los angeles. there were 10 veteran plaintiffs suing the previous secretary. the lawsuit had been going on for over four years. i discovered that that lawsuit was getting in the way up a them -- in the way of us solving problems in los angeles. i went to los angeles. we have changed the leadership in los angeles. we have hired more providers. we have strengthened our relationships with medical school affiliates, like ucla, and with new partners like u.s.c. we have created a community partnership and a master plan for the west l.a. facility now on the internet. you are welcome to comment. we have about 390 acres in los angeles. we need to use the land properly for the care of veterans, rather

than having it used as a car lot and other things that were done in the past. we are moving in the right direction in los angeles. again, we have a lot of work to do. progress, but a lot of work to do. at least we got the lawsuit, which i was able to settle, out of of the way. we have stronger partnerships, and we are moving in the right direction. and mike is being very helpful. >> it was reported that 30 v.a. systems lacked permanent directors. why is it so difficult to fill these jobs? is pay an issue? do facilities without a director suffer as a result? sec. mcdonald: i said job one is to get the right people on the bus and in the right seats on the bus. the one thing you don't want to do is put the wrong leader in the wrong place. the process does take some time. as i said, 90% of our medical centers have either new leaders or new leadership teams.

i can personally vouch for each person we are putting in place. if it takes longer to do that, i'm ok with that. i want to make sure we get the best team in place and do our best to take care of veterans. there is no substitute for leadership, and leadership does matter. >> this is a question about legislation that has been introduced to help world war ii veterans exposed to mustard gas, and help them secure compensation for their injuries if the v.a. does not help them. will it take legislation for the v.a. to compensate these veterans and their families, or is there something the v.a. can do now? secretary mcdonald: i'm trying to get the names of individuals that have suffered that. we have been collecting names, and we have a short list. i was lucky to meet, i think kimberly -- is she here? from npr? yeah. she is the one that wrote the article. i'm trying to get her list so i

can marriott with our list and find out why there is a discrepancy. that is job one could we have to find the veterans that suffer through this. i'm not sure if legislation will be required. we will do everything without legislation. i have a lot of other legislation we need. >> the new plan presented to congress to consolidate community care states explicitly that it requires congressional support and funding. how likely are we to see that plan realized and when? sec. mcdonald: as i said, great unanimity with our committees. rankings members -- ranking members and chairman said they understand the plan. the reason there are so many different ways of getting care in the community is over the years congress has passed so , many laws that layered on top of each other. each one had a different reimbursement rate, a different selection criteria, and as a result of that, you had the

se seven different programs that were very difficult for veterans to understand, and very difficult for our employees to understand. similarly, you had dysfunctional or skewed incentives. i went to montana with senator jon tester, a great guy, and he brought in a room of providers, medical professionals, and they all told me how much they loved one of the seven plans. i whispered to john and said, the reason they love that plan is because the reimbursement rates in montana are the highest for that plan. we have to get to one level of rates. we have to get one plan, easy for the veterans to understand it. we are in the customer service business, but these laws have been layered over the years. we will get this done, and get it done quickly. >> the mental health of veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress and brain injury is one of the biggest challenges that the v.a. faces.

with the shortfall in mental health professionals what alternative methods are being used for veterans? viableic and art alternatives? sec. mcdonald: when i was going through my confirmation progress, there was a very small number of senators, one or two, who said, why don't we blow up the v.a. and give out vouchers? i thought it was important for me to study that, the business guy. i discovered the v.a. is not only essential for veterans, it is essential for american medicine because we are on the cutting edge of so many treatments. and therefore, it is essential for the american public. we spent $1.8 billion on research. we did the first liver transplant. invented and did the first implantable cardiac pacemaker. it was a v.a. nurse that had the idea to connect patients with barcodes to records.

the first electronic medical record. v.a. doctors invented the shingles vaccine last year. v.a. was the one that came up with the idea of taking an aspirin a day. when you have the largest integrative medical system, you can be on the cutting edge. right now, we are leading the in precisioneffort medicine. we have a project called the million vets project with blood samples of veterans connected to 40 years of medical records, and we are doing the genome mapping of all of those blood samples. imagine the research that can be done by medical professionals to go back to the genome to understand the causality of that genome and a form of cancer. we are running seven pieces of research to figure that out. more work will be coming. without the v.a., who is going to do that? training -- the v.a. trains 70% of doctors in the country. without the v.a., who will train those doctors? it is the primary source of

residency for medical schools. we need more medical schools. we are working to create a medical school at the university of nevada las vegas. the bigger part of the problem is we need the residencies. congress is giving us more residencies with the choice act, but we need more. the v.a. is the largest employer of nurses, the largest trainer of nurses. the third leg of the stool is conical care. to deal with mental health, because we are who we are, and because we are on the cutting edge of mental health, we will try any technique any treatment , that may work. we found that acupuncture is effective with some people. we are the largest user of acupuncture in the country. we found equine therapy is effective with some users. we have equine centers around the country to use them with

veterans. i could go on and on. there are many different techniques that are effective that a for-profit system will never figure out. it is up to us to figure it out, write the reports, write the research, do the literature, and create new standards of care. one of the things we will do coming up this spring is hold a mental health summit here in d.c. we are inviting everybody who is an expert. we have already done one of these, this will be the second. we will invite the nhl, nfl, people suffering similar brain injuries so we can spread knowledge and make sure that we are all working synergistically to figure these things out, rather than at cross purposes or in a redundant way. >> this question says women veterans are often invisible to the v.a., and also the fastest growing population of the homeless. what is your plan to outreach to women vets nationwide informing them of benefits?

sec. mcdonald: the question is correct. women veterans often do not identify themselves as veterans. all veterans feel inadequate because they feel there is someone who has done more than they have. we find some veterans think the word "veteran" means only if you served in combat. some veterans think the word means only male. we are outreaching to female veterans all of the country. we are hiring more providers for female veterans, more obstetricians, gynecologists. we are also setting up women's clinics in most of our major facilities. if, who ever asked that question is in d.c., ask for the medical director and take a look at our new women's clinic. i'm quite proud of it, and think some good work is going on there for women. the same thing in atlanta, georgia. we got some space from the department of defense and set up a women's clinic.

we have women's clinics going in all over the country. the questioner was right. women are 11% of veterans today, and in the not-too-distant future, 20%. >> we are almost out of time, but before i get to the last question or two, i have some housekeeping. the national press club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists, and we fight for a free press worldwide. to find out more, go to our website, press.org. to donate to our nonprofit journalism institute, go to press.org/institute. i would like to remind you about upcoming speakers. p.j. o'rourke will discuss his at 6:30s coming tuesday p.m. the club will hold its 38 annual book club and authors night on november 17 at 5:30 p.m.

we have more than 100 authors who will be here in the club, and there are so many of them that are noteworthy, i will not even begin mentioning a few of them. debra lee james, the 23rd secretary of the u.s. air force , will speak at a club luncheon on december 2. i would now like to present our guest with the traditional national press club mug, the greatest keepsake of the national press club. [applause] you are here a year ago, so you now have your collection started. we hope you come back in a year for your third. you really have to get the larger set to get the full experience of the press club mug. mr. secretary, you have been at the v.a. more than a year now. compare the challenges of running such a large government

agency with running such a large corporation as procter & gamble, as you did. how are they like, how are they different? how do the challenges differ? secretary mcdonald: the thing that is alike is what you could call the burden of big numbers. we have 9 million veterans in our health care system regularly. if you make a mistake, .5% of the time, that is still a very big number. just like i talked about the 7 million more completed appointments, but i also talked about the tail. if you are in a place like phoenix or hampton, virginia, where the veteran's population is growing rapidly, you do not care what is happening elsewhere. you don't care about the quarter days for primary health care. big numbers is really a big deal. how do you be perfect across that system? that is why design thinking is

so critical to train the organization in. secondly, one of the differences -- at procter & gamble, what we them -- while we had health care business, it was things like over-the-counter remedies. here, we are in the health care business where people have catastrophic injuries. that also makes for a difficult situation where there is no room for errors. those are differences. a big difference for me is i spent 33 years with the company, and i had lived and worked all over the world, 16 of those years outside of the united 33 states. i lived in japan, brussels, canada, the philippines. here, i have just been on the job a little over a year. how do you compress those 33 years of knowledge and knowledge of the people in such a short period of time. when i got the question of why does it take you so long to fill a leadership vacancy, it was

easy when i knew somebody for 33 years, it is a little more difficult today. those are some of the differences. >> more and more veterans are running for elected office. has this been helpful to you and the v.a.? also, it is the campaign season. we are hearing a lot from candidates on the campaign trail. what do you think in terms of the veterans issues? are you hearing enough discussion of veterans issues out there, or not? sec. mcdonald: i'm always glad when veterans issues are raised. i wish there would be more fact checking on some of the numbers used. there are a lot of myths out there. what i have tried to do today is give you both the good and bad. the things we have accomplished, but the challenges we have. i may well leave it at that. >> as far as more candidates

getting elected that are veterans, is that also helpful? sec. mcdonald: i think it is helpful when you have more people with veteran experiences that are writing laws. there is no question that we will keep moving in the direction where very few of our elected leaders, or at least, not as many as in the past, were veterans. that is why i think it is critically important that, rather than having veterans at the center of a political issue, and using veterans as a political pawn for one party or the other to play gotcha with the president, the administration, or the department of veterans affairs it is better that we work , together. we have hearings on what we want to do in the future, rather than what happened two or three years ago when everybody wrote their

questions to play gotcha. if you ask me about differences, coming from the business world, i'm just not used to this, where somebody behaves one way privately to you, and different way on camera, and they work hard to write a question that you might answer incorrectly. let's work together, all work together, all of us, including everyone in this room strategic , partners, members of congress. let's work together to do what is right for veterans, and forget this gamesmanship. it just is not make sense. -- it just does not make sense. [applause] just to be clear, i think we have tremendous unanimity today. i will tell you, i'm not running for political office. i'm in this for only one reason. i came out of retirement for one reason, and that was to do this job. the lord has put me here to do it, and i will do it to the best of my ability.

we will make the changes we need to make and let the veterans decide we have made the changes -- decide whether or not we have made the changes we need to make. [applause] >> thank you, mr. secretary. i would also like to thank the national press club staff, including the journalism institute and broadcast center for helping to organize today's event. if you would like a copy of today's program, you can find one at the website, press.org, where you can also learn more about the national press club. thank you so much. if you could stay in your seats until the secretary leaves the room, i would appreciate that. thank you so much. we are adjourned. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accura thend richard talks about response to the syrian refugee crisis. sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern. it that youarned can do anything it you want to. the firstto ask me if lady should get paid.

but you can do anything you want to. opportunity.great so, i would advise in the first lady to do what she wanted to do. another thing i learned is you are going to because the size no matter what you do. i could've stayed at the white house and poured tea and had receptions and i would've been criticized as much as as i was criticized outside for what i did. and, i got a lot of criticism. but you learn to live with it. expected and live with it. influence you. announcer: she was her husband's political partner from their first campaign. she attended cabinet meetings, andpioned women's rights, went to meetings. her partnership with her husband spanned four decades since

leaving the white house. will be on c-span's first ladies. influence and image. from martha washington to michelle obama. sunday on american history tv on c-span three. on tuesday, tsa administrator peter nesson and or and jennifer grover testified at a house oversight committee on tsa security. a recent study found tsa is not as secure as it should be. this is two hours and four minutes.

that report underscored it the need of government leaders to do a state-of-the-art screening technologies are not necessarily the magic bullet. there is a human component and

other methods of things use throughout the world that we should be paying attention to. i would like to yield time to the former chairman of the transportation committee, mr. mica of florida. >> thank you mr. chairman and our ranking member and our witnesses today. around since we formed the tsa and one of the original authors of the legislation and have 14 years behind us. unfortunately we don't have much progress and success of the

major purpose that we set out for. sure that weake are safe and secure and that we with passenger ensuresscreening that for the traveling american public. commentedwhat i just on. it just confirms that and just about every area of operations. on page three is a summary. testimonyecent covert included failures and technology, failure in procedures, and human error.

we found layers of security simply missing. it would be misleading to minimize the rigor of our testing or to imply it was not an accurate reflection of our effectiveness. it is very alarming. 2007 fromk from reporting iteaked, from usa today that screeners .ailed 75% of the time 30,000 screeners. we are now at 46,000 screeners and most recently we had this leak where the failure rate -- this is a publicly obtainable

report of 95% failure. i think we need a complete overhaul. think that we need to address risk. 99% of we are hassling the people who pose no risk and still have no means of differentiating. we need to get tsa out of the screening business. there were never be able to recruit, retrain, retain, manage. what they should do is set the standards -- we have private screening under federal supervision for a host of other activities. a highly secure nuclear facility and other facilities. that we let the private sector do what it does best and we set the parameters and we on it and make the changes.

what i hear today, i am convinced that you cannot fix a system that will continue to fail. i yield back. >> the administrator, along with the thousands who served need to own the system. if problems arise they must be attended to swiftly and appropriately. we ask that they work in a proactive way so that those threats are mitigated prior to getting to the airport. certainly prior to getting on an airplane. i look forward to the hearing testimony today. we now recognize mr. cummings of maryland. much. -- thank you very againood to have you here on this very critical issue. i would also like to thank mrs. rover.

i want to welcome the administrator. when i served at the subcommittee -- as a admiredttee chairman, i the technical expertise and the steady, determined leadership. theuding dealing with deepwater horizon oil spill. i'vesure he remembers -- called the coast guard back again and again to ensure accountability and every time, you were up to the task and i am so glad that you have been chosen for this task. i think him for his decades of service and i have fought president obama's decision to appoint him this critical position.

when comes to the security of , we must always wish to stay ahead of the terrorists and anyone else who would do us harm. we must take nothing for granted. we must put the lessons we learned into urgent action. i have often said that so often, we spend a lot of time talking about testing and how things will work when we have an emergency. so often, what happens -- and we saw this to some degree and deepwater horizon -- there will come a time when we will see it worse. when that moment comes, so often we discover there is no road. above all, we must never become complacent. we must treat every single day as if the urgency of our act --

as if they require the urgency of our actions. routine thatlmost the senior leaders received supports of security gaps in the air passenger screening operation. these reports came from the inspector general and pecialized -- specialized. they described an additional round of testing revealing more gaps. the question today i believe is whether tsa and the department of homeland security are thisnding with the urgency situation demands and as the president often says, are they responding what the urgency of now? based on their actions over the last several months, i believe they are. but their work is far from complete and it's incumbent on both the agency and this committee to continue our oversight efforts in order to

ensure improvements are put into place. last spring, secretary johnson ordered a comprehensive, top to bottom review of all tsa's procedures to understand why agencies performed falling short of its own standards. he required senior leaders to report to him every two weeks about the root causes of these pitfalls and the solutions being implemented. over the summer, tsa developed and begin implementing a 10 ofnt plan for all aspects processes. it's clear the agency has been aggressively working to change its culture. tsa has taken the date. in the, we are early

process. this agency has more than 42,000 employees responsible when securing about 450 airports, making comprehensive effort in an agency is not easy and ensuring these changes are effective and efficient and improving the agencies database performance requires long-term efforts. we must ensure tsa establishes in your business with clear metrics to measure performance. administrator, i think you know .hat i am about to say just like in the coast guard subcommittee, you should get used to seeing us on a regular basis. this committee's job is to oversee the implementation of tsa's transformation. we will be inviting you back because the american people are depending on us to get it right.

finally, let me close by noting the airlines also play a critical role in securing our security. we need to take a look at the decisions by the airline industry that are making the tsa is a job more difficult. the new feesed airlines are charging to check bags are causing use increases in the volume of carry-on luggage. although this may result in significant new revenue for airlines, it's also putting significant strains on our screening operations and i hope he will address that. i hope we will have an opportunity to discuss these issues in more detail today and had hearings before the committee. i have full confidence we will get this right. we have no choice. i think you and yield back. >> we hold this open for five

days for the administrators who would like to recognize this. administrator the of the transportation security administration at the u.s. department of homeland security. honorablened by the john ross, inspector general of the u.s. department of homeland security and mrs. jennifer grover, director of homeland security. we welcome you all. all witnesses are to be sworn before they testify. if you will please rise and raise your right hand. do solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you are about to get will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? thank you and let the record reflect the witnesses all answered in the affirmative. we would appreciate if you limit your verbal testimonies to five minutes. you written statement will be entered as part of the record. good morning, chairman.

i thank you for the opportunity to testify on my vision for evolving the transportation security administration will stop my perspective is a shape -- to administration. approach is a my well-defined statement of admission, clear standards of performance, training and resourcing, appropriate measures of effectiveness, and an unwavering pursuit of excellent and accountability. i want to thank the inspector general for the oversight provided to the tsa. the direction is a reflection of my vision on how we approach the continuing evolution. i am four month into the job and have traveled to dozens of airports and visited our european partners in the u.k., france, the netherlands, and met with stakeholders.

i have engaged service stakeholders in passenger rail and light rail across the country and in europe. i've been thoroughly impressed with the professionals and equally impressed with the collaboration across the transportation enterprise. these complex systems require we examined on and consider them as a whole and integrate the wide range of public and private capabilities to close gaps, reduce abilities. however, as i've stated in previous hearings, my immediate priority has been to pursue solutions to the inspector general's recent testing findings. we are making significant progress in doing so. element focused on an of the aviation security system, specifically imaging technology

capability within checkpoint. it identified areas for improvement. the system as a whole remains effective and has only gotten stronger. in response, tsa have lamented an immediate action plan to ensure accountability, increase strengthenss, and procedures. we've also responded vigorously by and lamenting the pen point plan. to ensure we don't repeat concern liketmost determining root causes of the problem, our conclusion is a screening effectiveness challenges were not merely a .erformance problem the ait has enhanced our ability to detect nonmetallic threats. ande look at the people technology, strong drivers of the problem include leadership

focus, environmental influences, and gaps in the system. there -- analysis revealed our officers did not fully understand the capabilities of the equipment and several procedures were inadequate. we train our officers to understand and use equipment properly. solutions require a renewed focus on security, revised procedures, investments in technology, training, a new balance between effectiveness and efficiency, and support for frontline officers. we continue to partner with the airlines to identify solutions and's -- solutions that can reduce stress on the checkpoints. i can report we have a principle approach in place designed to correct immediate challenges while ensuring this problem doesn't happen again.

our training conducted in august and september with every front-line officer has reset our focus on security effectiveness. longer-term, our self-examination has given insight into how we must evolve. we face a critical turning point and tsa and begin our investment in a more strategic approach to ensuring the transportation sector. measure is what our officers will pay attention to. our approach needs to be adapt and and risk-based. feelst be able to rapidly new ways of operating. our adversaries remain intent on attacking the transportation ting.r are inves we must deliver an effective system and the confidence of the traveling public.

i conveyed these standards to our workforce and i committed we will pursue these objectives. i went to assure you tsa is an intelligence driven counterterrorism organization and we're up to the challenges we face. we are on the frontlines of a critical fight and our workforce is willing and able to do the job. thank you for the opportunity to be here today. >> inspector general roth. >> thank you. good morning. >> if you could just bring the microphone straight up. >> my apologies. good morning. thank you for inviting me here to testify today. throughout this year, i had testified for this committee and others regarding my concern .bout tsa's ability to execute to testify these challenges were in almost every area of the

operations is problematic. its control over access to secure areas, including management of access that program, its management of the workforce integrity program, oversight of maintenance and screening equipment, and other thees we've discovered in course of over 100 inspection reports. we may be in a different place now then we were when i last testified about this before this committee. i believe the administrator bullet -- brings with him and your attitude about oversight. ensuring safety is a massive and complex program. it will take a sustained and disciplined effort. the first step to extend the problem is having the courage to radically assess the efficiencies. creating a culture change within

tsa and giving the workforce the ability to identify and address the risk will be the administrators most challenging task. i believe the department and leadership has begun the process earn auation and position to address some of those issues. in september, we distributed our report on our most recent over testing. while i cannot speak about the specifics, i'm able to say we conducted the audit with efficient rigor to satisfy our professional auditing standards and the tests were conducted by our auditors without any specified knowledge or training and the results were troubling. we run multiple tests at eight different airports of different across the country and tested airports who were using private screeners. results were can distance across every airport. our testing was designed to test checkpoint operations in

wearable conditions. kelly was included technology, human heirs. the departments response has been swift. within 24 hours of receiving preliminary results, the secretary summoned senior tsa leadership and directed that an tsadiate plan of action for has put forward a plan consistent with our recommendations to improve checkpoint quality in three areas -- technology, personnel, procedures. the checkpoint must be considered as a single system. the most effective technology used without the right personnel and personnel needed to be euided by appropriat procedures. we will be monitoring tsa's efforts and will continue to conduct covert testing. we will report our results to

this committee and others. believe this episode serves as an illustration of the values of the office of the inspector general when coupled with department leadership that understands and appreciates independent oversight. this review was possible only because my office and auditors had unfettered access to information we needed. speak for the entire community and expressing my gratitude to this committee for the legislation tending in the house. -- pending in the house. this would fix the misguided attempt to restrict access to records. this legislation would improve and streamline the way we do business. i written testimony gives an example of a powerful results we

can obtain from data matching, which the legislation streamlined. concludes my prepared statement. i welcome any questions. >> thank you. director grover, please to have you here. you are recognized for five minutes. >> good morning. thank you for the opportunity to discuss how tsa can improve the effectiveness of airport passenger screenings. jo haspast six years, made 80 recognitions -- recommendations. tsa has fully implemented more than three quarters. yet, every year our reports continue to find vulnerabilities in this system, many related to questions of security effectiveness. why is that? work over the past

several years -- is tsa has consistently fallen short and basic program management in several aspects. bash shortcomings stand in out. first, failing to evaluating effectiveness of new technologies and programs. second, not establishing performance measures that reflect program goals and third, failing to use program data to identify areas for improvement. there are many reports that in eachte shortfalls area. i will provide one example for each. should fully evaluate effectiveness prior to adoption to insure acquisitions and to make sure money is well spent. ofone example, in a review the body scanning technology, we found tsa evaluated the system in the laboratory for effectiveness but had not addressed how airport screeners were using the system.

if airport screeners don't carry properly -- and we know this is an ongoing challenge -- the effectiveness of the overall screening is diminished. when tsa issue is designing studies of effectiveness, it's critical they follow established study designed practices to make sure the results they get at the end of the day are valid. tsa has struggled with this. a da juste we found study of behavioral detection indicators did not demonstrate their effectiveness because of limitations including the use of unreliable data. my second point is that tsa should adopt performance measures that reflect program goals to make sure programs are operating as intended. in 2014, we found tsa did not have performance measures to the passengers were

identified on the no fly and watch lists. that tsapoint is should put systems in place to monitor the data it collected in order to identify areas for 2013 --ent or step in improvement. in 2013, officials collected data on the effectiveness of their canine problem but were only considered. tsa was missing the opportunity to determine if there were specific search areas or types of explosives to which the canines were more or less affected and identify training needed. responsiveistently to our recommendations and tsa has addressed to some degree most of the examples i've mentioned. its ait testing to more fully evaluate

effectiveness and implemented new procedures to analyze canine testing data. they are in the process of testing behavior detection activity and developing new secure flight performance measures. by, addressing findings one one will not solve the underlying problem of an organizational culture that has allowed programs to be stood up without sufficient evidence of their effectiveness. it is critical that tsa systematically addresses the weaknesses i just described. through well-designed evaluations of their programs continuingtions and reliance on appropriate performance measures that allow them to monitor key program goals over time. tsa would be well positioned to achieve long-standing improvements in aviation security effectiveness and other

operations. statement.des my i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. we will move to the question portion. we recognize the gentleman from florida. >> thank you. pleased to have you aboard. you come aboard when there has been unprecedented amount of criticism and findings of failure with your agency. intent -- ire very had a chance to speak with you on trying to improve things. -- again, looking at this over 14 years -- our objective is to keep the american people safe. screenedtatement, you

600 million passengers. percentage of those folks actually pose a risk? it's got to be less than 1%, would you agree? >> a very small percentage. >> but most of our resources are spent on building a bureaucracy. billion on tsa.3 bureaucracy to manage the 46,000 screeners congress has put a cap on. we've seen a failure rate is closed publicly -- disclosed publicly. you stated in your testimony there are a number of actions that have been completed, including requiring screening leadership at each airport

oversight and training and thankful i got -- and thanks like that. you when you get this done, have created a system that doesn't address the risk. your chances of failure are almost 100% with the current system even with the training you employ. -- thwart the ait machines. place andt we had in under the threat was there for explosives and it still there tried to put in different programs to make up for the layers that fail. behavior detection, $1 billion spent on behavior detection. thousands of officers -- here's a report here.

it says 50,000 travelers have been flagged. zero of them are terrorists. 60 known terrorist past through 20 occasions. the point here is you need to get out of the personnel business and back into the security business. turning tsa back into the things , intelligence us gathering, setting parameters for someone else. you're not a good personnel .gency nor will you be the recruitment, the training, retention is horrible. matter what you do, if you don't address the risk and put our resources -- we should put our resources -- every instance in which we have stopped them has been first to the public. that morningince

they found out on flight 93 they attacked a terrorist and took them down. it was the crew and passengers that stopped him. the liquid bombers -- they woke me up in texas and told me about that. that was british and israeli intelligence but it has to be our intelligence that saves the day. of theu to get you out personnel business and back into the security business. we still don't have that right according to some of the folks who have testified the evidence i have seen. i don't mean to give you a hard time but please consider this. when we devised this system -- i told you this story -- a , whenm-security facility

you go into those come you get body cavity searches. -- which were not going to do with 659 million americans -- still stuffy gets through. again, i look forward to your response. you don't have to give it today but i think if we change that into the security business, that's the best use of our resources. >> i would like to put this report and the record if i may. --reedom to travel failures i think it's very enlightening if you would >>. -- if you would like that request. >> the gentleman from virginia. welcome.

welcome your ascension to this office. my confidence in you was reinforced when i read your .estimony on the root causes he said the underlying screening effects of this and technology you said a-- disproportionate focus in the past has been on screening rather thanficiency security effectiveness, which is the mission. would you expand on that? >> thank you. , we look at root causes -- and you really have to look at root causes and determine why we saw the same failures repeatedly. operating agency that observes the same thing over and over, it tells me you haven't figured out what the problem is. just would -- it

goes beyond whatever happens at the check point. daysu recall in the early of tsa, there was concern about the wait times. there was a great deal of pressure on tsa to get people through the screening check points faster and there's a reason for that. you have to be very careful when -- inject a concern like that because what you measure is what you are going to get for performance. i believe over time, a great deal of effort to ensure wait times were kept to a minimum -- that puts pressure on the screeners to clear passengers versus resolving the alarms they present. difference, it can change they effort you put into looking for that. -- it'smportant

important, the point you were making. we have improved efficiency but that's not the goal. that's a means towards reaching the goal and keeping one's eye on the mission, making the main thing the main thing is really important. or miss grover, there have been more than 25 specific reports over the last 25 years. -- your agency conducted a proper screening process. what did you find from that operation? >> the specific results are classified but what we found in a series of tests that took place across the country at different airports using a variety of concealment methods

by people withallies training is a -- by people with no special training is a disappointing performance. we look at the entire screening checkpoint. >> would it be fair to say that without compromising security that some significant breaches occurred? >> yes. very troubling. you are aware of those findings. >> has the agency taking corrective steps to address what mr. rock and his team discovered so early? >> one of the first things i did when this became public during , i had amation process chance to meet with mr. rock and i met with him again after

swearing in. i wanted to understand the exact nature of the failures that occurred so we can begin to address the root causes. we have put a tremendous amount of effort into not just determining the instant failures but reaching back through the organization to figure out what systemically was going on that brought this. we have had other discoveries of failures in the past. -- it be useful to have may be useful to have a classified briefing on that. racef the problems you that had -- raised that has charging for baggage forces passengers by bringing an overhead luggage as much as possible. this affects your business and mission. can you just address that?

>> there's a lot more baggage coming through the checkpoint now than there used to be and it's much more packed with gear than it used to be. this is a challenge for anybody screening. i know the airlines have been one plus enforce their one rule but sometimes that doesn't take place until you get to the loading gate and multiple backs have come through the checkpoint. we have in working closely with the industry to see what we can do to reduce that stress but it's a fact of modern life. there's more stuff arriving at the checkpoint been used to. >> thank you. recognize the gentleman from michigan. >> thank you. onesn't here in congress tsa wasn't -- 20 essay was instituted. i don't have a lot of the answers to how you do it. i just know when i entered an

airport in detroit, i go through multiple contacts with multiple agents, including tsa. to say weso hasten have to deal with his problems and overwhelmingly, i have been treated well by tsa, even when they didn't know i was a member of congress. the fact of the matter is during only two instances i can i was not treated well. that says for the most part, their personnel is doing a job i wouldn't want to do are at least attempting to work with -- i want to applaud you for that. i think there's something to say about having this job. fortunately since 9/11, as a efforts, we have not

had a downed plane and we want that to continue. i do want to ask you some questions. in our hearing today, you pledged to fix some things. other administrators have pledged to fix things. what will be different this time? >> it really goes to what i was saying earlier, and that is -- i have been an operator my entire career. in the u.s.ears coast guard. a lot of similarities between the coast guard and tsa. both our mission-based organizations. they both have missions that have a no fail quality to them at a distributed frontline workforce responsible for carrying out the mission. what makes operating agencies

exciting is you have something you have to do every day. that tyranny of the right now when we need you to simply address the problem in its presentation -- by that i mean you have a failure at a checkpoint, you work with the team at that checkpoint, that airport, say this is how you failed and don't do it again. the may seem like it fixes problem but it doesn't over time. typically if you have failures like that in a dedicated , it meansworkforce you have something more systemic going on and if hard at times for an operating agencies to take the time to do that. >> how do you monitor that? >> it starts by recognizing there is a bigger picture. anytime you have multiple overres that look the same time, something else is going on

stop and lookg to at the entire approach to the organization. how will have where ticket would that mission in terms of what it needs to succeed. how will have we deployed the equipment that addresses that need, how well have we trained our people to work that equipment and what kind of processes have we given them? tasksnd there were 3100 we expected a screener to memorize. that's impossible. say ife to step back and this is about the mission, it's about the performance of that mission in an environment in which we have so much at stake. you have to look at what's already been done by third-party independent auditors. value the work of the aig's office because they get me a third-party independent assessment of what those challenges are and i can use that to begin to dig into the

deeper issues. what mr. add on to connolly started with. it goes to this idea of a bigger picture. how will you work with airports, airlines come others who can have the size -- who can emphasize? >> all of the major airlines in the u.s. i have met with and their associations. it starts by recognizing this is an interactive system. tsa doesn't work alone inside the aviation system. everyone has a role to play. it's not simply a handoff. it's a continuous interaction. that requires they be aware of the challenges their system imposes upon our responsibility. we have to be aware of the

challenges imposed on them. they have been very receptive to that. there's a lot more work we can do to connect more effectively. i've established a number of regular meetings now with my counterparts in the private sector and across the system. we begin to address these long-standing come overarching issues that have been attended to. now recognize mr. cummings for five minutes. thank you. director, when you were talking about the problem, i wrote two wordsand i wrote the "coulter gap." i think from just listening to you, a culture has been established and i think that it

is in part -- and i want you to comment on this. the chairman will tell you that when we deal with the secret service, one of the things we worried about was a culture of complacency. not the people are not good people but you get used to nobody jumping over the fence at the white house. everything is going to be all right. is there is ans lull in the culture. thathen when you combine with this thing about making sure you get the people through quickly and you put the , ickness over the mission think you have a combination for

problems. i think those kinds of problems are very difficult to address. i am trying to figure out -- first of all, would you comment on that? >> thank you for the opportunity. tsa was originally stood up in a culture of crisis where they had to be responsive fast. but at this point, it's time to transition to a culture of accountability for effectiveness. tsa definitely is aware of the importance of ensuring their programs are effective and i appreciate the administrators remarks about enhancing that culture throughout the workforce. at the end of the day, it comes down to a very simple question, which is, does the program work and how do you know? no matter how much of the staff are educated in the current , no matter retrained

how much there is an emphasis on new sop's, there has to be measurement and a have to have a systematic process to follow through to make sure the programs work and that's what lies beneath a strong culture of accountability for effectiveness. >> you don't know what you just said. you just hit the nail quite well. they started with a culture of emergency so everybody had to make sure we protect ourselves. then when the emergency seems to ne, we can move into the culture of complacency but now we have to change our entire dynamic and create a new normal and that's a new normal of accountability. you have a plan, right? >> yes, sir.

byit's been implemented march 2016? >> there are a number of steps there. >> what will the status of the screening process be at that date? will it be what you envision or will it still be in the process of improving mode? me say i think you always have to be in a continuous improvement mode. otherwise, you do get complacent. the day you think you have the security process right is the day you will be the fetid. this is a continuous focus on the mission and continuous evaluation. done to address immediate challenges? retraiained the entire frontline workforce. i know that sounds easy to say

but let me explain what it means. we call it mission essentials. it's about reminding people we have a mission first and foremost. and to reactivate that desire they exhibited when they raised their hands and said i swear to support and defend the constitution. >> how do you do that? >> first, you say it out loud. it starts by the top of the organization saying what to do is critically important and i will make sure everything i do is designed to make sure you succeed at remission -- at your mission. i start with the junior most person in this organization on a screening line and i think about what it means for that individual to do their job effectively and what i do -- need to be focused on two take that happen. this isn't about me as an

individual, making myself look good. it's about all of us remembering we serve a higher order. that is surprisingly important for a frontline workforce to hear. it may seem simple but that's the most powerful thing you can tell somebody is what to do is important and it's so important i will spend every waking moment paying attention to getting that done. >> i hope that you took note of and inrector grover said your sessions with your staff that you remind them about what she said. at one time, a culture about emergency and now it's about accountability. that makes a lot of sense. thank you. recognizes gentleman from south carolina. >> thank you. we are all kind of creatures of our own personal experience.

most of us travel on a regular basis. , i have that i use never had anything other than professional encounters with tsa. there's not a single instance where i can think of where it wasn't a plus in terms of professionalism. -- and i don't wear a member pin. don't think it's because they what i do for a living so i don't think it was for that reason. without progressing into a broader conversation, it has become toss in the last couple years to be in law enforcement. the last couple years to be in law enforcement.

where are your applicants coming from? what is the source of the poor more out -- morale? if there is a tsa agent involved who doesng or something wrong, that's when you make the news but you don't make the news for simple professionalism so what's the rale issues ando what is your plan on bolstering it? >> thank you for your question and did words about our workforce. i think the majority of the tsa workforce are truly dedicated, responsible come and patriotic americans. these are people who took the old to do a job many people in this country would not want to do. what is the source of morale?

it's a clear mission of importance. i think we have a clear mission. i don't know if we have always clearly defined that to our workforce. it's reconnecting them with the desire they had to join, to become a part of something important. that's what the military is all about and that's what my experience tells me. then it is having clear and unequivocal standards of importance. highi mean is what causes is at people who know they are held to a high standard , you have to be consistent across the organization. then you have to train them appropriately. you have to train them and how to gauge the system, how it works.

discoveredthings we in the analysis is that we had not explained what can the machines do and what can't they do? inone ever did that to me the military, they never handed me a piece of equipment and said, a correct it out. and we never asked their opinion on the challenges of working the checkpoint. you need feedback from your frontline. this is not a one-way transition. you have to engage. is importance of more out the clear and important mission, support for the mission, training to accomplish mission, understanding of the equipment, and engaging you and getting feedback and letting you be part of the solution that goes forward. there is no one who knows that better than the people conducting it every day. those are the things we are putting into place. it is going to take time to see the results.

i see lots of opportunity on those points to reengage the workforce in a much more effective way, and actually activate that which brought them to the job in the first place. with respect to recruiting, we currently use a third-party contractor to help screen recruits, but we recruit from all over the country and all walks of life. theastonishing thing is talent that exists in the workforce. i have people with phd's who are front-line screeners, who are retired and come back. i have people with the music degrees, all walks of life. as you might expect in a workforce of 44,000 screeners, there is a broad range of people at all ages. >> one last question. if we were to interview 100 folks who had left, not for calls, but just left, what would be the dominant reason they decided -- either their

expectations were not met gore they lost interest -- or they lost interest? why do people leave? administrator neffenger: i will give you some thoughts i have, because i have not done those interviews myself. i think it's probably a combination of factors. you always have people who decide it is not the job for them and they move on. let's address some of those concerns with morale. i think it is not feeling like you are doing a mission you thought you were going to be hired to do. i think if i'm a screener and it's about effectiveness of screening properly and i'm being told to move people through more effectively, i will probably cause me to say i'm not sure this organization cares about the things they said they did. i get the proper training, -- do i get the proper training, do i have advancement opportunities, do i get continuous development over the course of my career? all of those are the things that

go into deciding whether or not you are with an employee or you would like to they went or you want to move on and looked rather opportunities. >> we now recognize mr. lynch from massachusetts for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you to the palace -- panelists. thank you for your help. i think you have been very honest in your testimony, both on the strength and failures. mr. gary'sp on question, have you ever thought bountyffering a bonus or for a screener that actually get somebody with a gun coming through the checkpoint? or with malicious intent? administrator neffenger: we have looked at all sorts of new incentive protection programs. i'm a big fan of incentivizing. >> this is such a target rich

environment where we have so many problems. class-size meeting with the chairman and ranking member. general roth has used disappointing and troubling, i would use the word pathetic in looking at the number of times people got through with guns or bombs. these covert testing exercises, it was pathetic. when i say that come i mean pitiful, the number of times people got through. i fly a lot, my family flies a lot, and just thinking about the breaches, it is very thick. -- horrific. one of the things we can do is be honest about the degree of the breaches in the scope. i think you have looked at the cultural problems here and what we have to get at, and i appreciate that. i'm supporting you, not just

criticizing. i'm supporting you in your changes. but the nature of the threat has evolved as well. for loneve isis asking , which probably presents a greater vulnerability to passenger rail security than it does to the airlines, perhaps. i'm just wondering about what way of doing, to evolve with that threat. the other big gap i see in terms of people with credentials in we ares, insecure areas, having major gaps there. we are letting people in that have connections with terrorism. they are getting through the screening process and getting into secure areas of the airport, and being awarded credentials. i think we had 73 instances of

that. and also ig this, would like inspector general roth to speak to that issue. i know you have been relentless in very good about this. in the past, there has been denial. i don't think we are hearing that from you mr. deat neffenger, but in the past there is a culture of denial. disaster on a major a commercial airline or train and we are not going to be able -- people will say, we did not see that coming, but we did. we had and we see it now. i wonder what our response is going to be to address that issue. let metrator neffenger: see if i can address a couple of the points you made with what we are doing. the last point on the insider threat concern,