mr. chairman, i'll yield back. >> mr. collins. >> yes, mr. chairman. do have a specific question and comment. the specific question is dealing with the oversight of secret service and hearings i was in last year it seems to me that there is sufficient room for the secret service to improve their act, so they can protect the president and first lady. do you agree with the funding that's in there for that? >> oh of course. >> i have one other statement. and before my colleagues across the aisle and their feigned indig nans about who started this, i've about had it to here. about what we did on immigration when we did it. i remember and i said this from the floor. i remember a nirvana for our members across the aisle just a few years ago. you controlled the house. you controlled the senate. you had the presidency. you put dodd frank in front of us. you put obamacare in front of us. you did many things that had no republican support. and now we have feigned indig nans that we want to have a debate on immigration when you could have done it for two years li

mr. chairman. mr. sec., i am going to press you on what is happening on the ground right now because we have failed as a government to give any certainty to this process. we know that tennessee and arkansas have delayed hundreds of millions of dollars in highway projects this year. last summer over two dozen states have taken similar preemptive action as the highway trust fund near insolvency. this whole game of waiting and then somebody steps up in the house or senate. i'm going to save this for five months. this is a disaster. can you discuss the likelihood that we will see these next continue if we don't take action soon. >> thank you for the question. this is a crisis that is actually worse than i think most people realize. your.is well taken. may 312015 the.at which it runs out but the state department of transportation is having to figure out what year hide of work will be which starts writer at the same time that the extension runs out. i predict that over the course of the next few months you a

mr. chairman. i'd like at this point to recognize the majority leader of the house of representatives and thank him for his leadership. yield him one minute to speak. the chair: the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. mccarthy: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, when the president was asked about his deportation policy early in 2013, mr. speaker, president obama said, quote i'm the president of the united states of america. i'm not the emperor of the united states. my job is to execute laws that are passed. a few days earlier, he said, mr. speaker and i quote, i'm not a king. i'm the head of the executive branch of government. i'm required to follow the law. 22 times mr. speaker, the president said he couldn't ignore immigration law and create new laws by himself. but now, mr. speaker, president obama has done exactly what he said he could not do. what changed between then and now? nothing. le it our constitution is exactly the same. -- our constitution is exactly the same. an

mr. chairman. >> senator johnson? >> thank you, mr. chairman. to thank the senator for switching positions with me here. mr. blinken, just reviewing the security council resolutions, the goal or the requirement of u.n. 1696 was to ask or call for iran to suspend enrichment of uranium. same requirement, suspend enrichment. 1747 stated that the nuclear program must be verified as only peaceful, and i'll come back to that. 1803, reaffirmed the previous four resolutions. 1929 calls for the halt of enrichment by iran. who or at what point in time did we abandon that requirement? >> senator, thank you. i think what we know is and what we have seen is that iran has mastered the fuel cycle. nothing we do can do that. we can't sanction away that knowledge, we can't bomb it away, they have mastered it. so in our judgment what is critical to our security and that of our partners is to establish a comprehensive solution that gives us the confidence because of the extraordinary stringent restrictions on that program as well as the exceptional access that insp

mr. chairman. that is a very important question. and we do have experience in the recent past building on some of the work of map 21. of doing concurrent reviews in our permitting process. which effectively allows all of the federal agencies to sit at the table at the same time at an earlier point in the design and construction of a project to comment on that project at a point at which the project can still be changed to respond to the permitting. and i'll give you an example. there is a project in new york called the tap zi bridge. we applied concurrent r rerues reviews and changed the permitting time from 3 to 5 years to 18 months. >> that was really a direct result in changes that we made in coming to this point. >> it was building on a lot of the work that map 21 contained. and there was also some administrative work that went into putting that out on dash board and assuring the agencies work together. but we think there are additional tools that can enable that to happen more. and the good ne

mr. chairman? mr. chairman no. >> clerk report total. >> three yea, seven nays. >> amendment not agreed to, agreed to. further amendment or discussion? seeing none the vote now on the motion from the gentlewoman from grandfather community, north carolina, vice chairman of the committee miss foxx. signify saying aye. those opposed aye. ayes have it. gentlewoman asks for roll call vote. miss fox aye. mr. cole, mr. cole aye. mr. woodall aye. mr. burgess aye. mr. steveers mr. steveers aye. mr. collins aye. police slaughter. police slaughter no. mr. mcgovern mr. hastings no. mr. polis no. mr. chairman. mr. chairman aye. >> clerk report the total. >> seven yeas three nays. motion is agreed to. i want to thank all the members of the committee. i am aware this is difficult hearing. i'm well aware that a lot of staff time went into this. i'm well aware also a number of members of committee had lots of things they were doing other than sitting here. or at least mr. stivers wishes that. with that said the committe

mr. chairman. i appreciate that. senator foxx. thank you for your work. needs to be long-term. as has been pointed out. our states and county cannot plan without the long-term commitment. it needs to be robust. it is not only the new roads and bridges and transit systems we need but also maintaining the infrastructure we have. so we have to focus on this. i do want to maintain -- i think this is the important part -- the flexibility. i represent maryland. the baltimore/washington area is the most congested area in the nation. we need to invest in transit and we have a game plan do that and want to stay on that game plan. but a large part of it depends on the ability of a sustained partner and requires the robust bill. i also want to emphasize the need for giving local governments flexibility. i've worked with senator cochrane on the transportation alternative programs that allow locals to make decision, mayors, county people to make decisions as to what is in their best interest so we have livable

mr. chairman? >> mr. chairman, no. >> four ayes seven nays. >> further discussion. >> i have one designated amendment number two. my amendment says if we're going to let so many members break the rules of the the house. we soub transparent about how often you do it. and of the 181 waivers granted by this committee last congress, 175 of them were republicans. that's 97% republicans. three 3% democrats. again in the last congress, democrats had to abide by the rules. the republicans did not. i have an amendment to try to eliminate big tax breaks for big oil companies. and every time i've tried to get a vote on it, on an energy bill i've been told, sorry the tax rule says you can only do this -- you can only do that on a tax bill. then when i offer it on a tax bill, sorry. it's a farce. and i think the majority is hiding behind the rules to keep members from voting on anything you don't like. i have an old fashioned definition of rules. i was taught when you have rules you're supposed to follow them. and give

mr. chairman. >> senator johnson? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to thank the senator for switching positions with me here. mr. blinken, just reviewing the security council resolutions the goal or the requirement of u.n. 1696 was to ask or call for iran to suspend enrichment of uranium. the same requirement suspended enrichment. the nuclear program must be verified as only peaceful, and i'll come back to that. 1803, reaffirmed the previous four resolutions. 1929 calls for the halt of enrichment by iran. who or at what point in time did we abandon that requirement? >> senator, thank you. i think what we know is and what we have seen is that iran has mastered the fuel cycle. nothing we do can do that. we can't sanction away that knowledge, we can't bomb it away, they have mastered it. so in our judgment what is critical to our security and that of our partners is to establish a comprehensive solution that gives us the confidence because of the extraordinary stringent restrictions on that program as well as the exceptional access that insp

mr. chairman.ility. as you may know thez4cñ 9 projected to become insolvent in 2016. i will just say the last thing that should happen is congress raiding the retirement program to bail out the disability program. this is worse than kicking the can down the road and actually makes the social security retirement program worse without doing anything to fix it. do you believe that reforming disability insurance, di, would improve economic growth at all?+o >> yes in a couple ofb 3v ways. first, on the merits of the program itself, we have a clear issue with people going onto disability insureance and i think it's useful for this committee to review the definition of disability. we now basically divide people in these concrete groups can work disabled in fact, there'sv a much more fluid reality out there+jzñ about people with physical and mental disabilities being able to work. the di program provides a pad incentive to have them not work at all. there's a lot of fraud in the entry process on top of tha

mr. chairman, senator menendez. >> mr. chairman i appreciate senator cotton's strong concerns about iran which i share. however, the reason senator kirk and i created a calibrated staged effort is to do two critical things. if the agreements could not be achieved an agreement we could collectively support then it would be to consistently have iran understand the consequences of additional sanctions in an effort to get them to -- back to a table where they would agree to an agreement we could collectively support and do it in such a way that would still keep the international coalition that i think is critically important in order to have multi lateral sanctions affect which i think has been a key element of our ability to bring iran to the negotiating table. that's why we structured it in the way that we did. i think that being able to keep it in that context is incredibly important. it has nothing to do with giving the administration more time, it's really focused on how do we create the greatest consequence on iran the le

mr. chairman. thank you reagan member boxer. >> i would like to ask the second penalty command. i believe they are already in the room. our first introducer will be senator sessions. he is trying to get another committee hearing. we'll will our witnesses please come in and sit down. [inaudible conversations] >> mr. chairman i think i new senate is trying to get busy today. we have four major committees at this exact time going on that i am a member of. >> on top of that 16 votes so we are going to be busy. at this time i would like to welcome our panel. we have had a little bit of illness around with the changeup of the committee a little bit but i would like to deduce for introductory purposes senator sessions. >> thank you mr. chairman and i'm honored to introduce governor robert bentley the 53rd governor of the state of alabama. he's a long-term practicing physician and is reported he finished at the top of his medical class. i have been asked him that under oath that i would not be surprised. f

mr. chairman. mr. secretary, thanks for the opportunity to visit with you just a little bit today. coming from south dakota it strikes me that we were -- in our home state, we're between 800 800,000 and 900,000 except during the time of the sturgis rally, then we bump up considerably. it seems that as a former mayor of boston, the discussion there in terms of you've had the opportunity to work on transportation projects from a different point of view. a large metropolitan area. and yet one in which you're dealing with the federal guidelines and rules that are required in order to qualify for federal funding. in south dakota we have similar challenges but on an agricultural basis, and in a rural area basis. just curious as to your thoughts with regards to the projects that as you've indicated earlier in your statements and so forth that need to be modernized. and we have to be more efficient if we're going to expect taxpayers to put more dollars in at some point in the future. how do you move forwar

mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman and i want to thank each of you for all that you have done for the country and your leadership. secretary albright it was a privilege to be in ukraine with you during the presidential election so thank you. i wanted to follow up to ask you about nato presence in the baltics and we had dr. brzezinski before the committee the other day. he had talked about putting a small number of u.s. ground combat forces in conjunction with nato obviously is part of the nato contingents in the baltics to ensure there would be a tripwire that the force would obviously be of a size that wouldn't be one where we are trying to send a conflict message. i wanted to ask you what you thought about that in terms of nato's presence in the baltics and what you think we should be doing in addition to providing defensive arms to ukraine to help buttress nato? >> i do think when we were in kiev and ukraine generally together i think we understood because together we met with the leadership the importance o

mr. chairman.>> that would make it e, i, o. >> the motion is agreed to. the gentleman from texas from the energy and commerce committee will be handling this for the republicans. mr. polis for the democrats. i want to thank not only the staff, the new staff and welcome them but also all the people including our great stenographers who have taken a lot of time out of their day to be with us today. this finishes the work for us for the day. i want to thank everybody for being here. this closes the hearing. >> the house rules committee holding its organizational meeting today for the 114th congress members also working on rules for the keystone xl pipeline legislation and a bill that would redefine what constitutes full-time employment under the affordable care act. the keystone xl pipeline bill scheduled to be on the floor this friday with a vote expected next week in the senate. josh earnest says that the president will veto the bill to approve the keystone xl pipeline, which is expected to pass con

mr. chairman, i am here today with mrs. lowi, the ranking member of the whole community presents this that combined unwavering support for our personnel and operations with the true fiscal discipline. the bill is within the subcommittee's allocation, $39 billion and it contains no earmarks. and the interest of time i will not outline all of the programs and activities but i would like to point out major things. specifically this bill presents no discretionary funding to implement the president's executive action on immigration. excuse me. let me repeat break it provides no discretionary funding to implement the president's executive action on immigration. this agreement contains funds for 23,775 officers and 21,000 border patrol, the largest force in history. it does not increase customs as proposed by the president's budget. it includes a $3.4 billion for ice which is $600 million above the president's request to fully fund 34,000 legislative mandated. 3732 new family detention units and 3007 new officers to detain and dep

mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman and to the ranking member for having this hearing today and thank you all for your testimony. unmanned aircraft systems have already significantly impacted as we've discussed today particularly in the field of agriculture. changing the way farmers do business and increasing yields and decreasing the use of pesticides. this is all a very good thing. coming from the state of connecticut where we've been long time leaders in aviation and aerospace we're very excited , about these opportunities. but we also live in an incredibly congested airspace. for some of us that includes myself and others who sit on the transportation and infrastructure committee are having the same issue. i'd like to turn to you and get us to understand what are the risks that we should be looking at? what should be the research priorities to avoid those issues which are a little different than the agricultural setting. those are what do you deal with laguardia to logan issues particularly as we follow-up o

mr. chairman. that wasn't our first wish. let me also say as i express to you, if the lions beat the packers you would be clean shaved. >> and you would have a beer. >> i want everyone to know why paul ryan is growing a beard and if the quarterback's health doesn't resume i think you will be clean shaven at the next hearing. >> we shall see. >> anyway good luck to the packers. let miley out a few views for us democrats as we proceed -- me lay -- our economy has experienced a major bounce back rebounding from the loss of seven million jobs in a single year beginning in 2008. and unemployment rate that soar soared to 10% in 2009. more than 11 million private sector jobs have been created in the last five years. as shown in the chart that i hope will now appear here with 58 straight months of private sector job growth leading the unemployment rate to fall to 5.6%. so i think reference to a junk yard is terribly misguided. i know something about cars. i think the economy of this country has been put bac

mr. chairman. no apology needed. i'm happy to yield to my friend and colleague from delaware. >> i owe you one. >> i am new. trying to figure out the rules here in terms of -- i rushed over to be here on time. get my name on the list. you saw me, i had to go out and make a quick stop at another place and come back. and then i thought oh, i got the rules wrong must go back and forth between parties. that's fine whether me. i appreciate your apology. not necessary. ambassador, thank you first of all for dijligent work on a very tough subject but a very important issue for the economy and for the future of our country and many many people from my state and many states that rely on trade for their well being and their lifestyle and for our economy. in indiana we are a big export state, getting this right means a great deal to many, many hoosiers. several hundreds of thousands approaching a million whose jobs are there because we are willing to export. agricultural products, steel, auto products, pharma

mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman and to the ranking member for having this hearing today and thank you all for your testimony. unmanned aircraft systems have already significantly impacted as we've discussed today particularly in the field of agriculture. changing the way farmers do business and increasing yields and decreasing the use of pesticides. this is all a very good thing. coming from the state of connecticut where we've been long time leaders in aviation and arrow space we're very excited about these opportunities. but we also live in an incredibly congested airspace. some of us which includes us that sit on the transportation and infrastructure committee are having the same issue. i'd like to turn to you and get us to understand on the r and d side what are the risks that we should be looking at? what should be the research priorities to avoid those issues which are a little different than the agricultural setting. those are what do you deal with laguardia to logan issues particularly as we follow-u

mr. chairman. mr.ft bill also provides this carve out -- could you envision this to sell preferred treatment or advantaging one competitor over another. or even they themselves that compete in the marketplace? >> absolutely. i think the language could allow for many applications that could be to discrimination -- so, yes. >> mr. doyle certainly we permit it with respect to affiliated content. so the network provider itself could engage in the provision of specialized services which would look a lot like paid prioritization as a matter of ownership as opposed to payment of a third party. >> thank you. i just want to add on to what she was saying about, too, we read several news reports that senior executives from major companies that are represented by chairman powell and ms. baker have made statements about title 2 which mr. chairman i'd like to enter into the record. the first is one that comcast, charter and time warner all members of the chairman's organization. and charter chief executive chief rut

mr. chairman. we followed up on the congressman's line of questioning for one one of which is the national flood insurance program we lost the 1900 square miles. what that does is make the governments that much closer to our coastal communities thereby increasing vulnerabilities. the changes that were enacted the actuarial rates increased 20, 30, 40 times what they were previously. this increase in vulnerability, whether real or not is not the fault of these people. it is largely based on studies the result of federal action tried to the tributary project dating back to 1928. when you out on top of that some of the restrictions that were put in place an ad on top of the some of the challenges that i noted earlier with regard to the corps of engineers projects that were noted to have a positive cost to benefit ratio you stuck in project development processes for decades literally we are missing opportunities to save taxpayer dollars by being proactive rather than reactive, which is always more expen

mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back his team. i think we'll recess now and come back immediately after the vote. there should be two votes, you have time to stretch and get a cup of coffee. but most of us will come back promptly after the second vote. this hearing is now recessed. >>> i want to call the hearing back to order. the next order of business is recognizing the gentleman from west virginia for five minutes, for his round of questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you again for your -- as i said in my opening remarks i appreciate the working relationship we've had. just a couple questions, three or four quick questions, two of which mr. stanislav may be yes or no. the first one is do you personally think that cole ash is a hazardous material? >> well, we've identified the various risks of coal ash mismanagement and put in place a number of requirements to be protected against those risks. and we've identified the various constituents in coal ash and the ways that we should establish

mr. chairman. mr. stanislaus, in light of the fact it is set at the mcl or background level of the cleanup, if a state chooses to utilize risk based cleanup coal based program under the established an alternative ground water protection standard, would the epa be able to include the plan as as stringent or less than the final rule? let me break this down. it's a super fund cleanup. you begin wh protecting groundwater in all cases. however, in selecting the cleanup remedy, you can look at the circumstance involved in the cleanup. in the same way we provide all the on the ground factors brought to were on these decisions. with respect to approval of a cleanup plan, again, in the epa's approval of solid waste management plan, the state can choose to enable the state's approval of the cleanup plan. i i think there is that ability for states to do that. >> let me just ask this. if a state determines that if there is no human receptor for the groundwater and that a cleanup standard above the mcl or backgroun

mr. chairman. let me start off by thanking senator kirk for working with me to accomplish a mutual goal to have iran never achieve the capacity for a nuclear weapon and i appreciate his work. the essence of this legislation has been well debated over the course of the year, probably have more legislative attention between the senate foreign relations committee the banking committee hearings in the series of classified hearings than most other pieces of legislation we ever deal with. i would say that in that context i support moving forward today but want to reiterate my position along with other democrats that have joined with me but have no intention, while i will move to vote today and support of the underlying legislation i have no intention of moving forward in supporting it on the floor if it is brought before the march 24 deadline to understand whether or not an agreement is possible and what that agreement would look like. i would just say: mr., mr. chairman, that this legislation has been c

mr. chairman. thank you all for your service. general welsch i wanted to ask you in regards to her nuclear mission it's a very critical mission obviously. what impact this sequestration going to have on your efforts in this area? >> sir into specific areas i thank at the top of the list. the first is the infrastructure mentioned before. we are at a point in time where we have got to start modernizing every capitalizing that infrastructure in terms of the told -- facilities that were built 50 years ago now. we have an investment plan design prepared to be put into place. we have it in the president's budget this year. if we go to sequestration all of the facility maintenance and new buildings we have put into that proposal will fall off the table except for single weapon storage area and one of the bases. that is the first . the second one as we do have a requirement as a nation to make decisions on what do we want to recapitalize and modernize in terms of nuclear weapons and nuclear command-and-con

mr. chairman. i'm pleased to yield two minutes to representative roskam. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. roskam: i thank the chairman for yielding. i look at this from an entirely different perspective. this is the house of representatives asserting its will and speaking out and saying we aren't going to be silent in the movement of the president of the united states. if we had done nothing mr. chairman then the subsequent argument in weeks to come would be you did nothing. you were silent, you waived your right to assert yourself and you had the power of the purse. clearly we are taking it up. and here it is, we are coming together and we are saying we don't believe the president has the authority. we are asserting that. but at the underlying level there is something incredibly significant and very bright that is happening regardless of what side of the aisle you are on, because you know what we are talking about? we are talking about defending a country that we all hold

mr. chairman. mr. secretary i'm going to press you on what's happening on the ground, because we have failed as a government to give any certainty to this process. so we know that tennessee and arkansas have already delayed hundreds of millions of dollars in highway projects for this year, and last summer over two dozens states had taken similar preemptive action, as the highway trust fund neared insolvency, this whole game of waiting, and then somebody steps up in the house or senate and said i'm going to save this for five months. this is a disaster. and can you discuss the likelihood that we're going to see these cutbacks continue if we don't take action soon to shore up the trust fund? >> thank you for the question. this is a crisis that is actually worse than i think most people realize. your point is very well taken. we have a may 31st 2015 point at which the funding of the ten-month extension runs out, but the state departments of transportation are having to figure out what their plan of work i

mr. chairman. mentioned i want to first of all thank the chairman of the appropriations committee, mr. carter, for his leadership and putting a very comprehensive bill before us today that deals with protecting the homeland. i'm presenting today along with my distinguished colleagues, in particular from south carolina, mr. mulvaney and also mr. barletta from pennsylvania an amendment that defunds the president's unconstitutional actions on illegal immigration. as it's been noted here last night and this morning, back in december the house voted to fund the federal government for this fiscal year, f.y. 15. we kept funding for the department of homeland security on a continuing resolution. by doing so we were making a promise to the american people. it was a promise once we had a republican senate we would work together as a congress to ensure the president's unconstitutional and unilateral actions would not go unchecked. and today with this promise that has been kept. with this amendment before us t

mr. chairman.you, again, for your appearing and again, as i said, my opening remarks, i appreciate the working relationship we've had with it. just a couple maybe four quick questions, three or four quick questions, two of which might be just yes or no. but the first one is do you personally think coal ash is a hazardous material? >> well we've i'ved the various risks associated and we've put in place technical requirements to be protected against those risks and identified the various -- we should establish liner and ground water program to be protected. >> which is a terrible. concrete,oú1jñ dry wall. with the legislation we passed over the last two congresses, would that have created certainty within the recyclers and the utility industry? you don't think it would? >> what i can say is is we expected a rule. we think it provides the kind of certainty. >> not taking about the rule. the bill that we had. all about certainty. i come from the business world. we need to have certainty. unfortunately,

mr. chairman. testify today. >> thank you. >> we go to mr. engle. >> the chairman said that it needs to have a direct impact on the family. when we went to pyongyang, i was there twice, and granted you are limited to what we could a situation where you have elites in the capital doing relatively well, and then we impose sanctions, the sanctions hurt all the people that are starving around the country, but the elites basically are untouched. what might we do to make sure they're not caught up in it. >> thank you for the question, congressman, i don't think that the misery that's been inflicted on the north korean people can be attributed to sanctions. i think the north korean government bears sole responsibility for the north korean people, but i do take your point that the goal is to try to put pressure on the elites. i think it's precisely but the banks system, because that's where they acquire the hard currency, the luxury goods, the other things that make their lives meened, that make the system run as far as the system actually runs. so th

mr. chairman. mr. cohen mr. blinken was very fulsom in his comments about double over. could sort of keep it to five, it would be good. thank you. >> certainly. good morning chairman corker ranking member menendez, distinguished members of the committee. thank you for the invitation to appear before you today, and as this is likely my last appearance before this committee before i assume my new duties i want to thank former chairman menendez, current chairman corker and members of the committee for the courtesy that has been shown to me over the past several years. i appreciate it. there is no higher national security priority than ensuring iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. and president obama has made clear that we will do everything in our power to prevent that from happening. for us at treasury that has meant working within the administration with congress and with international partners to impose the most powerful sanctions in history. and in many respects the sanctions have worked exactly as designed. they have driven iran to the negotiating table. because ir

mr. chairman. i am the former chief economist and i would like to make three points about the recent and likely future in our comparative and global context. the second is about longer-term stagnation in wages and the third is about the ttp trait. if we look at the experience affected by all the other crisis. and it was a global financial crisis, it was a serious crisis the world has faced this the night 30's, most other countries have struggled to recover from this crisis. the right response includes discretionary fiscal policy were available. can you make it timely? can you targeted appropriately? we have seen problems across other countries on these dimensions. we have done remarkably well on exactly these points. including the fact that the deficit has come down and the debt level has increased and is better than in other countries and does not close to any levels that would trigger a debt crisis. the problem has been the lack of consensus in the fiscal policy. these are destabilizing to financ

mr. chairman. >> senator collins. >> thank you mr. chairman. first, mr. chairman, and ranking member, senator murray, let me tell you what a pleasure it is to return to this committee after an absence of many years. some people would say that i was here when we crafted no child left behind but remember, i was very young then. [laughter] in 2005 former senator olympia snowe and i in response to a lot of concerns about the law, put together an nclb task force to evaluate the impact of the law in maine and we had parents, teachers educational specialists, superintendents, school boards members, it was really a broad group and the task force identified several unintended consequences of the law's requirement for annual tests. they included increased test anxiety for students loss of teaching time misinterpretation of the meaning of schools classified as failing when they didn't make adequate process and the scapegoating of certain subgroups like those special education students and english language lerner populations. our task force concluded that states neede

mr. ruben, you talked about priorities. the chairman basically lays out as i understand it basically what he wants. have you been given priorities? >> thank you, mr. cummings. we have been given priorities, which is to ensure that in the immediate term that we provide additional documents related to a specific search for former secretary clinton as the top priority and that a second priority that the four ds agents that we worked to help secure interviews. >> and how did that come about? in other words, how did it come about that there was a list of priorities? how did that happen? and why did it happen? >> it was initiated through the continual contact and communications between staff and committee and our officials, our personnel at state including with the letters on december 4th and at the end of november -- november 18th as well that laid out those questions. and then through engagement with staff, it got refined. >> see this is the thing. that's why we need to have an idea of where we're going. because -- and i assume that the cha

mr. chairman. >> you're welcome. senator. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. thank you to all the witnesses. just as senator mansion was talking about his state, the state of west virginia, minnesota also has a lot of train service, freight service. in fact we hit a record $6.8 billion in agricultural exports in 2012 which is an increase over the previous year. it's continuing to go up. we're the fourth largest agricultural exporter state in the country. you can imagine we care a lot about the freight rail issue. we're proud of the work that's going on next door to us in north dakota. it's helped to bring down the cost of oil and it has helped to bring down the cost of manufacturing. so it has opinion good but we also have a lot of needs for rail. i think it's been a balance with all of that as well as our increasing agricultural market. i'm truly one to believe that the way we have gotten out of this down turn and the way we now expand our economy is by bringing more goods to market. by export

mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator whitehouse and we are trying to confine her questions. >> thank you chairman. these will certainly beat governor oriented questions. in rhode island and what we are seeing we are saying and if this sounds familiar to governors let me know. we are seeing the federal formula highway funds increasingly subscribe overtime and we are seeing static revenue from that. we are not seeing big federal increases that are funding growth of the highway program. we are also seeing maintenance costs for the existing infrastructure climbing and that eats into the static federal revenues. we are seeing debt service on our garvey bonds eat a chunk of what would otherwise be going out into roads and bridges and we are seeing uncertainty in the out-years about whether that federal funding is really going to be there. what we get from all of that is a distinction between little projects that you know you can fund that could run for a year or two and you can get it done and that you ca

mr. chairman. we won't talk about which birthday it is. certainly better than the alternative so i appreciate that. thank you very much for being here gentlemen and for your service to the country. apropos senator ayotte's questions one of the things i would hope is our men and women in the military would let members of congress know about their concerns with respect to sequestration because i do think it's helpful for each of us to hear from people serving what they see first-hand about the impacts of some of these policy decisions. so i'm hopeful we will hear more of those discussions. you know, i have been pleased that chairman mccain has started the armed services committee hearings this year with a broader view of national security policy and one of the issues that has been brought up with respect to national security policy is one of the concerns is the fact that we have not had ongoing budget process that people can count on that we have a debt that in the future is a concern it would be imp

mr. chairman. >> thank you senator grassly. welcome ambassador. for senator carden's benefit, i was with the ambassador in ethiopia ethiopia, two years ago in negotiations with the au and watched them hold them accountable for workers right as a participate istoor so i have seen this man look out what you're talking about. i think the fact that tpp is talking about including that is a big benefit because it has worked in the millennium challenge has held people accountable. you do a terrific job to thank you for the job you are doing. i have a couple of questions for you. question number one is you and i have talked a lot about poultry. i travelled to south africa a year ago with trade rep -- but industry rep davies. i met with him at length in joe joe south africa. is that an accurating quote. >> i saw him a few days ago in switzerland. he handed me a letter from the south africa association to the u.s. poultry association. we have not yet heard back from our poultry association what their reactio

mr. chairman. as i sit here, i just want to make sure that we are all pursuing the same thing. i've heard a lot of comments. let me be clear. we've never, ever tried to be told the chairman the subpoena power. it just never happened. and i made it clear to him over and over again. what we have asked for is to be true partners in this investigation. and, you know, i think it's sad that -- i mean, in over my 18 years in the congress to see how distrust wells up. and when distrust wells up, it's very hard to get anything done period. mr. rubin, i was watching you a minute ago when you talked about ambassador stevens. and i watched you as you -- you may not even have realized it -- became emotional talking about your friend. and as you became emotional, i couldn't help but think about all the other employees at state who's probably watching this right now and how they go out and give their blood, their sweat, their tears away from their families to do the jobs that they do. so the first thing i want to

mr. chairman. today's hearing renewed a critical discussion about the internet. should it be truly open and equal? should privacy and the disabled be protected? should every region, city, town and reservation have equal access to broadband speed capable of leveraging innovative online content and services6. i reviewed your proposal carefully and i commend you for finally technology that we do have problems with online balking -- blocking throttling and authorization. we agreed that it should apply to fixed and mobile band services. what is abundantly clear in the proposal is that it is to purposely tie the hands of the fcc to prohibit them from retitling it. on the one hand, the proposal will prohibit fast lanes, but under specialized services broadband providers can give themselves prioritized service and the fcc will have no power to define this. we want to have a system that can guarantee equal access of open internet to everyone, who will carry out and oversee this. this proposal carries an eno

mr. chairman. i am new to this entire air yet and i'm learning a lot as we go. one of the things that intrigues me about this field is that we have a field that is changing as rapidly as anything in history has changed and some of the members have talked about the difference between 1996 and now and how the world has changed but it is also the industries that have changed in the sense that this is a corporate structure that is out there now as well a lot of consolidation going on in companies getting into various areas of the business of at one point they are acting like a commentary, including a content provider and so forth. you mentioned the distinction between information services and telecommunications services in this law. is that a meaningful distinction today? >> i think over time it should not be. >> we are entering a world in which a bid is a bed data networks follow radically different characteristics than the one that inform this written in the '30s or the '90s. it's one of the highly c

mr. chairman. i'd like to agree that we do need to get to the bottom. we do need to find out what happened, and that's what everyone has been talking about. but the manner in which you do that, whether you're a lawyer, as i am, former u.s. attorney, whether you are a law enforcement official who conducts investigations, whether as my friend from illinois said whether you are a parent trying to get to the bottom of an incident, you have to ask questions. and you have to interview those who were involved. but when the incident involves numerous documents, typically in any investigation, you try to get the documents ahead of time so that you run an efficient fair investigation when you get to ask witness questions, you have documents in front of you that you can ask them the most relevant questions. and that, i think, is -- has been the problem that we have had is that while you, mr. rubin, have talked about cooperating, you have required us to prioritize rather than giving us, as ms. roby talked abou

mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman for having this hearing. i really have two items i want to touch on. one is since thevpéñ recession in december of 2007%ó<÷xq$#blÓ0v1.2 million net jobs were created in my state, texas. created in the other 49 states.k'9/÷ kñ and it is no7sl@ would submit, that texas is a number one exporting state6gá iná=pç the country, since 2002.ñw we make a lot of cdfrstuff. and we grow a lot of stuff that gets soldál Ñ to markets all aroundm the world. and so2i7ç i'm<çÑ extremely interested an'x8v commitment to see trade be high on our list of bipartisan things that we can work on. because i think it will provide the kind5$@ governor engler alluded to, and that youfuvÑ mentioned. but i know the president was celebrating a high quarter"ézyps of economic rtú quarter, b1zp!n i'm wondering whether he's spiking the football a little early. and here's myci9 appreciate your comments on kñsñ this. we'veoycv&=r accumulated&4(÷ $18 trillion];iz in debt.]ó÷;gf1 o the federal reserve has a huge bala

mr. chairman. i appreciate this hearing you are having for all of us. i'm so sorry that you see some of us running back and forth. we had a veterans committee meetings. i hope i don't ask the same questions that have been asked. i am trying to learn as much as humanly possible about syria iran,.the sanctions on iran , as you know, we are in a tug-of-war -- should we or should we not? the president has said, don't sign it now. you will mess up the deal if we do. i understand that my colleagues are concerned about all the time that has gone by, and we haven't had a briefing to tell us where they are. have they succeeded? are they taking centrifuges out? is this something the president should be able to use that if they don't follow through and do it there supposed to do, this is where the sense of the united states congress is, and they will follow through? these are all things i haven't made up my mind yet, and i'm trying to. also, syria -- i know we have a lot of people who feel strongly. i don't t