. >> next, proposals to eliminate federal student aid programs and with direct em federal funding to the states. the panel discussion with higher s ucation lead ers and scholar was hosted by new america. this is an hour and-a-half. >> thank you all so much for being here today. we really appreciate you taking time on this cold saturday to enjoy this debate with us. this debate was actually not focused on our paper that we released a few months ago the ing from scratch, but idea came about as we were debating the different topics that ormed our paper, so is printed in the lobby for anybody that's interested in shiny copy.e we also have copies of the new paper released today called strengthening the relationship, hat analyzes many proposals about a new state and federal artnership that have been proposed by candidates, think anks and compares them to the new american proposal, and they're also in the lobby. we hope both publications are thought provoking and we hope also ebate today is thought provoking. the proposition of today's dollars any federal for higher education should go to d

federal intervention is necessary. federal incentives are necessary. if we do not do this and we continue this course by simply putting more money, the new money, into the current programs that we're doing, we will have nothing but a federal system of higher education in 20 years. we're out of business in 2027. the current trend shows colorado 2025. that's before the cut i just took. arizona 2030. iowa 2029. do we want to have a federal system of higher education that's solely based on tuition and loans and grants or do we want to keep and incent viivizer states? my fight, which is an everyday fight, i said we have to cut 4,000 classes. they didn't budge. i said i'm going to take the "s" off the football helmet. that got their attention. the state and our name is what we're fighting to keep. to be those institutions that our mission says we were founded to be. >> last word. >> i started talking about a set of assumptions that were in place in the early seflts. what i worry a lot about is we're going to build policies assuming the way things are now tha

federal spending is even worse. is at least to 090 billion per year and with an incentive of 47 billion and you have any efficiency -- efficiency incentives in fact, that the rebates but only with that tax credit of those individuals but the opportunity with the stimulus bill that should have been a big slice going to the water issues. 637 billion went to energy and climate related issues only 12 billion atwater 20% went to the efficiency and green infrastructure topics so there is a huge disparity in investment. it is to a angelina overtime over a 30 year period of over $100 billion. and with the growing population as it is funneled to the right places. so parity that is what i talk about. parity with energy. , like to see water efficiency. in the state -- saving a federal policy attention. and with the members of congress to represent urban areas so they are lined up to add money to the pot ted concern is it is a knee-jerk reaction as certainly it is badly needed but if we just head of federal grants that doesn't

we are paying for federal mandates. as they pile up, the bills paid by individual homeowners get bigger and are becoming unaffordable for many americans. federal mandates force local communities to change their priorities in the water and sewer world 37 this pushes basic repair and replacement to the bottom of the list we forced communities to chase mandates that may have small changes in environmental health. there is a federal interest in maintaining these health protections in economic benefits and there are a variety of ways we can help. first, i'm going to list four here. you have to continue to support the clean water and drinking water state revolving funds. the president's fiscal year 17 budget proposed cutting the clean water fund by 114 million and providing a 197 million increase. this is robbing peter to pay paul. the net is a loss second, we have no -- we have to find new ways to increase investment and infrastructure. we took action by adding the water advanced information act. that's wifra to the water bi

i need more federal accountability, more federal regulation to stop corinthian colleges from stealing public money and student aid grants n california the call aid program, a kid from the united states of america gets $13,000. a kid went to long beach,st state got 5500. think about how your voucher system works in your own states. these are not pure need-based programs. ohio has a need-based programs that goes only to private universities. not public universities. we're giving them without the regulations necessary. i need more help from the federal government on accountability to encourage money to go to right places to remain affordable and remain committed to low income students include trinity universities in washington, that have 55% low income kids who are shortchanged because they can't continually raise their institutions the colleges in kentucky, agree with me. have nothing but low income kids can't charge anything but don't get help through the voucher-based program. we're very much in line with this maintenance of provision. we need more federal help to tie $170 billion in

we do it in sea, time to use new federal dollars, any new federal dollars to get states back in the public keg affordability game. otherwise we won't have public colleges and universities in the next eight years when states drop off the map. >> operate, thank you. in 2013 the new america education policy program made impassioned case for the pell grant program. they wrote the pell grant program is cornerstone of federal aid. keep low income students from attending colleges over the years college prices have soared. the system is become less and less effective. surely they argue stop handing out vouchers and instead give money directly to states or institutions. on the contrary, they are argue for increasing maximum grant, making program a permanent entitlement and providing bonuses to high performing campuses. let me say i agree with 2013 new america and believe shifting federal role from student aid to institutional aid would not be improvement. i see four arguments for giving need-based aid to students. first, providing students to vouchers on basis of income allows us to target scarce p

lastly, there is the interest on the federal debt, which received $229 billion. this all totaled a whopping $3.8 trillion. now, in order to pay for these things, the government has to taken money somehow. and this is how the budget works. you have revenue and expense. in other words, money you taken money you put out. in the case of the u.s. government, revenue is created through taxation. when the amount of money taken enter taxes doesn't equal the amount put out there spending, we have a deficit. in order to make up for the deficit, the government sells treasury bonds. this is essentially a loan from a third party. this sounds like a sweet deal , until you realize we actually have to pay these people back. borrowing can be a temporary solution to an unbalanced budget, but it is the cause of a greater problem. the national debt is the sum total of all past deficits and represents all of the money to future generations, my generation, is going to have to pay back. dear candidates, i would like to know how you, if elected president, would deal with the debt crisis

why wouldn't the federal government set the example of changing it? >> again, i think the key is to get the student -- the dollars to the students who are most at risk. we have to acknowledge that students who are in schools of concentrated poverty, students are more at risk as a result. one of the things that the president has done is propose stronger together that would have the goal of -- >> we layer and layer programs on. but we have one right here where the money doesn't follow the intended pupil. we're not fixing it. mr. secretary in a letter from the department dated january 28, 2016, your staff instructed states they would receive formula funds in accordance with the 2015-'16 school year allegation. although this appears to apply to title 1 funds and for improvement activities, i want to know whether you agree the fiscal year 2017, which is almost upon us in october, whether you agree the 14.29% annual reduction in title 2 hold harmless provisions will begin to take place as required by the every student succeeds act for the upcoming fiscal ye

federal tax from the states. so in other words, the $695,000 in federal tax revenue is generated by a federal investment of 23 percent of the $1 million. so i mean, that's quite awesome. >> thank you for underscoring that. obviously we're interested in clean, safe drinking water. but there's also an economic impact here. and i think the committee understands that and i appreciate your testimony. >> thank you, senator cardin. senator fischer? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i thank the witnesses for being here today. we need to discuss the real-world implications of these unfunded federal mandates as well as the lack of flexibility and the fear of penalties that many of our communities are facing. the affordability of water and wastewater infrastructure is a critical concern around the country. in my home state of nebraska, the city of omaha's east with the challenge of addressing a $2 billion unfunded combine over show -- sure overflow comforting and the epa. cost is a burden, and it is particularly hard on our l

that is under federal i.d. act. >> i do know, because i've experienced it, that lines are very long at the dmvs. sometimes people wait the entire day. and i know they leave the next day when they haven't gotten to them. and they keep coming back. it's not an ideal situation. in most states to avoid the frustration do ramp up but many states don't. people just keep coming back until their license can be processed. so why is it that you have to spend all this money? why can't you just have your regular process and let people wait on line? >> first of all under the federal real i.d. act if our state's driver's licenses recipient want to be able to use that license to get through airport security, tsa security, there has to be integrity for the license for federal government we have to check whether an alien -- >> fine i'm saying why do you have to ramp up? i think one of the allegations -- i haven't really gone through it carefully enough or assume it's true, claims that your affidavit estimating losses in your pr

the share of federal jobs. as far first, that's where we talk about for each dollar given, how much are you getting back? wassecond point you made talking about the state revenue and how much of that comes from federal funding itself. 20 to 50%.range at finally, the federal share of jobs in each one of the state the highest is in hawaii. right after that was maryland and then virginia. 1% bottom of the list we got for a lot of states. we are talking about the states that are most and least government.ederal caller: good morning. i just have a short comment. host: go ahead, please. feelr: the reason i certain states have more federal beds is because it seems to the states with high percentage of immigrants. they need the services. is that an issue? guest: not necessarily. the close correlation we could draw wasn't to immigration, not original ties. we do see some pins and the couple of hotspots. it comes down to gdp per capita, how the the states are. cannot.ow we see it low income states are near the top the li

if federal wants to do that, federal law has to pay the bills. that is the point i made earlier. we are a wall. we don't pay an operating subsidy. therefore we must tread lightly in virginia, maryland and d.c. regarding who will serve on the board. that is something we will have to grapple with. >> thank you. >> i think the gentleman in the chair now recognizes the gentleman from virginia for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. there's a recent story at the post and it's something the blue line riders have felt for years compared to the riders in the rest of the system. they talked about closing the blue line for a few months and that got people more excited than upset. they do have legitimate complaints and a lot of it has to do with the capacity of the rozman tunnel. that's a major chokepoint. what can we do now before we get all this infrastructure money question what. >> i am taking a look at that to see if there's other ways we can provide that service in how were managing the three lines there. it's a technical exercise so i will be coming out in the near future. >> th

federal law would not stop that. this particular republican convention will take place in the great state of ohio. it turns out, weirdly, since the 1870s, ohio has had a very specific law that bans anyone from bribing the delegates at a political convention. it may be fine under federal law but under ohio law it would be a fourth degree felony prosecutable under the long arm of the law. how how long is that arm? does it mean only for bribing in ohio? what if it's offered this indiana and the delegate travels to ohio? what if they turn up in cleveland in time to collect the keys to their new lake tahoe timeshares that they have traded in exchange for their votes. would they have to face trial in ohio? who would arrest them? how does that work? joining us now is a former u.s. attorney for ohio. it's nice to have your here tonight. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> have i explained the ohio law and asking the right questions? >> i think you are. i'm in the sure i agree it's clear that even under federal

of the federal reserve.nd that some point, perhaps somebody will make a musical out of all this in the style of "hamilton." i would like to ask the current chairman of the federal reserve, janet yellen, to come in. then we have ben bernanke, her immediate predecessor. we have paul volcker, the legendary fed chair who also happens to be deeply associated with international house. and from washington, where he has just celebrated his 90th birthday, alan greenspan. welcome all. thank you. [applause] fareed: madam chairman. i have to begin with you. because i think everybody is going to be interested in the things you are going to say. let me ask you to start, if you look at the economy very carefully, are we in an economic bubble? is the economy as perilous as some people on the political campaign trail are suggesting? ms. yellen: i was say the u.s. economy has made tremendous progress in recovering from the damage from the financial crisis. slowly but surely, the labor market is healing. for well over a year,

if federal law wants to do that, federal law has to pay the bills. and that was the point i made earlier. we are a-wol. we don't pay an operating subsidy. therefore, we must tread lightly in telling virginia, maryland and d.c. who and what will serve on the board. and that is something we're going to have to grapple with because this is not a federal entity. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from virginia, mr. beyres, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. wiedefeld, there's a recent story in "the post," blue line riders have felt for years the way they've been compared to riders in the rest of the system. obviously my friend, chairman evans' comments closing the blue line for six months, perhaps got people more excited than upset. they do have legitimate complaints and a lot of it has to do with the capacity of the roslyn tunnel, a major chokepoint. what can we do now before we get infrastructure money to help those blue line riders? >> i'm taking a look at that to see if there are o

certain federal contracts and s.b.a. guarantee loans. they are also used by federal agencies when they analyze the economic impact of new regulations on small businesses. size standards for most industries are developed through a congressesally rulemaking process that is transparent and allows small businesses to provide input. the small business administration analyzes a number of factors, average firm size, startup costs and barriers, industry competition and the distribution of firms by size and then proposes changes to small business size standards through the notice and comment rulemaking process. however, there is one glaring exception. the existing size standard for agricultural enterprises is established in statute and has not been updated in over 15 years. the current standard for small farmers is $750,000 in annual receipts. it applies to 46 different agricultural subsectors from citrus groves to beef cattle rank. small farmers and ranchers have been neglected for too long. the process for agricultural process

and 35% of our riders are federal workers. 50% of the federal work force rides metro. that's all of you. that's all of us and it's an important thing to remember for later in my comments. so what are we dealing here? we're dealing with operations and paul's going to talk about that. he's going to talk about how we got to where we are and what we're going to do to fix it but i can say we have years of neglected maintenance and the idea of fixing this by working three hours at night and on the weekends is not working. we need a better plan. now, the finances. even if this system were operating like a clock, it will never survive under the financial structure that we have in place right now. quickly, we get our money from two areas. $1.8 billion budget, $900 million from the farebox, $900 million from the region. right now what i'm dealing with, a $2.5 billion unfunded pension liability problem. next year's budget, starting out of the box for $100 million short because we balanced this year's budget with $100 million of one-time money. add on to that increasing costs, we'

we move it forward, and today we have federated somalia, which i can claim that the federal somalia structure has been put in place. those federal units that have been established originally, they lack capacity. they lack enough resources to implement the real federation. but they are there. somalia has been a territory that is ungoverned for a long time. today we have someone who is responsible in a particular area of somalia. someone who is in charge and who will have full responsibility of that territory. can he implement his responsibility enough. could he have the capacity in all of these are questions that legitimate. these institutions are in place. they need to be cap as tated in somalia. today, we have our provisional constitution and the review recently, we have reviewed the constitution by technical teams. the constitution consists of chapters that has much problem universally, some chapters that will you see in almost all constitutions and there are certain chapters that are specific for the country in question, which needs specific attention. in somalia, there are chapters of the

today, we're examining the spending at the federal emergency level

it was also true that the federal reserve killed kennedy. he was about to crack down on the central bank and they were fighting back. so the fact that the central bank is trying to be more open minded, thun one of the things that ben bernanke did, and stuff that we are still learning and we are not sure and one can the federal reserve and the other extraordinary measures were accomplished with the fed creating all that new money, click, click, click. there might. if they start to do that, can the federal reserve unwind this huge dash of reserves and they believe that they can but that is as of yet unproven and we have gone to new territory aggressiveness for which the fed has acted. the american central bank is the only one that i know of that has a dual mandate, it is charged with protecting empowering of dollar and also maintaining full employment. most of the time, for example, paul would tell you those are the same thing. only way you maximize is to making sure there's no inflation or deflation, but there's periods when there's room to d

and 35% of our riders are federal workers. 50% of the federal work force rides metro. that's all of you. that's all of us and it's an important thing to remember for later in my comments. so what are we dealing here? we're dealing with operations and paul's going to talk about that. he's going to talk about how we got to where we are and what we're going to do to fix it but i can say we have years of neglected maintenance and the idea of fixing this by working three hours at night and on the weekends is not working. we need a better plan. now, the finances. even if this system were operating like a clock, it will never survive under the financial structure that we have in place right now. quickly, we get our money from two areas. 1.8 billion dollar budget, 900 million from the fare box, 900 million from the region. right now what i'm dealing with, i have a 2.5 billion dollar -- let me repeat that $2.5 billion unfunded pension liability problem. next year's budget, starting out of the box for $100 million short because we balanced this year's budget with $100 million of

[laughter] of course, the four great chairs of the federal roadway -- federal reserve. i've been honored to work directly with three of these four chairs, and i have tremendous admiration for their public service, their intellectual capacity and their careful stewardship of monetary policy and the financial system. each has made an outsized contribution to economic growth and stability of this great country x to each we owe a debt of enormous gratitude. calvin asked me to reflect for a few short minutes on my experience as a student at international house, a different topic. it was three decades ago. and he asked me to reflect on how it had helped develop the fortunate career i've been so lucky to have here in the united states of america. i was accepted to international house, very lucky to be so, and arrived here on the 7th of september, 1985, and it was a hot and humid day. i can still feel it. like so many other foreign students who lived here, i was tremendously relieved to have such a safe and welcoming community to move to in new york city. that week i began the

this allowed us to target federal resources to the most critical needs. fema offers multiple hands-on and virtual training opportunities related to hazardous materials and crude incidents through partnership with the transportation technology center, in pueblo, colorado, as well as the center for domestic preparedness. fema worked with the usdot, coast guard and epa to design an exercise series known as operation safe delivery. specifically addressing crude oil incidents. in total, nearly 1500 responders from around the country participated in either training or exercise related to crude oil incidents in 2015. we also recognize the past events are not an accurate way to target resources so jurisdictions around the country will be able to handle a wide range of incidents. we're currently analyzing the 2015 risk and capability data gathered from our state partners and we'll use that to drive future decisions on training, exercise and technical assistance, ensuring that we are effectively using the highest priority needs. we look forward to working with you

why wouldn't the federal government set the example of changing it? >> again, i think the key is to get the student -- the dollars to the students who are most at risk. we have to acknowledge that students who are in schools of concentrated poverty, students are more at risk as a result. one of the things that the president has done is propose stronger together that would have the goal of -- >> we layer and layer programs on. but we have one right here where the money doesn't follow the intended pupil. we're not fixing it. mr. secretary in a letter from the department dated january 28, 2016, your staff instructed states they would receive formula funds in accordance with the 2015-16 school year allegation. although this appears to apply to title 1 funds and for improvement activities, i want to know whether you agree the fiscal year 2017, which is almost upon us in october, whether you agree the 14.29% annual reduction in title 2 hold harmless provisions will begin to take place as required by the every student succeeds act for the upcoming fiscal yea

so in other words, $695,000 in federal tax revenues generated by federal investment of 23% of the $1 million. so that's quite awesome. >> thank you for underscoring that. obviously we are interested in clean, safe drinking water but there's also an economic impact here and i think the committee understands that. i appreciate your testimony. >> thank you, senator cardin. senator fischer? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the witnesses for being here today. we need to discuss the real world implications of these unfunded federal mandates as well as the lack of flexibility and the fair penalties that many of our communities are facing. the affordability of water and wastewater infrastructure is a critical concern around the country. in my home state of nebraska, the city of omaha is faced with the challenge of addressing a $2 billion unfunded combined sewer overflow mandated from the epa and the cost to the 600,000 residents in omaha sewer service area is a burden and it's particularly hard on our low and fixed income residents. so mr. mayor, i would like to ask you a question. in you

i ask you to defend the federal role. as are we doing this federal government? >> i would like to take a stab at that. one of the essential elements of government is -- i grew up as an army ranger. a ranger lives and breathes, a leader is responsible for his or her unit. responsible for everything that unit does or fails to do. when they are failures there must be consequences to those failures. we don't have consequences in tsa. entire people and the chain of command would have been released. >> we would fire them and replace them with somebody else. >> i would suggest whether it is private, whether we stay, my view is irrelevant. it requires the most essential ingredient and i work for kraft foods and marketing. intangibles,the but that is why we are all here. failures of accountability, failures of performance. >> i will cut you off. i don't want to take away, but that frustration is embodied and experienced in this committee every single day. >> your recognize. >> you are on the sheet. are you aware of examples of an investigation as you believe specifically

the constitution does not authorize that, so the federal government can pay for roads and the federal government set up a system whereby they would share with the states, mainly the cost of building the road and in some cases they shared as much as 90% of the cost, which was a great incentive. there is a plus to this, of course, by having the federal government involved there is a standardization from state to state, which means that when we cross a state line we don't have to readjust to a different set of rules, a different set of geography-- geometry of roads and so forth. but, the roads today are highly congested and as we all know and when we talk about the state of our structure, we want to give it grades as the american society of civil engineer does. it takes into account not only their condition, but also their congestion factor. if a road is in a perfect condition, but highly congested it does not get a good mark. now, where does all of this come from? is congestion anything new? the answer is of course, no, there's nothing new under the sun. when there were no cars or horse

and we have encourage that in the federal reserve system. that people have different interests and different points of view. opinion isversity of a positive attribute. we do not want to fall into groupthink. and i think it is within his purview to look at these issues. >> thank you. elaine. is ala my question is related to china. it is becoming increasingly important, the currency in the economy. for example, a new establishment of infrastructure investment bank. and the imf and the reserve currency, with the special sowling rate, my question is would you comment on the challenges of the currency, versus the u.s. dollar. respond how do you like the changes in the coming monetary policy to maintain this dominant position of the u.s. dollar? fareed: each of you very quickly,. is the question is -- china's currency likely to be in the next 15 years the single greatest challenge to the reserve currency status the dollar currently holds. allen comedy want to start us off? -- alan, do you want to start us off? indeed, it is fairly evident that the

that's because all federal case. all federal courts apply the federal rules of civil procedure allowing attorneys to obtain documents and testimony from a witness in another state without having to apply to that state's court system. essentially enabling businesses to protect their trade secrets in federal court removes an unnecessary and time-consuming layer of bureaucracy. streamlining access to remedies is critical in trade secret cases, where an expedited judicial process may be necessary to deal with thieves who pose a flight risk. unfortunately, once a company's intellectual property is leaked and the information is made public, the trade secret loses legal protection. put simply, state laws designed for intra state litigation and others -- and offers limited practical recourse to victims of interstate trade secret theft, the contrast between intrastate and interstate. maintaining the status quo is woefully insufficient to safeguard against misappropriation. u.s. companies must be able to protect their trade se

if an event is severe enough to be a federal declared disaster, fema, the federal emergency management agency, can provide assistance to utilities for the recovery effort. in 2015 the congress gave new authority to order utilities and reliability corporation to implement emergency security measures in the fixing of transportation act. however, given the potential for damage to the nation's economy from a major attack on the grid, some might suggest that the greater focus on recovery is needed and should become as much a part of the grid security strategy as the efforts to secure the grid. our focus on recovery should consider the mutual dependents and implications to other infrastructure of an electric grid failure and how quickly such impacts could proliferate if not planned for in advance. congress may also want to consider how the grid of the future will address cyber and physical security concerns. incorporating elements to increase resiliency as it develops will aid in reducing the vulnerability of the system. finally after major grid disruption restarting generation and energizin

compared to fta's dod counterpart, the federal railroad administration, and especially the federal aviation administration, fta lax the authority, resources and experience necessary to make sure state safety oversight agencies effectively protect rail transit passengers and workers. i'm concerned that the entire rail transit sector may be out of step with the positive safety trends experienced by other forms of transportation such as by the global aviation industry. in aviation, we've managed to cut the rate of crashes and fatalities in half between 2000 and 2012. moving forward, rail transit must learn from past experiences of other transportation industries. it's worth remembering the observation from miss deborah hurtzman who when describing aviation sector's evolution toward a more "proactive approach" to safety, grimly noted that in previous aviation eras, and i quote, the lessons of accidents used to be rich in blood where you had to have an accident and you had to kill people through changed procedures or policy or training. i fear that her morbid description of aviation's past safet

>> so the annex is to the federal operations plan. that's a document to the national response framework. these describe how the government comes together to deliver assistance when they request in times of emergency. the plans are executed by fema and drafted by fema on behalf of the inner agency. the government-wide plan. this particular document is in the last stages of review. we expect it shortly. i would expect it within the month as i understand. >> within the month. thank you. >> i appreciate the training that they provide to first responders and that's why i remain concerned about cuts to fema's preparedness in the president's fiscal year budget request. particularly a 63% cut to the national domestic preparedness consword yum. you mentioned this program specifically in your testimony as an important component of our preparedness efforts. as you know this funds the training program. how does fema plan to address if the president's request ends up being enacted? >> the budget request reflects difficult decisions and balancing p

i went to the federal election commission in d.c. to talk to commissioner alan weintraub about the process. >> we run federal agency that administers and enforces the laws governing campaign finance. as commissioner we are in charge of the management of the agency and policy decisions that the commission makes. >> how has the citizens united supreme court case affected the flow of money and politics? >> we are starting to see now more money being raised and spent, but coming from fewer donors and less transparency because the money is now shifting over to the super p.a.c.s and in some cases to organizations where they can accept unlimited contributions. >> do you think that's a good thing? >> i think it really is not a great trend for democracy. if you believe every citizen has the same rights and representation in the government. >> do you think the fines the fkfk imposes are enough of a deterrent? a they're an important deterrent and critically important that the agency play a significant role in monitoring and enforcing the law an

management agent si agency, the federal coordinator for kwerns management. assistant secretary hoffman from the department of energy's office of electricity, delivery and energy reliability. this is the office charged with coordinating the federal efforts to facilitate the recovery from disruptions in the emergency -- in the energy supply. assistant secretary for infrastructure protection durkovich from the department of homeland security. and mr. richard campbell, an expert at the congressional research service in the electric power sector. on our second panel, we'll be joined by mr. gerry cauley, the president and ceo of the north american electric reliability corporation, the international leg latory authority. mr. william spence, ceo of the ppl corporation, one of the largest investor-owned utility companies in the united states. and ms. bobbi kilmer, president and ceo of a nonprofit electric utility serving 2,250 square miles in northeastern pennsylvania. i ask you now to consent that the witnesses' full statement be included in the record without objec

federal reserve. i've been honored to work directly with three of the four i have tremendous admiration of their public service, intellectual capacity and careful stewardship of monetary policy in the financial system. each has made a contribution to economic growth and stability of this great country into each we only dead of tremendous gratitude. calvin asked me to reflect on my experience as a student of international house. three decades ago, he asked me to reflect on how it helps develop the career i have been lucky to have here in the united states of america. i was accepted international house, lucky to be so and arrived here on the seventh of september, 1985. it was a harsh and humid day. like so many other foreign students who lived here i was tremendously relieved to have such a safe and welcoming community to move to in new york city. tradition ofegan a writing a letter to my family in australia, something i continued for many years. my father passed away several months ago. before he did h

while federal law protects other forms of intellectual property by providing access to federal courts for grieved parties to seek redress, there is no civil cause of action for enforcement of trade secrets protection. 1890 addresses this need by establishing a federal causeact to obtain injunctive and monetary relief, which will be a powerful new tool to protect their intellectual property. now, another reason i support the bill is that it would foster uniformity among the states. although states provide civil remedies for trade secret theft, these laws often fall short when trade secrets are taken across state lines. as a result, businesses that have nationwide operations must deal with various differing state laws which can be too costly for some businesses, particularly smaller ones. this also prevents businesses from taking full advantage of the rights that they might have under the law. senate bill 1890 would provide trade secret owners access to uniform national law and the ability to make their case in federal court. and lastly, i support the bill because it reflects constructi

it's not a federal album entirely. here we are really talking about all levels of government contributing. the states, we pay state taxes, state gasoline taxes and so forth. and locally we pay taxes in some localities also charge tax on gasoline purchases. but anyway the federal government only pays one-fourth of the total cost. typically the states or municipalities will apply for grants from the federal government. where does the federal government get its money for this? is something called the highway trust fund which was established with the interstate highway act, that federal aid of 1956 act, and the highway trust fund is totally dedicated to highways and roads. there should be a few footnotes but those are really minor. domain revenue into the highway trust fund our gasoline taxes, coetzee fuel taxes because diesel tax also feeds in. there's some minor taxes on sales taxes for trucks and trailers and so forth, but the bulk of it is gasoline and diesel tax. gasoline taxes are of the order of 63% which we see on

federal government. is incredibly challenging. we have you know, in total approximately 6,000 cms employees. trying to manage a program of huge scope and complexity. i think whether it's program integrity or quality arenas or other policies or marketplace medicaid, we have a staff and i appreciate the comments earlier. that i think is mission-driven. wants to deliver on that mission. when you look at the employee viewpoint survey, that comes across clearly. another thing that comes across, they don't feel they always have the resources, training and ability to improve the system as much as they would want. >> and just quickly, mr. dodaro, any comments about what you've just heard or anything you want to add? >> no. i'm very pleased that cms has taken action on a number of our recommendations in these areas. there are still some outstanding recommendations, particularly as it relates to medicaid. i'm very concerned that we've not had a good oversight over the managed care portion of medicaid at the state

if an event is severe enough to be a federal declared disaster, fema, the federal emergency management agency, can provide assistance to utilities for the recovery effort. in 2015 the congress gave new authority to order utilities and reliability corporation to implement emergency security measures in the fixing of transportation act. however, given the potential for damage to the nation's economy from a major attack on the grid, some might suggest that the greater focus on recovery is needed and should become as much a part of the grid security strategy as the efforts to secure the grid. our focus on recovery should consider the mutual dependents and implications to other infrastructure of an electric grid failure and how quickly such impacts could proliferate if not planned for in advance. congress may also want to consider how the grid of the future will address cyber and physical security concerns. incorporating elements to increase resiliency as it develops will aid in reducing the vulnerability of the system. finally after major grid disruption restarting generation and energizin

both at the federal and state level. and through data matching, and using data reducing any people that may have coverage in both in marketplace and medicaid at the same time. >> okay. another area was how cms verified the eligibility of medicare providers and suppliers and they found without better, stronger controls and better verification, cms may be making payments to providers without a legitimate address, whose licenses have expired or been revoked, or in some cases who have actually died. one recommendation made was to upgrade the software. >> yes. thank you for that question. we are doing that. we are, we agree with the recommendation, we're updating the software. we're doing four major actions in this area. one, the software updates for address verification. and other verification modalities. two, increased site visits, so that we are visiting sites at an increased frequency. three, more continuous monitoring of data and checking with postal data and other sources in terms of the enrollment process. so we are up

serving federal security directors in tsa. there was a caveat, there were at least three federal security directors i was aware of that they did not move but they had to sign a agreement to stay at their duty station one year and they would retire and forfeited their right to take any litigation against the agency. three people were provided an exemption with the caveat that they had to require. there was an announcement which reminded everybody that putting pressure or coercion on employees to retire is prohibited. >> let me ask you -- you did relocate to maine? >> yes, sir. >> when you relocated to maine, was that a financial hardship on you? >> oh, yes. >> and your family? >> yes, sir. >> was there a vacancy near where you were before? >> no. there was no vacancy. there was in maine a sitting federal security director, no vacancy. if there had been a vacancy there were certainly other people there at the operation qualified to fill these positions. it's important to note that when you're moving this particular skill set aro

the entire federal budget is 3.$9 billion. superior talking about appropriated dollars plus 3 trillion other dollars we will spend this year that is mandatory or automatic spending with interest onou the debt. federal health care spending is an example of $1 trillion the same amount of all those we are considering the center for medicare/medicaid services is in charge of spending about $886 billion every year almost all mandatory spending so the part of the budget that we talk about today is one-fourth of the total federal spending and. democratic figure to the majority us on leader for making this a priority and the democratic leader to suggest that they also want to see us move to give the american people a chance how we spend their money. the american people care about how we spend their money because their resolve lot of talk about the debt of $19 trillion the total revenue is 3.36 billion but the spending is about 3.five so elementary school mathematics will show you we're adding 5,304,000,000 more to the $19 trillion deb

we used to have recessions before had a federal reserve. there were other factors at work in the economy that tends to produce ups and downs. i would not worry too much about the present situation. >> you don't think we're in a bubble economy. chairman volcker: i don't think we are in a bubble economy but there are aspects of the financial world that are overextended and tends to be conducting unduly risky activities. making liquid investments. we are all to germany to productivity or real investment. an increasing risk in the economy. -- you said you thought the last financial sector innovation that actually added productivity to the economy was the atm. do you still feel that way? >> [laughter] chairman volcker: there may be some others, but i can't remember. ben bernanke, when you took over the federal reserve, it had about -- you had assets of about $900 billion. you ramped that up to about $4 trillion. $4 trillion. there are a lot of people, as you know, on the right, who look at that with horror, and say, "how will that end?" how will

the progressive champion of federalism and the autonomy of the states. at the same time, brandeis embodies a bipartisan constitutional tradition that is once again gaining broad adherence among both sides of the political spectrum. from tea party and libertarian conservatives to occupy liberals. namely, he was a defender of personal and economic liberty and a foe of civilization. -- centralization. he believes small-scale commanders were most likely to satisfy human needs and to allow citizens to develop their faculties to use as beautiful phrase in the whitney case, through the rigorous self-education brandeis that was -- thought was necessary for full participation in american democracy. at a time of intense polarization between conservatives and libertarians, who prefer small government and free enterprise, and liberals and progressives, who advocate a more energetic social welfare state, brandeis is the historical figure who represents and blends the ideals of both sides of this crucial debate. endorses the jeffersonian ideal of small government and