mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. chairman, this amendment would ensure that the transparency the bill the supporters demand from the asbestos industry will also be applied to the corporations that have inflicted so much daniel and so much suffering over the years. the amendment would require that a defendant seeking the information required by the bill must himself provide information about threats to the public safety or health. this information must be provided to any other person or to any federal or state entity that has the authority to enforce the law regulating activity relating to such information. this would go a long way to addressing the long standing efforts by these corporations to conceal the facts surrounding their actions from the public from their victims and from government agencies charged with enforcing safety laws. too often cases are settled specifically in order to prevent evidence of wrong doing from becoming public. more importantly, because of the secrecy of these settlements, other people ha

mr. chairman. mr. chairman, there's been a lot of information over the past several weeks regarding the security oaf healthcare.gov and whether consumers who use the system are at risk. i'd like to hear from the w witnesses about this matter and separate fact from fiction. requires anyonen sis to protect information systems. it specifically requires an authorized official to sign off before an agency begins operating a system. in the case of healthcare.gov, we have a memo thavs signed on september 27, 2013, entitled and i quote federally facilitated marketplace end of quote. this memo says that the security con track for, again, quote has not been anyone to test all of the security controls in one complete version of the system. . mr. chao, can you explain how cms tested components of a system for security risks? >> in most large it projects that require several what we call environments that are used to move from a developer's machine in writing code to test that local lead and to put it into a larger

mr. chairman. aid ask my friend -- i'd ask my friend, now i have no more that i can foresee at all and so i'm prepared to close. if the gentleman doesn't repeat his last statement. mr. holt: well, then, i'll take just a moment -- the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hastings: i'll reserve. mr. holt: when i showed the picture of the burning tap water, i saw expressions of incredituality from those on the other side of the aisle. surely that can't be true or if it is true it's not because of fracking. a duke university study found that methane contamination was in 115 of 141 shallow residential drinking wells that they studied. six times higher than in wells greater than a mile from the fracking operation. now, it's hard to tell when you're deep in the ground where that methane is leaking and what other chemicals, undisclosed chemicals are eaking with that methane. but there's something here that should be regulated and this legislation would prevent such regulations. i urge a no vote and yield

mr. chairman. and mr. cutler also points out, mr. meadows referenced this as well, according to the memo, the overall head of implementation inside hhs was jean lambeau. those are the two people we need. would you agree, mr. park? they need to come here and tell us what took place, why these decisions were made, why it was done the way it was done, these are the key people? this is the lady, the president said, no, that's who i want in charge. even though peter or zack, zeke emanuel, and the president said no, i want nancy ann deparl in charge. don't you think she should come in front of this committee, mr. park? >> respectively, i can't really speak to that, sir. >> we're probably going to have to do the same thing for her as we did for you. we'll have to subpoena her. last week the chairman and i sent a letter to the white house asking that simple question. the person hand picked by the president to run this operation, would she come before this committee to talk about the disaster this rollout has been. and the response we got bac

mr. chairman. secretary kathleen sebelius is here to discuss the affordable care act. just like medicare part d, the launch of the website has not gone well. but the early glitches in this rollout will soon be forgotten, just like medicare part d. a lot of the discussion will focus on the website. this is an important issue. i want to learn what the secretary can tell us about the problems and how they will be fixed. we should keep this issue in perspective. the affordable care act is working. it has been improving the health security of millions of americans for the past three years. because of the affordable care act more than 7 million people on medicare have saved more than $8 billion on their prescription drugs. more than 100 million americans have access to free preventive coverage. they no longer face lifetime limits on their coverage. over 10 million americans have received rebates from insurance companies. finally, this january, the worst abuses of the insurance industry will be halted. nev

mr. hastings: thank you, madam chairman. growing debts and deficits and energy prices that are far too high, the united states needs to implement an all-of-the-above energy plan to responsibly harness our nation's energy, resources on our federal lands. new energy production is one of the best ways to grow the economy and create new jobs to put people back to work. one needs to look no further for proof to that than go to the states like north dakota economies ushished and low unemployment rates and due to energy production. because of the energy boom, the united states will be the world leader in energy production, surpassing saudi arabia. the production is happening on private and state lands, which is good, madam chairman. places that aren't as restricted as federal onerous regulations and policies. however, federal lands are being left behind. however, this lack of production on federal lands is not for a lack of resources. we have tremendous potential for new onshore oil and natural gas production on federal lands. but u

mr. chairman. mr. chairman, there's been a lot of information over the past several weeks regarding the security of healthcare.gov and whether consumers who use this says tell are at risk. i'd like to hear from the witnesses about this matter and eparate fact from fiction. mr. chao, the federal information security information act, known as fisma, requires agencies to protect information systems. fisma specifically requires an authorizing official to sign off before an agency begins operating a system. in the case of healthcare.gov, we have a memo that was signed by administrator tavener, on september 27, 2013, entitled, and i quote, federally facilitated marketplace, end of quote. this memo's saying that the security contractor, quote, has not been able to test all of the security controls in one complete version of the system. it also states, this resulted in a, and i quote again, level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk. million chao, can you explain how c.m.s. tested -- mr. chao, can y

mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. -- madam chairman. that is a good way to start. you are exactly right. we are very fortunate to be at this table, to have an andrtunity not only to try move agricultural policy forward, but to make sure the tools are there for our farmers and ranchers. to make sure the safety net is there around the planet. you alluded a moment ago to the togetherty to work with some very wonderful people and this table. rarely do you get the chance to work in this fashion, as you and i have, with the very people who were our mentors when we arrived and are our partners now, as we craft this policy together. i would just say to all of my colleagues, i know that we face some daunting challenges, that we are working in a very complicated environment to craft a very technical bill that touches so many important parts of our society, of our economy and of this country as a whole, and i know that there are many different perspectives on social policy, on agricultural production policy, but

mr. chairman and vice chairwoman. it's a particular pleasure for me to welcome chairman furman as he is from the city that i'm privileged to represent. i can say unequivocally new yorkers are very proud of you and the role you've played not only in this position but in other positions in the administration to assist president obama in the economic recovery, which has led to 44 straight months of private sector job growth, the gdp has grown for ten straight quarters, and housing is rebounding. the economic recovery is showing resilience in strength, even though businesses and individuals have faced unnecessary uncertainty and harm because of the government shutdown. that fight that really hurt consumer confidence, reuters is saying it's one of the lowest points it's ever been. i'd like you to comment on this self-inflicted damage. how much do you think it cost our economy, and what other factors could slow and hold back our recovery? but it was interesting in your testimony that you pointed out that even with these manu

mr. chairman. the whole point of the underlying bill is to make it impossible for the department of the interior, the bureau of land management, the secretary of the interior to impose regulations. it says if the state has any regulations, then the federal egulations don't count. all this amendment would do is on the important issue of fugitive methane, leaked methane, methane that get into the atmosphere by whatever means because of the drilling and fracking, should be limited. and it should be limited for several reasons. it is a potent greenhouse gas and it is lost revenue. so i would think that everyone would be eager to make sure that none of this fugitive methane gets into the atmosphere. or into the drinking water, i might repeat. so we know methane can and sometimes does leak from fracked wells. we should want the secretary to be able to regulate that. because under the bill, under the underlying bill, the secretary could not, this amendment is necessary. i urge my colleagues to support it.

mr. chairman, i ran out of time. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman brown. the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. kennedy, is recognized for questions. >> [inaudible] >> try that one. >> okay, this we go. thank you, thank you, mr. chairman, thank you, madam administrator, for being here. i apologize for the raspy voice. welcome. it's nice to see you another member of red sox nice here today. ..

mr. chairman. just let me say as i began a series of questions, that's one of my concerns because this agency has been given responsibilities it did not have. it did not have in previous administrations, when i thought initially, when i heard initially there was to be a hearing, it must be funded with claims. of course, the reason we look so closely now at the va is the president hearing all the complaints about poster mom back syndrome. change the standard, making him more possible for veterans to show ptsd. it's not in the same backlog. it's always in a backlog. but that's the reason this agency is under very real scrutiny. we've had hearings here. in fact, two of my committees on conferences. i know this conference was held in 2011. so perhaps the va was not unshared notice. in april of 2012, they were hearings about the psa conferences. those hearings resulted in literally the beheading of the top of the agency, the very top of the agency administrator, gsa administrator and the person who head

mr. chairman. >> mr. terry. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i'm pleased to hear that the website will be fully operational by the end of november, and would you be able to -- would you come back to our committee so we could see if that's actually accomplished and how it was accomplished? >> i will make every effort to do that. >> okay. you were governor and state insurance commissioner in kansas, and i reached out to our state insurance commissioner and governor and found out that they have absolutely no data about nebraskaens who have either tried to enroll or enroll. as you know, nebraska's one of the states that opted not to do their own exchange and rely on the federal exchange. so it's interesting to me that neither our insurance commissioner, nor the governor's office, had any data about nebraskans and this -- enrolling in these plans. i also asked our insurance commissioner if any of the navigators, if they knew who the navigators were and whether they had to apply to be certified or licensed, in essence, like an insurance

mr. chairman. >> the same way before wasn't sufficient so i'm wondering if you are saying it's going to be made public if it's really going to be made public. >> we rely on thousands of studies and we. >> you said the information would be made public and the data you rely upon. >> the same way we have done it always mr. chairman, yes. >> we have been to disagree on that because you haven't always done it and if you say you will do it now i will take your word for it. have you given the committee also subpoenaed data in epa's possession? >> if you are referring to the pm data that you have requested from the agency. >> i'm saying. >> i'm sorry mr. chairman could be of a number of subpoenas. >> eyeless talking about a one from the science committee. have you given the committee all the information we have subpoenaed that is in your possession? >> i believe we have as september 20. those were related to specific studies. one was outstanding until september 20 so we could make sure we looked at confide

mr. chairman. i appreciate the leadership of senator stabenow, senator cochran and the doggedness of chairman lucas. the act of 2013 is a bipartisan reform bill that provides tangible and workable solutions that continue our commitment to the hungry, to rural communities and the land and saving taxpayers $24 billion. over the past two years, i've held a series of round tables, perhaps two dozen of them, in ohio where i've asked farmers to tell me what this year's farm bill should look like. ohio's farmers did more than give opinions. they came up with specific answers, gave me insight and guidance and valuable suggestions. they told me that they don't need and don't want direct payments, so i worked with my friend senator thune to improve the safety net and ensure farm production and planting decisions are determined by the market and not by the government program. simply put, ohio's corn and soybean farmers must have a program that decouples target prices from planted acres. that's why i strongly s

mr. chairman. >> senator vitter. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thanks to all our witnesses, particularly for all of your service to our country. we all appreciate that. i understand you all have clearly articulated real problems and readiness, number one, and number two, that lack of readiness costs lives. lives are directly at stake. that concerns us all. i think the last time this possibility of a real hollow force and significant lack of readiness happened was in the 1990s. general odierno, would you consider that challenge then -- excuse me, let me rephrase it. would you consider our challenge today greater or lesser than that challenge? >> i believe our challenge is much greater today than it has been since i've been in the army in terms of readiness. this is the lowest readiness levels since i've been serving the last 37 years. >> general, i agree. i think the numbers confirm that. for instance, in the 1990s, this general episode i'm describing at that problem, the military described 80% of conventional and unconventional forces

mr. chairman and mr. chairman as we have discussed over 20 years of congress passed the americans with disabilitdisabilit ies act. this commission is based on the same principles as the americans with disabilities act of nondiscrimination and equal opportunity independence accessibility human dignity and full and effective participation and inclusion in society. the peep all of this great nation believe in these ideals and principles. it is time for a nation to stand up and show our commitment to these principles in the international community. i believe the commission offers united states a form to utilize our wealth and knowledge and practical experiences to influence other nations in recognizing the rights of the with disabilities. our nation has ever tended to help countries transition from isolation and segregation of persons with disabilities to removing obstacles and a and barriers which ends up helping our citizens in the process. this demonstrates our commitment to equality and a tendency for indi

mr. chairman. mr. chairman, on yesterday, "the wall street journal" ran a front-page story dealing with the widening job gap in our economy, and you may recall, mr. elmendorf, that during the so-called super committee, you and i had a little exchange about the impact of unemployment rates on our deficit, and there was a stark correlation between the two. now, this report that we just saw yesterday, if we look at the 30 years, 30-year study that you reported to us that was released while we're having those discussions with the tax -- so-called super committee, it means that things have gotten even worse since then when it comes to unemployment rates and the impact that it's having on our deficit. and i really would be interested in how you view this study, as well as there's a study, i think, uc berkeley indicating that all of this increase in wages that 90% of those increases went to the upper 1%, and most of that to upper .1%. now, i'm really, really interested in that, but i'm also interested in wheth

mr. chairman. while i am very skept skeptical about our grovt's ability to run, get under these programs and people in companies that are getting filthy rich all of these programs. and i have an estimate here on the cost on all the technology that was the estimate of omb as of august 30th before all of the problems surfaced. they said we would spend $516.34 million on the project. now we've seen estimates way wov that. i have a question about how much all of this is going to cost us to straighten these out and are these going to be continual costs each year. we have to spend more and more on the technology. secondly, a greater concern. i have two stories here from the washington post about ten days ago and one from cbs news a couple days later. and they say the administration knew 3 1/2 years in advance that the problems were going to occur. larry summers, director of the white house's national economic council had just received a m o memo. they said no one was under instruction of translating the

mr. chairman. and to senator flake, i'm real pleased to be here today. i'd like to thank you also for inviting me to testify. i want to thank you for holding this hearing. and mr. chairman, i want to thank you for your leadership that you bring to the table on transparency to both collection programs run by the nsa. this is a strong bill rooted in the belief that nevadaens, minnesotans and all americans should be provided access to reports that explain the personal communication records that the government has collected and how many american. s have had their information caught up in that collection. by now most people are aware of the collection practices by the federal government that are authorized by sections of the patriot act and sections of the fisa amendments act. i'm confident the full judiciary committee will have a robust debate on the collection practices and whether or not this program should continue. i believe that the collection program mostly authorized under section 215 of the pat

mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i might note that mr.murray has been in his possession since 2005 so perhaps the long serving kid on the block will be a good combination for today. will have seven days to submit information for the record. i now ask unanimous consent, that the oversight committee staff report entitled u.s. department of veterans affairs 2011 human-resources conference a culture of mismanagement and reckless spending to be placed on the record. without objection, so noted that the copies will be distributed to all members so they may use the material. mr. chairman, just one clarification. that is the republican report, is that right? if you have a minority report i would love to see that. >> the staff report for the majority. >> thank you. >> i would like to welcome our panel of witnesses at this time and introduce the honorable gina farrisee. one of these days he will be introducing and i look forward to seeing you make similar mistakes at times. it's what happens. it could happen. mr. edward murray -- sari, the assistan

mr. chairman. ms. mccarthy, on june 27, 2012, you sent a letter to me relative to the issues of ethanol and the waiver on the 15. i asked a question does the epa remain confident that it will not damage car engines from vehicles of model years 2001 and later. the letter you signed responded, the epa remains confident in the technical basis for the east 15 partial waiver decision. this question can be answered simply yes or no. you remain confident in the technical basis for the e-15 decision? >> i do. >> is what others are saying. forbes said, for doesn't support the introduction into the market place for the legacy fuel. ford has not approved in the owner's manual is considered in its fueling and any damage resulting from this who fueling is not covered by the wealthy. mercedes-benz, any ethanol plant a bug he can including a 15 can be 15 will harm in mission control systems in mercedes-benz engines creating significant problems. honda, vehicle engines were not designed or built to accommodate hig

mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. the chair now has a particularly distinct honor and privilege of not only recognizing his neighbor, his original mentor, and the fellow that will always be a chairman to him, the senator from kansas, mr. roberts. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate that very much. chairman lucas and chair stabenow, ranking member cochran, ranking member peterson, all my other colleagues, it is indeed a privilege to be here with you today to begin this farm bill conference committee. we've all worked very hard to get to this point, and that's probably the understatement of my statement, and have already made significant strides, i think, in achieving necessary reforms. for example, both bills do eliminate the direct payments and our commodity and disaster programs. we have heard consistently from producers in all regions, from ann arbor, michigan, to wichita, kansas, that crop insurance is their number one priority. our producers are willing to put their own skin in the game to protect themselves f

mr. chairman. i want to assure you that my grend and i d good friend and i did not coordinate our roshgz. i was going to ask that letter be placed in the record. i'm glad my friend has already done it. so please make that for both of us. >> speaking order was just random. just a couple points and then a question. i want to quote from that letter. it does make a couple important statements. we ask that budget committee endeavor to agree on a common overall discretionairy number by november 22nd. november 22 is nine days away. and we don't have any schedule meetings between the 22nd and december 2nd. so this is a matter of some urgency. so our colleagues on the appropriation committees which includes my friend miss loy and myself have the opportunity to get about the business of arriving at real spending bills. this is a bigger and littler problem than what we're faced with. he has given us a wonderful presentation of long-term debt. we don't disagree with any of that. he is right. we need to address

mr. chairman, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. long. >> thank you, mr. chairman and mr. secretary for being here today. given your testimony, earlier today you said that i'm responsible for the implementation of the affordable care act. i've heard you referred to and maybe yourself as the point person for the rollout, the architect of implementing affordable care act. so you are kind of the president's point person, are you not, for this rollout? >> yes, sir. >> i earlier you were asked -- there's a lot of things striking about the rollout of this and about affordable care act all together, but the thing most striking to me, is when we had the point person for the rollout here, and you're not going into the exchange. i've heard you say, that -- and you got advice from the foekds behind you, but i'm asking you today, can you tell the american public if your advisers behind you, if they happen to have given you wrong information, if it is possible for you to go into the exchange, like all of these millions of americans going into the exchanges, will you admit to forego you

mr. chairman. >> first, i want to join mr. langford in thinking each of you for the incredible effort you're putting into to try to fix a very serious problem. thank you. second, you don't have to be an opponent or supporter of the health care law to acknowledge that there are significant rollout problems associated with the website. and those of us who are supporters and i'm a strong supporter of the health care law, are absolutely committed to providing the support you need to make this thing work. there's really four issues that we have royaling around. one is the website. what do we have to do to fix it? it's got to be fixed. what's the impact of these cancellation notices that a lot of americans are receiving, they thought they had health care and assured they could keep the policy they had and the problem gets compounded if the website is not working. and then third is the individual mandate that is subtext of the debate and essential to the law, and the fourth is the i.t. purchasing. are there some lessons that we can l

mr. chairman. >> thank you. ly say we are going have testimony from google and they've signed on this it -- both company. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your leadership on this bill. thank you to our ranking member and senate heller. it i'm a cosponsor of the measure and want to express my gratitude to you, senator franken, for spearheading this effort, we of course, it embodies the general truth that what you don't know can hurt you. what the american people don't know about much of what you do and it is important in the essential work to our national security can create misinformation and deception, and undermine the trust and credibility in the entire program of surveillance and intelligence by national secure ity. what the american people don't know can't hurt them if it becomes a sour of mistrust and loss of credibility here and around the world. so i think this bill is important i propose other measures such as constitutional advocate i think fits with the concept of this bill in term of preserv

mr. chairman, have the lead on this.is. there was an immediate agreement throughout the administration at all levels on the need for a at rapid, effective response, both, because of the scale of the disaster and because, as you nd said, mr. chairman, because the filipinos are long-time friends and allies of the united statesn so jeremy's going to describe in detail the efforts on the ground. what i'd like to do is highlighi that the u.s. government's ht response has been, i think, nt' extremely well coordinated and substantial. within a few days of the ays disaster, usaid had announced $20 million in humanitarian assistance, and just a few dayse ago, announced an additional $10 million in assistance, so as of yesterday, combined u.s. government assistance in to th response to the disaster totalled $37 million. that includes $7 million from defense department funds. our military, as you know, has i deployed substantial assets to assist, and with the help of usaid colleagues and u.s. mi military on the ground, our as assistan

mr. chairman. governor, you demonstrate your wisdom early going to the brown university in providence, rhode island. i am sure when you are confirmed as federal chairman it will be consistent with your record of wise choices. many times our fiscal policy and monetary policy has been working in cross purposes. the federal reserve has been quantitative easing, trying to get an expansive policy in place and we have been contracting, shutting the government down, we anticipate, i hope we can avoid this, but we are going to end unemployment insurance abruptly december 31st. how would your job, and obviously the size and scope of your portfolio and everything else, maybe the question has been asked today, be affected if our fiscal policy was complementary to your monetary policy? >> well, senator, i agree that fiscal policy has been working at cross purposes to monetary policy. i recognize the importance of the objective of putting the u.s. deficit and debt on a sustainable path. congress has worried abo

mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman and mr. chairman, thank you to both chairmen. and thank you all for being here today. i was interested in a number of your points, particularly, mr. salgado, that additional measures are necessary, especially in response to chairman leahy's questions to not only provide additional transparency but also assure that individual rights are protected. as you know, i proposed that there be a constitutional advocate to in effect provide some adversarial process within the fisa court. you know as lawyers, courts make better decisions when more than one side is presented. very few judges would permit a proceeding before them in which only one side is presented. because they know that the core principle of our judicial system is that it is adversarial and that the truth emerges as differing points of view, factual perspectives and evidence are presented and so that is one area where i think that the system can be made more accountable if not more transparent. and as well, disclosure of some of the rulings and opinions of the court. right no

mr. chairman. >> thank you. next we'll here from the ranking member of the committee, senator essions. [inaudible] in this room are some of the most educated people in the benl and dealt, and i believe we can make some progress as this committee goes forward. the purpose of a budget is to develop a financial plan for the future of america. it is not easy, and our differences are real, and it is difficult to bridge them. but there are actions which we can take that we can agree on that would improve the financial standing of america and economic growth. so it is important that we work at it. i think the regular process of a budget conference committee is a positive development for sure. our colleague, ron johnson, is a successful businessman. he's correctly told us, if you want to develop a strategic plan, and we need to, the fiffers thing we have to do is get nn in contact with reality and to agree on the problem. we have ast five years had report -- this agenda, which has been the vision that gover

mr. chairman. as mr. chow testified, it's part of cms's protocols that they hire independent contractors to test different parts of the security aspects of the site. is that your understanding as well? >> yes, it is. >> is it yours? >> yes. >> yours, mr. amsler? >> yes. >> so i want to ask you first, you testified, your company was not hired to do the -- to perform end-to-end security testing; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> what your job was to assess and identify risks in specific components of healthcare.gov to work with cms and address those concerns and report on the findings and results; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> am i correct in virtually all cases, when you did identify high risk in healthcare.gov components, cms was able to mitigate risks before the system went live? >> yes, almost all the high risks were mitigated. >> and -- and you said in your testimony, in your written testimony, you are not in charge of security for healthcare.gov. we were not asked, nor did we perform end

mr. chairman. in listening you to, it really is striking to me we have a short term challenge that is different than long term in some ways. and the good news is we've actually begun to tackle long term and have been put in place the yearly deficit coming down by half. good news. you talk about growing the economy and being smart not reckless in what we're doing. when we look at that, it seems to me a good way of summing up is you're not going to get out of debt with more than 11 million people out of work. a number of us are talking about the economy. i'm wondering if you might just talk a little bit more in terms of the short term how we're smart about growing the economy. the manufacturing institute says there are 600,000 manufacturing jobs unfilled right now because skills are different than the jobs available. and national skill coalition says about 300,000 people are going to be turned away from training programs because of the sequester cuts. so we have got inability, if we continue down thi

mr. chairman. thank you for being here today. as i watch this approach to local and state and government here, i hope as we go forward we do not lose sight of the fact that government does not do a great job with procurement, with i.t., or with customer service, and we're seeing that in spades. i hope is we use this as an occasion not just a point fingers, but how to improve things for the people going forward. i think that customer service element is an enormously important so we do not face the crisis of confidence senator mikulski talked about. that should be job number one, to figure out that people -- but the politics aside. whether people sitting at their kitchen table can decide and evaluate for themselves whether this is a better deal or not for them. in colorado, as you know, we set up our own exchange. one of the things i have been told is that people have to go through 20 pages to have a determination made about the medicaid eligibility before they can actually get access to the private

mr. chairman and board members. some of you may remember 1988, hoffman won best actor for a film called "rain man" and it won best picture and ron ald reagan was still president and we put in a series of cutting edge technologies for communications. this is a series of relays that were installed in 1988 that provide the source of communications from our control center to our bosses and to our transits. on september 3rd of this year, at some point mid-day we lost communications with our equipment and service. it required us to take a series of fail safe measures and guiding the trains through with the controllers and all of that and amazing in a short period of time -- come on up -- i didn't fix anything. this is lawrence who was alumni for the award, but lawrence took a look at this re lay board which some of you may remember. this one is in the control center but some of the toys we've taking, some have aluminum foil around them and in the relay system. mr. chow was able to figure out which power supply shut the sy

mr. chairman, have the lead on this. there was an immediate agreement throughout the administration at all levels on the need for a rapid, effective response, both because of the scale of the disaster and because, as you said, mr. chairman, because the filipinos are long-time friends and allies of the united states. so jeremy's going to describe in detail the efforts on the ground. what i'd like to do is highlight that the u.s. government's response has been, i think, extremely well coordinated and substantial. within a few days of the disaster, u.s. aid had announced $20 million in humanitarian assistance, and just a few days ago, announced an additional $10 million in assistance, so as of yesterday, combined u.s. government assistance in response to the disaster totalled $37 million. that includes $7 million from defense department funds. our military, as you know, has deployed substantial assets to assist, and with the help of u.s. aid, colleagues and u.s. military on the ground, our assistance is reaching people in t

mr. chairman. over the opening remarks and some things have been said recently with regards to bail out, i really can't let fly the comments about this being simply an accounting entry. i just, this is not voodoo bookkeeping. the comments have been made and testament has been given up many times from both members of the side of the elder that there's a $1.7 billion transferred money that is not an accounting entry. that's a transfer of taxpayer dollars to the tune of $1.7 billion. and you know, to paraphrase here, it looks like a bailout, by definition it's a bailout. it's a bailout. so what are we doing? we are paying losses and we capitalizing fha. what do we do in 2008 with all the banks and other financial institutions? we paid losses and we capitalized there against the their institutions. so for us to sit here and argue semantics over whether it's a bailout or an accounting entry is arrayed hearing and really denigrate our discussion today. let me move on. i'm kind of curious. you made a comm

mr. chairman. i want to thank the witnesses of both panels for being here today, and i look forward to your testimony, and i want to thank the committee. in your leadership, mr. chairman, we have had two really big steps that have taken place, and one was laying out a strategy, and regardless of how people voted, i think it was one of the finer moments of this committee, and, secondly, if you remember, i think everybody remembers secretary kerry came in on september 3 asking for the authorization for the use of military force, which was passed out of this committee at his request and at the president's. at that time, the secretary said there was a strategy relative to syria. it was a strategy similar to what was laid out in this committee. obviously, things have changed pretty dramatically on the ground since that time. and with the issue of the chemical weapons, basically, as far as i can see, there is no real strategy relative to the opposition. i know we are still formalizing that there is a str

mr. chairman. thank you for scheduling today's hearing. lias,you, secretary sabia for being here today. it has been six months since he last appeared before the committee. given everything that has gone , particularlytime regarding the implementation of obamacare, i would say that today's appearance is long past due. in april you assured us that the implementation was on track and that all was going smoothly and that the exchanges would be ready to go by october 1. it now appears that your statements from the previous hearings were at best misinformed. from where i sit, things do not seem to be going smoothly at all. i think we would all agree that the best part of the implementation of the so-called affordable care act has been an absolute debacle. you admitted as much last week when you testified before house energy and commerce committee when you said -- hold me accountable for the debacle, i am responsible. while i am glad that you are accepting the sponsor ability for this disastrous rollout,