mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent, consistent with amendments that have been worked out and approved with the minority. >> without objection it is so ordered that the clerk will distribute on block package number three, without objection, it is considered as read and the gentleman from colorado is recognized to explain the amendment. >> on package number three is comprised of the following amendment, 65 by mr. jones which sets up an advisory board for military commissions and exchanges and amendment 82 by mr. brady which is the gao to conduct a study which evaluates a different way each military service conducts data on the race and gender of those convicted of ucmj and amendment 102 which directs the secretary of defense to submit committees on arms services a report on dod personnel policies regarding members of the arms forces infected with hiv. amendment 149r-1 by mr. vis ito brief hasso availability on certified financial planners to service members at the onset of the new blended

mr. chairman. >> the clerk will distribute the amendmentme amendment. it is considered read. >> this is an issue that many of you have heard me speak about many times before. this is the issue of sexual assault in the military where some 15,000 men and women each year are sexually assaulted. only about 5,000 of them actually report it. of those only 500 go to court-martial and of those only 250 are actually sentenced. most recently, i was at our air force academy and spent a lot of time with our cadets because the newest report that's come out suggests that it is prevalent in our academies as well. and at the air force academy, for instance, 47% of the cadets experienced sexual harassment. it's a pretty stunning statistic. and those are the individuals who will then go on to be our leaders. and if, in fact, we allow for sexual assault, sexual harassment to be acceptable in our academies, you can imagine what's going to happen in our forces and we know the numbers of women joining the military is inc

mr. chairman. mr. speaker, i represent the most honest, hardworking families in this country in the great state of maine. i also represent tens of thousands of small business owners in our state that create thousands and thousands of jobs for our families. and you know, in the state of maine, mr. speaker, we know the difference between right and wrong, and it is wrong to force taxpayers to bail out huge wall street banks that take too much risk when it goes wrong. now, the small community banks and credit unions that dot our landscape in maine did not cause the most recent recession. and these reforms that we're passing today in the choice act reduce unnecessary paperwork and costs that will help our small community banks and credit unions lend money to our small businesses and families. also, i am proud to say that the choice act keeps in place very strong protections, mr. speaker, for consumers of financial services while at the same time imposing the toughest penalties ever for fraud and inside deal

mr. chairman. the members have before them the readiness of committee mark. i'd like to begin by thanking ranking member of congresswoman of guam for her tireless efforts and participation in the process. and thank the readiness subcommittee members on both sides of the aisle for their attendance and participation at the hearings and briefings throughout the year. additionally, the extraordinary staff worked diligently to make this mark happen. we appreciate your effective dedication. thank you, all, for your resolve. over the past several months, we've heard testimony from each of the service branchs about the critical necessity to address our military's readiness short falls. here, today, we have the responsibility to reduce the risk for our war fighters by making sure that they are well-trained and supported, and that the equipment they use is properly maintained and combats ready. i believe this mark accomplishes this task. the product of bipartisan negotiations marked before you and states legi

mr. chairman. mr. airman, in virginia recurrent flooding is already sadly affecting life. sea level rise hoses existential threat to committees right outside of my district. and to those bases in the communities contained. if anyone doubts me i invite you to come down and visit our region, local officials from both parties will gladly explain to you how much is at stake. in the chesapeake bay, tangier island is slowly disappearing for the city of norfolk needs more than $1 billion to cope with just one foot of sea level rise. scientists expect far larger increases than that. as i do in industry knows the entire hampton roads region is littered with military bases. many of the most critical set right on the coast, notably naval station norfolk, joint base langley used to come in naval air station annex. .. for the threats that we actually know we have to face and i think my friend the gentleman from rhode island on this issue, i urge my colleagues to support this amendment and i yield backthe balance of

mr. chairman. and mr. speaker, i'm proud to stand before you today to speak on h.r. 10, the financial choice act, and i'd like to thank chairman hensarling and all my colleagues on the house financial services committee for their hard work on this legislation, including holding 145 hearings on dodd-frank and the choice act. for nearly 10 years, following the financial crisis, our country witnessed one of the weakest recoveries of our lifetimes, as dodd-frank held small businesses and families hostage and prevented our economy from growing. now, it is harder for families to qualify for a mortgage, obtain that auto loan and access other forms of credit that they depend on every single day. the only beneficiaries from dodd-frank have been washington bureaucrats who have grown more powerful and big banks who've only grown bigger at the expense of your personal freedoms and your freedom to make your own financial decisions. dodd-frank has failed the american people. instead, the choice act, which stands for crea

mr. chairman. mr. chairman, we've been considering really meaty issues and where the issued for this committee for the last seven, ten hours, whatever, 11 hours. this one is not one of those, and i would point out to the sponsor that, not several miles from your, call about the secret service has been building and already have built a security fence around the private property of former president barack obama. now, chain-link fence, razor wire and raw cinderblock would've done the job of protecting the compound. which my guess is the secret service spent a lot more money than that making sure that that fence fit with the rest of the decorah, the rest of the circumstances within that community. that's on private property. when president obama sells that property, then all of that taxpayer paid for funding will enjoy to his benefit. and so the 16th election is over and while i also recognize that during the eight years of president obama has tenure, many on our side and many of our supporters wined and cr

mr. chairman, the house is not in order. the chair: the committee lr in order. -- the committee will be in order. the gentleman from virginia. mr. goodlatte: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. goodlatte: the bill before us today is modeled on california's highly successful litigation reforms that have lowered health care costs and made health care much more accessible to the people of that state. because the evidence of the effects of those reforms on lowering health care costs is so overwhelming, the congressional budget office has estimated that if the same reforms were applied at the federal level, they would save over $50 billion over a 10-year period. and because the evidence that those reforms increase access to health care, it is so overwhelming, they are supported by a huge variety of public safety and labor unions, community clinics and health centers and organizations dedicated to disease prevention, all of whom have seen the beneficial effects of thes

mr. chairman. >> mr. dale murden. mr. murden, please proceed. >> thank you, chairman roberts, ranking february stabenow and members of the committee for the opportunity to testify today. on behalf of the more than 700 commercial citrus growers in texas and the nearly 50,000 sorgum producers nationally i want to express our appreciation for convening this hearing. i'm past chairman of national sorgum producers and past state director of the texas farm bureau. mr. chairman, did i grow wheat once but unfortunately i had to bale it for the horses. citrus and sorgum growers face a broad range of challenges many which are unique to their crop. my testimony today will focus on issues and concerns they share. the viability of both crops are threatened by new and invasive pests and the importance of access to drop protection tools to combat these pests. for citrus it's the threat of hlb which is vek toward by the agent. there is no known cure for this disease and texas growers have witnessed the experience of our friends in florida

mr. chairman. mr. chairman, no clear definition of this exists for a military to develop the current policy that was implemented last year. in the definition the manual lacks support and ranks among the lowest scores in the reliability standards yet the armed services are being forced to provide medical recommendations on unproven criteria without regards to the rights of conscience both medically and morally. with regards to fully club type service members, should those definitions be accepted or coerced then we should accept the definition so a service member would be burdened by a profound state of depression, anxiety and agitation and has a high risk of suicide this doesn't sound like an otherwise, quote, fully qualified service member. this policy also does not address the diminishment of readiness due to non- deployable dysphoric servicemembers. it places the priorities of the non- deployable service member who constitutes by a one's study estimate one in 20,000 individuals and its sidelined the r

mr. chairman. i want to begin by agreeing with you on the great work of the members of this committee and of the staff. and i think your summary of many of the things that are in the bill is an excellent example of some of that great work that was done. certainly in the area of space particular. i've worked quite a bit with chairman rogers and ranking member carper on different aspects, dentist any of the space court, gadgets understand how space is any futures reflective against our policy role as a committee. it's not just up to the white house and executive branch did so with mentor does. we tried a lot of policy that makes enormous difference in making us safer. similarly, a past chairman, what was then the terrorism subcommittee, i want to thank them for their great work on focusing on that incredibly important part of hybrid cyber special forces defense, which is become so much a part of what we have to do, whether it's facing isis are facing information, disinformation campaigns of russia. th

mr. chairman. and mr. speaker, i'm proud to stand before you today to speak on h.r. 10, the financial choice act, and i'd like to thank chairman hensarling and all my colleagues on the house financial services committee for their hard work on this legislation, including holding 145 hearings on dodd-frank and the choice act. for nearly 10 years, following the financial crisis, our country witnessed one of the weakest recoveries of our lifetimes, as dodd-frank held small businesses and families hostage and prevented our economy from growing. now, it is harder for families to qualify for a mortgage, obtain that auto loan and access other forms of credit that they depend on every single day. the only beneficiaries from dodd-frank have been washington bureaucrats who have grown more powerful and big banks who've only grown bigger at the expense of your personal freedoms and your freedom to make your own financial decisions. dodd-frank has failed the american people. instead, the choice act, which stands for crea

mr. chairman. >> mr. rogers. >> thank you, mr. chair. i want to associate myself with remarks from oklahoma. my opposition to this amendment and yield my time with the gentleman from ohio back thank you. i want to thank susan davis for her comments. >> we haven't spent a significant amount of time on this and were concerned about this issue as a whole. this proposal does not fix the problem of sexual assault and it actually makes the issue of prosecution more difficult. now, since the 107th congress, this is a list of everything that we have passed as the house armed services committee that has become law, single space. page after page of reforms of the process to make sexual assault prosecution intervention easier and more effective. we did have concerns and we looked at the issue of chain of command on bias, coercion, unprofessionalism, and right to the victim. for rights of the victim, gave that special legal counsel as ms. davis said, to the victims and then we gave special legal counsel representative sending the victims standing in

mr. chairman. i would like to first thank chairman thornberry and ranking member smith for their continued leadership. the mba is an undertaking every year they deserve credit for -- for the past five year it's my honor to lead this with my good friend jim cooper. he sets the standard for bipartisan thoughtful consideration and i thank him for that. one of the issues we have worked extremely closely on over the past year is space reform. in creating a space core this mark addresses the continued failed stewardship and prioritization of the space building for the space organization. since we went public with the subcommittee mark i have been disappointed in claims from the air force leadership, they say the proposed reform initiatives will actually sit back efforts to respond to absurd threats. let me be clear. that is not the case. our plan empowers the secretary of the air force with the ability to shape in the composition of the space core, streamline the authorities and prioritize space as the i

mr. chairman. >> mr. culverson? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, i want to thank you for your service to our country in the marine corps and the prudence, the president's prudence in being careful in spending our constituents' very scarce, hard earned and precious tax dollars and in particular i want to thank you and the president for focusing on restoring the rule of law which is one thing that unites us as americans. we understand in this country, really within of the first in the world to understand our liberty lies in law enforcement. that's a fundamental principle of who we are as americans and really appreciate you focusing on that and also want to say that congressman duncan hunter sr. spearheaded the effort to build a wall on the southern california border which is working successfully and israelis know how effective a wall can be. makes sense in large parts of the border. maybe not as necessary but the wall makes good sense and appreciate your focus on law enforcement and existing law is very clear, has been on the books since 1

mr. chairman. i support the chairman on this i don't think it's a matter of if, when it comes to a space force, it's a matter of when. i don't think this is reflection of what the air force has done here. they've worked this hard. i believe they've shown due diligence, they've worked hard to provide us the best space force possible. i think we've gone from a time when space was supporting ground, air and sea, from a supporting roam, we're now transitioning to the where the work will be done in space. think that changes the game. that means we need to grow a space force, space professionals, space culture and people in a service that's totally dedicated to space control. i think we're at that point where we need to move this direction. i think it also will help us consolidate the many space offices we have in the multiple services and also consolidate the many acquisition resources we have out there and put it under one space service. think there's also some chances for an opportunity for savings. a

mr. chairman. and thank you, mr. secretary, for the assertive manner in which you addressed that issue, raising the debt ceiling. i was very happy that the chairman raised that question immediately. the debt ceiling used to be an issue we used to address here in congress in a bipartisan manner. your emphatic support of raising that debt ceiling is appreciated by all of us here today. based on long service with the committee, in 2001 and in 2003, there were tax cuts that totaled $2.3 trillion. they were advertised at the time as the basis for promoting strong economic growth. and in fact, that economic growth not only did not occur, but it was the slowest growth since herbert hoover had been president. yet the debt that we talk about today, it's conveniently suggested that somehow it happened during the last eight years. not only was there subpar growth in those years, but the deficits began to mount. there was a war in iraq and a war in afghanistan with a million new veterans who we are obligated to care for. then the

mr. chairman. >> senator tester. >> thank you, mr. chairman. once again, thank you for being here, dr. shulkin. you talked about, and i want to follow up on the chairman's questions. you talked about in your opening statement choice being down to $821 million. and the fact that there was additional dollars in community care, and you wanted to transfer it. you had put out a rule, edict i don't know what you want to call it, what's it called? >> directive. >> directive, that's better. a few days ago you said you wanted to go to the original intent on choice, and so that would dry up a lot of how the dollars were spent. and then a today or two later you rescinded that. thank you for the breakfast yesterday. we had a great breakfast x we talked yesterday about potentially doing a fix legislatively. i was told today that another direct i was put out today that reinstated that rule to go back to the -- is that correct? >> let me try to be accurate about what happened. we noticed that there was a imbalanc

mr. chairman for holding this important hearing. mr. mnuchin, welcome. mr. chairman, during his campaign for president, donald trump told us that a time of massive income and wealth inequality the very, very rich are getting richer, almost everybody else is getting poorer. he, donald trump, was going to stand up for the working families of this country. he was going to take on the establishment and he was especially harsh on his words about wall street read. he said he was going to drain the swamp. he said and i quote, "we can't fix a rigged system by relying on the people who rigged it in the first place." he said i'm not going to let wall street get away with murder. wall street has caused tremendous problems for us, end of quote. that's an exact quote from donald trump. he included language, push language into the republican platform, which i happen to agree with, stating, "we support reinstating the glass act which pro hiblts commercial banks from engaging in high risk investment." he said that he was the only person in america, the only one, who could ta

mr. chairman today could have one final question mr. lightfoot my opening statement i talked about nasa's challenges with the gao high-risk list and i know this is something that you've been working on but does nasa have the touch of terry and human resources to address the concerns that nasa has raised and what's it going to take to get off that high-risk list? >> that's an interesting, i've been here for five years and is associate administrator i think we have been on the high list since i started. there are five categories that they ask you to get graded on. three of those are compliance. we are fully compliant. the two that they haven't fully complied with is what they call proving over time. if you look at the gao report while we are still on it they give us a lot of credit over the last five years and teams have put a lot of things in place with whether it's value management joints conference levels that we use. the challenge we have is we have some big programs coming up. we have james webb, with a space launch system and orion.

mr. chairman, for holding this important hearing. mr. ma mnuchin, welcome. mr. chairman, during his campaign for president, donald trump told us that at a time of massive income and wealth and equality, the very, very rich are getting richer, almost everybody else is getting poorer, that he, donald trump, wars going to stand up for the working families of this country. he was going to take on the establishment, and he was especially harsh on his words about wall street greed. he said he was going to drain the swamp. he said, and i quote, we can't fix a rigged system by relying on the people who rigged it in the first place, end of quote. he said, i'm not going to let wall street get away with murder. wall street has caused tremendous problems for us, end of quote. that's an exact quote from donald trump. he included language, pushed language into the republican platform, which i happen to agree with stating, quote, we support reenstating the glass seeing it will act of 1933 which probts commercial banks from engaging in high-risk investment rishd of quote. he sai

mr. chairman. secretary mattis, general dunford, thank you for being here and for your service. funding for cyber warfare command and u.s. cyber command has been protected in the budget since 2013. this has been a high priority for me, given responsibilities on both this committee and the house intelligence committee. admiral rogers testified recently that, and i'm quoting, to execute our missions i requested a budget of approximately $647 million for fiscal year '18, which is nearly 16% increase from fiscal year '17. however, cuts to the services impact our cyber warfare capabilities. cyber operations to counter isis are funded via oco, which could represent a hollow forces structure and cyber capability and readiness gaps still exist for european command against russia and u.s. pacific command against china and north korea. general dunford, for you, could you describe the readiness of our cyber forces to carry out the variety of missions they need to conduct around the world? >> i can, congressman

mr. chairman. mr. shanahan, one of the issues you're going to face is generically termed the third offset. bob work, who you are succeeding has done a remarkable job, i think, and he's been the leader for this effort. it's essentially trying to count counter technologically and otherwise our adversaries, their capabilities and leap ahead with new technologies. in trying to deal with that, the congress reestablished a position under secretary of as he was for research and engineering. but as deputy secretary, you're going to play a critical role in supporting the new or revised under secretary. but also reaching out to the whole community, the intelligence committee, the industrial community, technologic community. >> if confirmed, i will spend time with a group that has done the third offset work. and i have not received the classified briefings on the work that they have done. the effort i would undertake is to make sure we have a clear path to being able to operationalize the capability. when i look

mr. chairman. i think as chairman of the council of economic advisors, the difficult task of tax reform among other things will be much easier. so thank you very much forgiving me the opportunity to say a few words this morning about mr. hassett and i strongly support him and i hope the committee will send him to the floor. >> thank you, senator portman. now, senator shaheen, would you please introduce ms. patenaude. ms. shea-porter: thank you, mr. chairman -- mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. chairman. stater, pat ranite patenaude, to serve as the deputy secretary of the department of housing and urban development. what i have to say is probably overkill. after your comblowing review of her resume -- glowing review of her resume, mr. chairman. but ms. patenaude's experience in housing policy goes back nearly 3 1/2 decades. beginning with her work in new hampshire at the new hampshire housing finance agency. that was followed, as you pointed out, by services white house liaison at h.u.d. in the reagan ad

mr. chairman. i would like to add my praise for admiral syring, for his wonderful career so far in the military. we hope it continues. but i also want to ask unanimous consent to put my statement in the record so we can get on with the hearing. >> without objection, so ordered. all right. what i would ask, so we'll have time for questions and then also time to go into the classified section, ask each witness to try to summarize their statement in three or four minutes if they could. the full statement will be admitted to the record, without objection. first, mr. todd harvey, you're recognized for a summary of your testimony. >> thank you, sir. chairman rogers, ranking member cooper, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify about the defense department's continuing efforts to sustain and modernize our homeland missile defense capability so we remain ahead of the threat while providing integrated interoperable regional missile defense capability. the u.s. homeland is curr

mr. chairman. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. davis: i strongly support h.r. 2842, the accelerating individuals into employment act . which is better known as tanf. this important bill modernizing e tanf contingency fund to promote effective job training programs such as subsidized jobs, career pathways and apprenticeship programs. research is clear, subsidized employment career pathways and apprenticeship programs successfully engage people in employment, especially those who have been unsuccessful in finding paid employment through their efforts. . further research on employment programs document these initiatives increase employment and earnings both while individuals worked in a subsidized job as well as after their program ended. also, studies show that states operated these programs that provided tremendous benefit at very reasonable costs. many states use the tanf emergency funds to establish effective subsidized employment programs. usin

mr. chairman. mr. secretary, as we discussed in your testimony and in our -- the chairman and my testimony, even if you get the additional $52 billion, with skequestratio takes place -- >> and that would be more disruptive than anything i can see because there would be no prioritization. it would just be taking from the most sensitive programs. is that correct? >> that's correct, sir. it would be injurious and it would sideline this committee and myself in making wise decisions. >> did you make that point to the president in terms of ultimate consultation about this budget in his role as commander in chief. >> i can assure you president trump is keenly aware of this situation. >> what is his position on sequestration? >> i'd rather speak to mine because i can speak most authoritatively there. bottom line is the administration believes that the congress has to repeal the budget control act and the sequestration that follows. >> but wouldn't it be not only appropriate but essential that that be incorporat

mr. chairman, this concludes my testimony. happy to answer questions you or the members of the committee may have. >> thank you. we appreciate it. mr. rowan? >> thank you, mr. chairman. senator sanders, nice to see you. nice to see you, senator. nice to see you back. i missed you when i had the annual testimony. >> i missed you more than you might think. i'm glad to be vertical again. >> me, too. i was coming out of the hospital when you were going in, i think. anyway, i would like to thank you for the accountability act. it's an issue we have been deals with since we started bva calling on congress to take full accountability of all the v.a. operations. hopefully this will work and we support that bill. iu, as was noticed has got to be rescinded. that whole pro po sal is a budget that has no idea how it impacts people. it's just a dollar amount. the effects are beyond what everybody understood the first time with the nonsense social security was going to pick up the amount of money lost in iu, not even talking about the affect

mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >>> on wednesday, former homeland security secretary jeh johnson will testify in the russian interference on the 2016 presidential elections and he'll be speaking before the house intelligence committee. you'll be able to watch tp live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3 and watch it online at c-span.org or stream on the c-span radio app. recently on c-span. new orleans mayor mitch landrieu on the removal of a robert e. lee staff you. >> to lay out the reason yes the statues were erected in the first place and what we can do to recover from the age-old battles that have divided us for so long and because of new orleans' role in that dark period of our history, we were, after all, one of the country's largest slave market, i felt that i and little people in the city had a special responsibility to help our nation continue to move through racial discord. >> actress mariska hargitay at a bipartisan task force aimed at ending sexual violence. >> to hear these stories and to hear wor

mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman. our president has said that he does not have a conflict of interest so, i want to ask my colleagues on the committee what we would call this situation. the president decides to host a world leader at one of his resorts. in addition to the foreign delegation, this events requires the presence of hundreds of us government personnel, everyone from policymakers and security officers, to communication technicians, to the officer carrying the nuclear football. advanced teams are required to prep the site weeks ahead of the meeting, all that time those people are spending money, meals at the resort, parking at the resort, golf course to follow the president around at the resort. maybe even rooms at the resort. because the president's refusal to invest himself of his business interests, that money, taxpayer money and stuff in the pockets of the very person who directed the meeting to be held at his own property in the first place. that sure sounds like a conflict of interest to me and this is

mr. chairman. >> mr. neil you are recognized. >> thank you chairman. mr. secretary good to sue again. thank you for joining us today. a budget is one of value president trump's is no eggs exception. it cuts program after program that middle class families rely upon every day. you name it, the community development block grant program, stored loans for college students. all drastically cut or zeroed out. the budget also breaks the president's repeated promise not to cut social security and medicare. cutting social security benefits by up to $64 billion. the budge also cuts medicated by over $600 billion on top of more than $800 billion in cuts in the republican health care bill. it would also restrict health care coverage for children under the chip program significantly. for democrats, our values today reflect the strong commitment to the middle class. for every issue we consider here in congress, the first question we will ask ourselves and the majority is the following. will it help working families? if the answer is no, we won't support it. let's face it. for many families this has

mr. chairman. thank you. >> mr. delaney is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for holding this hearing on obviously a very important issue that affects all of our districts. as mr. dewine said, this is in every community in the country. and the fact that you've assembled such a terrific group of witnesses, i'm grateful for that. in particular i want to thank mr. dewine for what he's doing in holding the pharmaceutical industry accountable. you'll make them pay like other people will. and that won't solve the problem, but it's the right thing to do, and it will send a message that we're going to start thinking about these things differently. we believe in a capitalistic system in this country, i certainly do, but we want it to be just at some level. efforts like you're doing will help make that happen. it's fairly obvious what needs to happen. the witnesses have eloquently covered it here today. whether we have the conviction is another question. the steps mr. dewine is taking are obviously incredibly important. making sure we manage ourselves

mr. chairman. mr. rattner, let me take a moment to thank you for your leadership and recognize the success of automobile restructuring that took place during the midst of the recession. i remember having extensive conversations with individuals like mr. levin at the time. our greatest fear was if that industry entirely collapsed r&d would be moved offshore permanently and trying to get it back would have been near impossible. so i think we begin by changing you for what you were able to do to turn around that industry and to thank you for your kpochserv. as i noted in my opening statement, mr. rattner, my priority for tax reform is the middle class. middle class has contracted in the united states over the past two decades while those at the top have done better than ever before. that is not a statement from a democratic manifesto, it is from the pew foundation and many think tanks of a cross the country. working families did send a strong signal last november, frustrated by stagnant wages, tired of a

mr. chairman. mr. ambassador, i am very interested in ttip negotiations which we discussed in my office when you paid a visit, and as we look at the negotiations between the united states and the eu, i'm hoping you can give us an update on the plan and there are 500 million consumers in europe and they have a very similar lifestyle to us and one of the things that i also found very interesting was i actually suggested to president obama early on that we juxtaposed the two trade agreements, europe and asia, that we would have considered europe first because i think it would have been much easier to accomplish given the fact that there were many prospects of actually doing that and now to find that the administration, i think, needs to update us on what their plans are for ttip. i do think it's got an awful lot of potential for america's east coast if done correctly. and the second question, you perhaps just answered both. we all read this week about ford motor company deciding to build small cars, not i

mr. chairman. mr. shanahan, one of the issues you're going to face is generically termed the third offset. bob work, who you are succeeding has done a remarkable job, i think, and he's been the leader for this effort. it's essentially trying to co t counter technologically and otherwise our adversaries, their capabilities and leap ahead with new technologies. in trying to deal with that, the congress reestablished a position under secretary of as he was for research and engineering. but as deputy secretary, you're going to play a critical role in supporting the new or revised under secretary. but also reaching out to the whole community, the intelligence committee, the industrial community, tech knn logic -- technologic community. >> if confirmed, i will spend time with a group that has done the third offset work. and i have not received the classified briefings on the work that they have done. the effort i would undertake is to make sure we have a clear path to being able to operationalize the capabil

mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman. welcome. personal i want to thank you for the funds put in the budget to help up. the fleet facilities which you would agree is an important part of the nasa system. >> you agree with that? >> absolutely. were grateful to see that investment of a follow-up to question that senator asked the proposal to somehow merge that into a darpa program. a darpa satellite activityty occurs in geosynchronous orbit which is a very different orbit than the operational environment in the low earth orbit which is currently which restore services. by transitioning this away andng defunding restore l are you going to abandon the low earth orbit and not providing a refueling capability and thatint orbit? >> just like on the international space station where we've demonstrated techniques over time in terms of refueling, we believe we can develop technologies and let the public-private partnership taker technology and build the system to do the activities. at nasa we don't need to do the mission we just need to tra

mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >>> secretary of state rex tillerson is on capitol hill to testify on the president's 2018 budget request and priorities for his department. that is before the senator foreign relations committee here on c-span3. later in the day, live coverage of attorney general jeff sessions taking questions from the senate intelligence committee. he is expected to be zd about contacts with russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign and other issues raised by former fbi director james comey who appeared before the committee last week. this is the first time that the attorney general has testified before congress since being confirmed in february. that is also live here on c-span3. >>> in case you missed it on c-span. gerald callaway on the possible threat of climate change on national security. >> if you go back to older field manuals, one said weather and terrain are the most significant aspects of battlefield combat whether it's the open seas or runways or the hill you're go

mr. chairman. welcome, madam secretary. we're glad to have you here this morning. i want to associate myself with the chairman's remarks about yesterday's tragedy and the concern we all have for our colleagues, steve scalise, of course, and in particular i want to acknowledge david bailey, one of the police officers who was injured and we're very proud of him. he's a north carolina central university graduate, and we have followed his progress over the years. we really have come together as we must come together, as an institution and as a country, i believe, in face of this and i hope some good will come of it. but in the meantime, we are dealing with real personal difficulties, tragedies that command our attention and our -- and our good wishes. we're here this morning to examine the 2018 budget request for the department of transportation. this system that we're funding, facilitates the flow of commerce and impacts every american. we know that investing in transportation infrastructure keeps us

mr. chairman. mr. ratter in, i want to join ranking member neal, thanking you for your service to our country. i'm very concerned about values and comprehensive tax reform. some have said this is a once in a generation opportunity. i think we must take our time and we must do it right. we must get it right. as we consider tax reform, do you think it is important to consider the impact on working families and future generation? when will reform, tax policy should consider reforming the tax problem? >> yes, i do think it's important. as i said, i think it's just as important as getting comprehensive tax reform, removing the loopholes and avoidance techniques for individuals and for companies as well as getting the corporate tax system fixed, i think it needs to be fair and i think it needs to have a positive impact for the average american. i think to have a five and a half trillion dollar tax bill involving a 1,000 tax cut for the average american making $450,000 a year doesn't seem fair to me. i think

mr. chairman. >> mr. thompson you are recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman and mr. ambassador thank you very much for being here. the priorities for a trade policy must be to support and help create good american jobs, grow the economy, said asic standards for partners to live up to come improve market access and protect the labor rights and the environment. and congress has an important role in this. they value the opportunity to work with you to make sure that this happens. increasing the exports in limine trade barriers can really be a win for our economy provided the playing field is level and everyone operates under a fair and basic set of rules and that those rules are enforced. in that regard i want to associate myself with the added comments that have been made by a couple of my colleagues on the dais and i also want to associate with something mr. doggett said when you asked if suppressed wages in other countries are a subsidy to manufactures and those in other countries and i would ask similarly to poor environmental rules equally subsidy to producers in o