mr. carraway's a tendency would be very important and i'm wondering if the committee has no plans to subpoena him mr. chairman? >> i honestly don't know. i discussed that with staff before. >> and i yield to the ranking member? >> what is your question? >> well the fact that we have some wide problems here from perimeter security to people that are on the pre-checklist that are felons and it's a wide gap in our security. mr. carraway's attendance would be extremely important and i am just wondering are we going to get him in there because a lot of my questions are for him. >> same here. >> i did want to ask the ranking member. >> chairman chaffetz and i discussed this. it's fine to avoid in the subpoena and i mentioned earlier in my opening i agree we really do need carraway here. and so i asked the chairman decided date certain for him to come in so that we can get him an ear to ask him questions because you are absolutely right to. >> i would agree. we talked about it with the chairman and i would be supportive of a subpoena if necessary. >> if it's needed or if i want to voice my support f

mr. carraway who's the acting administrator to come before the committee.t first we heard a variety of excuses. we needed more than two weeks. for weeks, we had planned to do this, in fact more than a month, felt that he as the acting administrator would be pivotal to this discussion. but homeland security objected to mr. ron's presence on the panel. they felt it was demeaning to actually have the acting administrator sit on the same panel as a nongovernment witness. that's absurd. that's offensive. it's a waste of the committee's time. it's a waste of congress's time. we don't need two panels to have this discussion. we had decided in a bipartisan mutual way that cabinet level secretaries, if they come to testify before the committee will be the sole person to testify. if you're below a cabinet level secretary, we're not going to separate you out into your own panel. but the tsa, different than others that we've had. we've had a variety of other people come before this committee who sit side by side with regular people from the outside, from the private se

mr. carraway, the acting administrator, to come before the committee. at first we heard a variety of excuses. we needed more than two weeks. then we had a dust up because, for weeks, we had planned to do this. in fact, more than a month, we planned to do this. felt that he as the acting administrator would be pivotal to the discussion. homeland security objected to mr. ron's presence on the panel. they felt it was demeaning to actually have the acting administrator sit on the same panel as a non-government witness. that's absurd. that's offensive. it's a waste of the committee's time. it's a waste of congress's time. we don't need two panels to have this discussion. we want to have one panel. now, we had decided in a bipartisan, mutual way, that cabinet level secretaries, if they come to testify before the committee, will be the sole person to testify. if you're below a cabinet level secretary, we're not going to separate you out into your own panel. but the tsa, different than others that we've had -- i would remind you we've had a variety of other peo

mr. carraway and others aren't given time to listen to on how to deal with our passengers and our security risk which includes the perimeter because they hear about it just like us. and know for a fact all that they've done at the precheck line or the general line can be taken out of any type of positive results simply because we haven't looked at all the places we could go. so thank you for your testimony. i see my time has expired and i yield back. mr. mica: mr. lynch, you're recognized. mr. lynch: thank you mr. chairman. mr. chairman, if i could just ask -- i know that because of the scope and depth of the problem here mr. caraway's attendance here would be very, very important. i'm just wondering if the committee has any plans to subpoena him, mr. chairman. mr. mica: i don't. i honestly don't know. i discussed it with the staff before -- mr. lynch: and i yield to the ranking member. mr. cummings: what was the question? mr. lynch: we have some wide problems here, you know, from perimeter security to people that are on the prechecklist that are felons and it's a pretty wide gap in our se

mr. melvin carraway active administrator for the department of transportation security at the departmentland security was scheduled to testify but has not arrived, not shown up and has elected to not testify today which was not an optional activity.