mr. chairman. -- mr. duffy: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for the work you've put in on this consumer protection bill. this bill is about accountability and transparency. as have been discussed today, the cfpb is collecting information on a -- almost a billion credit cards, a billion credit cards, which means if you're an american and you have a credit card, the cfpb is collecting and monitoring your transactions. so what we've done is said, listen, if you are here to protect the consumer, why don't you ask the consumer for permission and consent to take their information? if we care about the american citizenry, if we care about consumers and don't care about big government and the information they have on us, let's give them the power. let's ask them. that's all we do. empower the american citizenry. again, let's empower congress and the american people as well. when we don't fund agencies through this institution, we lose authority. we lose oversight. let's take that power and control back into congress and let's actually put th

mr. chairman. i rise today in opposition to this legislation and i would hope that my colleagues will read it, look before they leap. it's called the sportsmen heritage recreational enhancement act of 2014, but unfortunately it is mired in a muck of text in the legislation that i think does just the opposite of enhancement. it ought to read kill the habitat and wildlife and enjoy a dead forest act. this bill diminishes the conserves measures designed to protect the habitat for wildlife by creating loopholes in the wilderness act and weakens the nepa process. title 1 amends the toxic substance control act to prohibit the e.p.a. from regulating toxic substances contained in bullets, andling lures and other hunting equipment with respect to toxic substances, toxic substances. it's not just people that are affected by toxic substances, so are animals. and in here, they prohibit barring lead in bullets. now california is a big hunter state. and guess what? california state law prohibits the use of lead.

mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator. i yield five minutes or as much time as he may consume to the ranking member of the full house committee. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and thank you for your service for this great nation of ours as well. good afternoon, commander. i want to thank you and all members of dav and the aux illry for your service. we thank you for your continued dedication to our nation's veterans. i want to take an opportunity also to welcome those in the audience from maine, the sons and daughters of maine have a history of serving our nation. i'm glad to see that they're continuing that tradition as well by fighting for veterans' issues. dav and other veterans' groups are partners with us in congress as we work to keep our promise to america's veterans. i want to thank you for your work of advocating and the passage and enactment of hr 813, putting veterans' funding act first. it is time that the rest of va's discretionary budget be treated the same way. we owe i

mr. chairman? one difficulty i have with your second-degree amendment is you are giving the post office authority that congress ought to have when you tell them to begin implementing immediately whatever they find out in their study. we have no assurance anybody in congress will have capability on that committee and have no idea where that study might go. it might be considerably more difficult than the present language. so, with that caveat, i have that difficulty and i appreciate that you put your guns in the trunk of the car when you went to the post office, but i come from a part of the country where most people do not have a trunk. they call it a pickup. [laughter] >> we could not afford a pickup in those days. senator? >> mr. chairman, i appreciate this modification. i appreciate senator paul's amendment, what he is trying to do here. i would just say this. i am in strong support of the second amendment. i have got more guns than i need and i want some more, ok? at the bottom line, some place

mr. chairman -- with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. i urge my colleagues to vote no on the carper-coburn second-degree amendment to the modified baldwin amendment, to pass or adopt the ball when amendments and carry on with a markup. >> senator johnson seeking recognition. >> mr. chairman, thank you. i certainly share and represent the same interest as senator baldwin, obviously taking a somewhat different perspective on this. i would like to respond to a couple of comments and reinforce a couple of points. from my standpoint this is not my solution. i really think the best thing for the post office is to be set free. the best way to actually ensure that it remains an entity long term would be to go through our reorganization under the protection of the bankruptcy code. just the way it would happen in the private sector, providing the best chance for the postal service to survive long-term. again, what we are doing is resolving it through political process and seeing how messy that is and really, is that long-term survival is being put

mr. chairman. >> mr. conaway. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, thank you for being here. talk little bit about china's intentions, the growing tension in their efforts in the south china sea and towards japan, all those neighbors, vietnam, brunei, the philippines. why are they doing it? do we have the any idea as to what might come if with some sort of trigger event that occurred, ships running together, playing turning into china, some sort of interference that looks like an act of war. why is china precipitating these kinds of tensions in that area? and why don't you talk to us about -- >> china sees itself as a global player as well, and they feel they have historical, as unreasonable as it may seem to us, but in their mind, historical claims towards the nine dash line in the south china sea and over these islands. they have great concerns about our pivot which in their mind represents an attempt to contain, contain them. so they have been quite aggressive about asserting what they believe

mr. chairman. when doctors don't have the essential tools, they are restricted in what they can do for their patients. members of this committee have taken the lead and made major strides in working to reduce drug shortages by passing the food and drug administration safety and innovation act of 2012. in addition, i have worked very closely with chairman upton and chairman pitts on several of the provisions contained therein, and things have gotten better, but the problems are not completely gone. as recently as last week, food and drug administration listed sodium chloride injection bags as a drug shortage. sodium chloride is not a particularly esoteric or exotic molecule, for having that much trouble with salt it only makes you wonder what other more difficult molecules we may encounter there. the food and drug administration has a role in addressing drug shortages, but it is a complex issue. in 2010 over 240 drugs were in short supply, and over 400 generics were back ordered. many generics have

mr. chairman. >> through, mr. sec low. we appreciate that. recognize the choice chair of the committee. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you to the witnesses. this targeting issue is obviously very concerning. but understanding the government being what it is, understanding human nature, people are apartment to abuse their power. what's even more concerning for me is that once you have an admission of that, once you have somebody taking the fifth amendment, there's zero interest in rectifying any of this, in what the irs has done, what the fbi has done, the justice department, gri with the witnesses. this is a total sham and the american people aren't getting the answers. ms. engelbrecht, you mentioned in your statement but it bears repeating, you had 20 years in bids, zero issues with any agencies. you file for king street and true the vote for status and you're visited by how many different agencies? which ones? fbi. >> fbi, irs, bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms. >> atf. >> osha. >> osh

mr. chairman. my name is katherine engelbrecht, i'm the chairman of true the vote, a non-profit election integrity group, the founder of king street patriots and president of engelbrecht manufacturing. thank you for this opportunity to share my story with you today, though at the outset it must be said that it is a story with a central theme that is shared by countless thousands of other americans who have not yet been heard from, though i pray that they will be. it must be made publicly known that across this country, citizens just like me are being targeted by an administration willing to take any action necessary to silence opposition. i am an average american who prior to 2009 had never been active in the processes of government. but after volunteering to work in the polls in texas in the 2009 elections, i saw fundamental procedural problems that i felt couldn't go unaddressed. so i started true the vote, an organization that grew into a national movement to ensure every american voter has an o

mr. chairman i will defer at this time. i have another meeting. >> mr. airman, i am no boy years ago what types of criminal charges would you bring and what are the challenges against a swiss entity? >> there is whole host depending on what evidence you have 80 and abetting to conspiracy to defraud with what the best alternatives would be but there is a number of provisions in the tax and criminal code that could be used. >> what are the criminal charges? >> i was not here during that time it was a deferred prosecution agreement. what were the topic of that agreement? >> i also was not here at the time but it was conspiracy to evade taxes. >> was trying to establish the obvious why does switzerland have this huge banking sector it is there value their can they diversify where they hold their money? i am not opposed but i am totally opposed to tax evasion. my guess is the reason it is so utterly opposed to any transparency they don't want to destroy that safe haven. so there is no tax ride the chairman mentioned the 2009 treaty that was very different. is

mr. chairman. last week when we brought this up -- >> and just for clarification is this amendment number one? >> this is amendment number three. last week there were questions whether or not this amendment which would allow the bringing of guns on post offices property and whether this would apply to malls and federal buildings. we have added that to and now it is distributed and i believe it is in red for the changes. the changes are two and three and in the third section we say nothing is contruded the right of the private property owners. we would like to have a vote >> i am going to ask you to go back and repeat slowly what you just said. i want to make sure i understand you. >> we have making it explicit if there are private regulations or private restrictive things that don't allow guns in a mall those are in place and this doesn't supersede the private carry of gun. >> there are post offices in malls and convenience stores >> this is any contract. it says the rights of private property owne

mr. chairman. i rise in strong opposition to this bill. a bill that would destroy jobs, does nothing to address the real problem, the drought, and ignores more than 20 years of established science. what's the bill do? well, this bill help -- will this bill help alleviate the drought? no. even if we pumped as much water as possible, farmers would still not have enough. there simply isn't enough water to go around. we're in extreme drought, the worst in the last creptry. you can look at these photographs and see the snowpack last year versus the snowpack this year. we're in bad straits and it's a drought. it's not a man-made problem. it's a drought. will this bill kill jobs? yes. the delta supports thousands of jobs in farming, fishing and tourism and has an economic output of more than $4 billion a year. this bill puts those jobs in jeopardy. will this bill harm drinking water that millions of people rely on? approximate yes. when clean water is pumped south, the level of saltwater in the delta incre

mr. chairman? >> before senator levin speaks, again, keep in mind, senator pryor, last august -- really no participation of prc. there was a lot of blowback. we modified that so within the manager's amendment we did provide a role for the prc. not to the extent they have under current law but provided a significant change. we provided a further significant change with the second-degree amendment that is before us that would say -- 2015 cpi goes in effect going forward and in 2017 if there is negotiation between the postal service and the prc on changing the rate structure, the postal service can propose whatever they want. if the prc does not agree we stay at cpi. that is pretty simple. i think it is fair, reasonable. it gets us to a positive $7 billion cash position, even assuming we tamp down the revenues 8, 9, 10 years out. deputy postmaster general, could you comment? and i want to recognize senator levin. >> i just want to reiterate the point you made at the end of your statement and that is,

mr. chairman. we had six things i was going to ask, but i think director clapper answered two of them. a lot of detail, but i want to mention snowden that tied a war, and then one other question about the iran. first of all, you -- i thought you covered it very well, director clapper, in terms of what snowden has done. the disturbing thing, and we hear from an awful lot of people, treating him as if he's a hero, and i look at it more as a trader, and i would like to get from each one of you that he is ploabl, the degree he's perpetrated the single greatest compromise of information in american history, and secondly, respond that i believe that the vast majority of the 1.7 million documents that was stolen have nothing to do with nsa or surveillance programs and if disclosed or replaced in the hands of the add veer sorries to defend our homeland. the vast majority has nothing to do with the rights people are concerned about under the nsa. >> as i indicated, the revelations have gone way, way beyond

mr. chairman. when doctors don't have the essential tool they're restricted in what they can do for their patient. members in this committee have taken the lead and made major strides by passing the food and drug administration safety and invasion act of 2012. in addition, i have worked closely with chairman upton and chairman pits on several of the provisions contained therefore in and things have gotten better. as recently as last week the food and drug administration listed sodium chloride as a drug shortage. it's not a particularly exotic molecule. for having that much trouble with salt, it only makes you wonder what other more difficult molecules may the shortages may encounter there. food and drug administration has a role in addressing drug shortages. it is a complex issue. in 2010, over 240 drugs were in short supply or unavailable and more than 400 dper gear in rick were -- they operate on a margin so tight productions becomes corrupt companies cannot afford to continue the manufacturing.

mr. chairman. i'm a lot more interested in having a balanced investigation than i am a balanced hearing. in that light, ms. engelbrecht, dipped you hear the president say there was not a smidgeon of corruption? >> i've heard he said. >> ms. garretson, did you hear the president say there was not a smidgeon of corruption? let me translate that. smidgeon is not a legal term. i assume he meant scintilla. i assume he meant criminality instead of corruption. how is he able to make that conclusion? none of you have been interviewed by the bureau, have you? >> no, sir. >> no. >> according to mr. sec low, of his 41 clients, three have been interviewed or three were asked to be interviewed. >> none interviewed yet. >> so zero of 41 have actually been interviewed. >> correct. >> so the president says there's not a smidgeon of criminality or corruption. do either of you remember seeing a witness named lois lerner sitting at the very table y'all are sitting at? do you remember her invoking her fifth amendment

i yield back, chairman. >> mr. waltz, you're recognized. >> thank you chairman miller and thank you, commander, for your service and for continuing your service and to your family. no warrior deploys alone and no warrior comes home a lone. there's a family and broader community, commander miller, thank you. the importance of getting this right and work you do can't be understated. minnesota delegation here, there's a couple of these folks hold a special place for me i think for sergeant whitehead is here. he and i served together in the same artillery unit so i'll speak up for you back there sergeant. dave went zell came to my office through wounded warriors, dave are you here somewhere? i ask that to make sure you're working. thanks. good, he's here. we're grateful to each of you. no one comes to capitol hill with more credibility than this organization. and no one understands the importance of what you're doing. this goes beyond care of our wounded warriors and cuts to the heart of our democracy, what our values a

mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. engle. we hear from the chair of the middle east subcommittee followed by mr. ted deutsche followed by the ranking member. >> thank you. the biggest issue is we don't have al qaeda on the run, there are two issues which i continue to be concerned about. first is the safety of the residents of camp liberty. they still have little protection when last you testified, mr. mcgurk, 192 t-walls were up. the big progress is that 43 t-walls are up, in addition 17,500 t walls. they save lives, put them up. number two, the iraqi jewish archives ted deutsche and i and many other members are concerned. i don't want them to be shipped back. the iraqi government incorrectly states these papers are theirs. that is not true. we hope you continue to work on that. the bigger issue that brings that together obviously since the departure of the troops, al qaeda's reemergence causes iraq to take a turn for the worse. and al qaeda safe haven so we've got to rebuild our influence there. thank you, mr. chairman, for

mr. chairman. mr. mcgurk, thank you for your testimony.i feel like you've been sitting there for a long time, you might need to get up and stretch. but i appreciate your endurance. what are our military assets and and -- in iraq, and are they purely advisory? if so, how many? can you divulge that? >> we have under our embassy, under the chief of mission and ambassador beacroft, the office of security cooperation which works closely with the iraqi military, the numbers ebb bo -- ebb and flow, but it's about a hundred personnel. a very small contingent of half a dozen or so of our special operators who train some of the higher-end special operators as a training component. but that's all done under the embassy chief of mission -- >> all right. so we have a very small footprint as far as americans there. >> yes. >> what can be learned from how we left iraq and apply to the drawdown in afghanistan so we don't make the same mistakes or repeat what we've done there this so that we've got the benefit of the effort we put in there, you know, that

mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman, i have a unanimous consent request. i would request, mr. chairman, that after your remarks and the remarks of the ranking member that we insert in the record of the hearing at this point the names of those individuals, servicemen who lost their life in the chinook helicopter disaster, and i would ask that that be printed immediately after your remarks. >> without objection, so ordered. >> all right. >> i would like to thank again the members of our subcommittee for attending and like to recognize mr. fortenberry who has been involved and engaged in this issue and appreciate his presence here today. i would also remind members that they may have seven days to submit opening statements for the record. that would be all members, even those that do not serve here on our committee. it's now -- at this point i would like to recognize our panel, and we have members representing the pentagon and we have mr. gary p. reed who is the principal deputy secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict at the united states department

mr. chairman. mr.secretary, thank you for your statements regarding want to work with this committee and being responsive to our inquiries. after years of frustration and stonewalling from her predecessor, i look forward to having a dialogue. in fact, if we have as much stonewalling going down at the board as we from this demonstration we would have a secure border. and i am very keen on doing that first and foremost. that being said, i'm very concerned about some of your comments regarding illegal immigration. you claim the so-called conference immigration reform is a matter of homeland security. you've even gone so far as to say that those here legally have quote earn the right to be citizens unquote. which clearly signals that you favor amnesty. however, as we've seen in the past, amnesty simply does not work. we need to enforce the laws on the books and we need to secure the border the 480 conversation on any broad reforms. your comments of those, comments of those that you've made as was what pres

mr. chairman.> who are these workers? who are the people typically in this category? what kind of worker from an income scale side are being affected by this? >> so, the effect is principally on the labor supplied of lower wage workers and the reason is what the affordable care act does is to provide subsidies focused on lower and middle income people to buy health insurance and in order to encourage the sufficient number of people to buy health insurance a subsidies are large in dollar terms. those subsidies have been withdrawn over time or withdrawn for people as their income rises and by providing heavily subsidized health insurance to people with low income and withdrawing those subsidies that they income rises the act creates a disincentive for people to work relative to what would have been the case in the absence of that act. these subsidies make those lower income people better off. this is an implicit tax and not the tax we normally think of but providing a subsidies people are better off

mr. chairman. i have five minutes. >> i'm the chairman. let me say one thing. >> it's my time, mr. chairman. i have five minutes. >> the gentleman just asked me -- >> i have questions for the witness. >> i can recess if you want. i would rather you yield me 30 seconds. i was going to make a point about the mr. cummings issue. does gentleman yield? >> for the purpose of responding to why the ranking member was attacked. >> i don't think the ranking member was attacked. but i instructed our staff a couple of days ago to encourage miss engelbrecht and miss mitchell not to proceed with the ethics complaint. i further talked to them this morning not to proceed in that matter. we want the folks of this hearing to be the fact that these individuals were systematically harassed by their government. that's what the focus is. you guys keep wanting to bring this issue up. i've encouraged them not to pursue that. gentleman is recognized. >> i don't know how in one breath you encourage them not to do it and in the next breath give them the platform to do it. let me go to my question. >> because

mr. chairman. >> thank you senator boxer. senator boseman i mentioned earlier your help in accommodating the turnaround time for this hearing and i thank you very much for that. i also acknowledge you had a conflict earlier and it's nice to have you sitting next to me at the committee and now a good opportunity to senator boozman. i appreciate you holding this hearing on such an important topic and i apologize for being late. the prayer breakfast is going on this week and we have people literally from all over the world. i have some heads of state that i actually had to a visit with so again thank you very much for putting up with me and mr. chairman. i would like to follow along the same line as senator boxer. mr. mcnulty you mentioned that the importance of public exposure of all potential sources of contamination to regulate them, which i agree. i'm certainly very much in favor of doing that. do you or any of the other witnesses have any thoughts about how we can balance that, the value of publi

mr. chairman. myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. lankford: the last congress the oversight and government reform committee that i chaired began studying the effectiveness of the unfunded mandates reform act enacted in 1995. we held three legislative hearings and inquired with the congressional budget office and the office of information and regulatory affairs about various um bra provisions and possible improvements of the law. during our hearings representatives from state and local governments, private sector they came to testify about many of the burdensome mandates that are actually not characterized and not protected under the original unfunded mandate reform act. the analysis often failed to capture the heavy burdens of those regulatory mandates. umbra's limited coverage is a concern because as the chief economist of small business and entrepreneurship council testified, unfunded mandates in regulations continually stifle private sector growth and e

mr. chairman. agree with the comments you made. i want to address that, but i am concerned as everyone is about our national security. two weeks your returned from a trip to africa, afghanistan sought south asia, europe. it is clear from talking to troops, diplomats that the global security environment is complex and growing more dangerous every day. it stating last year before congress, in almost a 50 years and intelligence i do not remember when we have had a more diverse array of threats in crisis situations to deal with. based on the we have seen since a think you're exactly right. the reality is our national security is worse than ten years ago. around the world we're seeing trips to our security rice from the middle east to africa, east asia. allies to not trust us, and enemies of fierce. in iran the agreement has done nothing to stop the regime in richmond activities. in fact, i am willing to submit for the record the reuters -- date successfully test fired missiles. the defense minister sta

mr. chairman. some of the questions that mr. reed and mr. paulson, as well as chairman camp raised relate back to the seven items that chairman camp gave to you. >> right. >> hopefully, we can get those things cleared up. >> yes. mr. kelly? >> i'm delighted to have that list. it does focus on what it is that you feel you need more from, where you think you haven't gotten all the documents you need so we can actually be responsive. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. commissioner, thanks for being here. i would echo the comments for everybody else. you have a very tough job. your background suggests that you have done this before. so, when you were turning around different companies, you said you would called in to help out with troubled companies. when you look at the irs, your number one goal right now, it has to be restoring its image with the public. does it not? >> it is. as i said, i don't say it as words. public trust in the agency is critical. it's our most valuable asset. it's important to the -

mr. chairman. -- mr. speaker. last week i held health care town halls across my district. constituents shared their experience with the president's health care law while parts of the law have helped a few, a majority of people have been hurt. we heard from a mother with a mentally ill, disabled son who lost his plan. small business owners who had to cut employee hours to avoid the law's penls, even a wombatting cancer facing an uncertain future because of the law. they aren't lying. many promises made before the law's passage haven't and couldn't be kept. mr. walberg: americans have a right to feel frustrated. it's time america stops imposing a law that is clearly not working. we were promised lower costs, instead the president's own analysts reported 11 million people will see their premiums climb while their take-home pay drops. house republicans offer a step-by-step, commonsense approach that does lower cost, provides access to quality care that people need. we remain focused on policy this is a

mr. chairman. >> thank you. now, lastly we'll go to judge ted poe of texas, chairman of the terrorism subcommittee, follows by brad sherman for a minute of california who's the ranking member of that subcommittee. >> al-qaeda in iraq is back, certainly not on its last willings. the united states has paid a high price to help liberate iraq from the menace of al-qaeda. it is frustrating that al-qaeda is gaining ground back in iraq. al-qaeda's resurgence is directly related to prime minister maliki's mishandling of his government. incompetence and corruption seem to be the norm. he centralized power, alienated the sunnis and brought back shia hit squads. he has allowed iranian-supported operate i haves to kill m -- operatives to kill dissidents now on seven occasions without consequences. the last time you were here, mr. mcgurk, you testified before my subcommittee and ileana ros-lehtinen's subcommittee. i predicted that there would be another attack. seven days after you testified in december, camp liberty was atta

mr. chairman? >> mr. chairman, may i make a comment? >> yes, please. >> i think this illustrates why we need this amendment. the post office is obviously opposed to having guns in their parking lots are facilities and are appealing it. i think this is an open westin and the people should weigh in on it through their representatives. i think it should be noted that the history of violence from the post office has not been citizens coming into the post office. it has been postal employees. >> ok. what i would like to do at this point in time is to offer -- is there any further discussion on this? >> i had one other point, mike, if you would not mind. as far as the amendment i would offer, this amendment is supported by the nra some of the national association of gun rights, and don't owners -- and gun owners of america. all three groups will resist attempts to strike this language. any attempt to replace it with the study will be opposed and this will be seen as a vote, whether it is a vote to replace, this will be seen as a vote as to wh

mr. chairman. now madam chairman, should such a law address notification methods, content requirement and timeliness requirements, yes or no? >> yes. >> wouldn't work very well without it, would it? >> that's right. >> madam chairman, in the event of a data breach should comprehensive strategy and breach notification law require companies to provide free credit monitoring services to the effected consumers for a time concern, yes or no? >> yes, with limited exceptions. >> do you have authority to do that now? >> no. >> do you need it? >> i think it would be appropriate to have the requirement with limited exceptions. >> madam chairman, i note -- let's ask this question, should violation of such law be treated as a violation of a federal trade commission rule promulgated under the federal trade commission act, yes or no? >> yes. >> madam chairman, would you please submit some additional comments on that point for the record. >> absolutely. >> now madam chairman, should such a law be enforceable by st

mr. chairman. now madam chairman, should such a law address notification methods, content requirement and timeliness requirements, yes or no? >> yes. >> wouldn't work very well without it, would it? >> that's right. >> madam chairman, in the event of a data breach should comprehensive strategy and breach notification law require companies to provide free credit monitoring services to the effected consumers for a time concern, yes or no? >> yes, with limited exceptions. >> do you have authority to do that now? >> no. >> do you need it? >> i think it would be appropriate to have the requirement with limited exceptions. >> madam chairman, i note -- let's ask this question, should violation of such law be treated as a violation of a federal trade commission rule promulgated under the federal trade commission act, yes or no? >> yes. >> madam chairman, would you please submit some additional comments on that point for the record. >> absolutely. >> now madam chairman, should such a law be enforceable by st

and without i yield back, chairman. >> mr. wells, you are recognized. >> thank you, chairman miller, and thank you commander for your service and for containing your service and to your family. no water deploys alone and no warrior comes home alone. there's a family and the opportunity, commander miller, thank you, the importance of getting this right and the work you do can't be understated. minnesota delegation here, a couple of these folks hold a special place for me. i think our state adjutant or sergeant whitehead is here. he and i served together in the same artillery you know, so i will speak up for you back there, sergeant. [laughter] and dave wenzel is here. dave came to my office for a special project, wounded warriors, dave, are you here somewhere? i ask that you make sure you're working. thanks. [laughter] good, he is here. we are grateful, and to each of you, no one comes to capitol hill with more credibility and his organization. and no one understands the importance of what you are doing. this goes beyond care of

mr. chairman for holding this hearing. i'm pleased to welcome the new internal revenue service commissioner john koskinen to the ways and means oversight subcommittee. mr. commissioner, you have a tough job ahead of you. and i want to thank you for accepting this challenge. for being willing to serve. please know that many of us want to work with you address the financial service and staffing problem facing the irs. as you know, the recent omnibus funding bill provided $11.2 billion for irs operation in fiscal year 2014. this is a $1 billion decrease from the year 2010. i'm very concerned about the unavoidable reality of these budget cuts. today, there are thousands fewer irs workers struggling to meet a heavier workload. now, it takes much longer for taxpayers to receive responses to their inquiries and backlog that's not a dream. it is grounded and cold, hard facts. the irs staff must process 5 million more individual's return and answer 15 million more phone calls with $1 billion less. let me say that again. 5 million mo

mr. chairman. if we could move to another region in the world for discussion. i am interested in as we draw down in afghanistan, pakistan's influence. do you see them stabilizing or destablizi destablizing? >> their primary concern is india. they have the capability of being a stable force, particularly with the new administration. that is their instinct and they would like to. >> more individuals have been killed at the hands of terrorism than any other country wor worldwide. we work closely with them and sometimes we disagree on how to approach terrorism. but it is a partnership that must get better. >> can you talk about the continued relationship with afghanistan despite the withdraw? >> we hope, whatever the troop size, we have a positive relationship with the afghanistan government, whatever form that takes. and one of the major interest there apart from the peace stability is the need be to survey counter-terror ism operations. >> what happens if asad doesn't go in syria? >> he is in a stren

mr. chairman. now madam chairman, should such a law address notification methods, content requirement and timeliness requirements, yes or no? >> yes. >> wouldn't work very well without it, would it? >> that's right. >> madam chairman, in the event of a data breach should comprehensive strategy and breach notification law require companies to provide free credit monitoring services to the effected consumers for a time concern, yes or no? >> yes, with limited exceptions. >> do you have authority to do that now? >> no. >> do you need it? >> i think it would be appropriate to have the requirement with limited exceptions. >> madam chairman, i note -- let's ask this question, should violation of such law be treated as a violation of a federal trade commission rule promulgated under the federal trade commission act, yes or no? >> yes. >> madam chairman, would you please submit some additional comments on that point for the record. >> absolutely. >> now madam chairman, should such a law be enforceable by st

mr. chairman. >> senator casey. >> mr. chairman thank you very much for calling this hearing and ranking member collins as well. it's a very interesting topic and it's one that i think there's a lot of review and scrutiny by members of the united states senate and i would include the house and that as well. it's particularly interesting because i look at as they liked it when i represent pennsylvania, we have about 2 million seniors in our state and when i consider what they have done in their lives up to that point in time it's really extraordinary. when you think about -- i am at the end of the younger end of the baby boom generation. when i consider the generation just before the baby boom folks who might in their 80s now or close to that, they have lived through not just a remarkablremarkabl e time period but they have contributed so substantially to what we take for granted today. in a sense we take for granted we have a middle class. they have dealt it. especially after world war ii. if you consider the contribution t

mr. chairman. thank you and also ranking member moran for organizing this hearing on this topic of alzheimer's. it is very special to me because my own very dear father died of the consequences of alzheimer's now 25 years ago. so i've been at this a long time. and for many of us, we've had it either in our own families or people near and dear to us, and of course there are marquee names that talk about this. this is reagan, justice sandra day o'connor and others. really, it's -- this is an equal opportunity epidemic. it hits people at all income levels and whether you are the president of the united states like president reagan or a small grocer businessman like my father or like the men and women out here in the audience who wear the purple sash. they know this tremendous impact on family life, the family budget, and ultimately on our budget. so i think we all do need a sense of urgency about how we can come to grips with this and accelerate what we want to do. i want to welcome the witnesses here

mr. chairman. and i'm hoping that we'll get to some of that today. and with that i yield back. >> gentleman's time expired but let's see. mr. turner, you had no opening statement. and we'll go back to mr. c connolly and before i do, ask unanimous that the gentleman from tennessee mr. cohen be allowed to participate on the panel. without objection, so ordered and joined by mr. davis to be identified after mr. connolly because he is on the committee and not the subcommittee and then alphabetical order and hear from them next. mr. connolly, you are up. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing to examine the federal response to state marijuana laws. i want to be clear from the outset. i'm not unsympathetic to the concerns raised by skeptics on decriminalization. as a child of the '60s, i witnessed firsthand the ravages of drug abuse on so many friends, so many idols my generation had in both hollywood and in the music scene. i count myself, frankly, a skeptic. further, as a former senior professional staff member, one of my jobs

mr. chairman. and thank you madame chair for being here. we've heard from the other side of the aisle that the president's policies are not having any ill effect on the economy. yet, chair yelen, we have just recently all seen a report from the cbo that the obamacare affordable care act is estimated to cost 2.5 million jobs over the next decade. do you believe that regulation or overregulation has an impact on our economic growth and in the job creations? >> chair, yellen, i don't think your microphone is on. can you see if it's on, and if it is, please pull it closer to you. i apologize. i think certainly regulation has an impact on the economy, on economic growth. and there are many economic studies that have tried to document what it is. i think in the case of the affordable care act, cbo has done important analysis and probably will continue to look at it, i think they've recognized that the impact of the act is likely to be come flex. i think they're still attempting to figure out what all of

mr. chairman. dr. elmendorf, nice to see. thanks for your testimony. i want to dig deeper into the methodology that you use to assess the impact of the affordable care act on hours worked. and the chairman i think was mentioning an example of a young person, at least that would be a shame if somebody couldn't find his or her way up the economic ladder starting to work and so forth. my son is 30, single. he found insurance through the kentucky exchange, pretty good coach for him at $180 a month. so we talking about $2200 a year, premium. if he got 100% premium support, subsidy, what in the world kind of incentive would he have to not work? >> well, by working your income is dependent on many other things. health insurance is only one of -- >> seems to me there's an impression out there that you talk about a disincentive to work as a part of the impact and i'm guessing i'm committed of the methodology because i can understand why a 62 year-old under the affordable care act mindset i want to retire, and no

mr. chairman. that is the conclusion of this report if you look at the entire thing instead of a few paragraphs and i thank you, dr. elmendorf, for your work. >> dr. elmendorf, the floor is yours. >> thank you, members of the committee, congressman van hollen, i am pleased to discuss cbo's report on the outlook for the budget and the economy as well as our companion report released yesterday that dug more deeply into the slow recovery of the labour market. beginning with a budget the federal budget deficit has fallen sharply during the last few years and is on the path of decline further this year and next year. we estimate under current law the deficit will total $500 billion this year compared with $1.4 trillion in 2009. at that level this year's deficit with = 3% of the nation's economic output or gdp close to the average percentage seen during the last 40 years. the baseline projections show what would happen to federal spending, revenue and deficit over the next ten years of current laws were

mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. chairman and i would ask unanimous consent that we enter into the record the "washington post" article from february that says no cbo did not say obamacare will kill 2 million jobs. >> without objection. >> i enter that in the record because as i sit here and listen to this for two hours, i have to think of that the figures never lie. but sometimes people with an agenda misinterpreted facts. >> i spent all of yesterday sitting on the ways and means committee going through this name thing. obamacare is causing a deep and jobs i heard over and over again and we are saying the same thing over again. we are blaming private companies are cutting hours on their own volition at the feet of the aca because somehow it is unreasonable to expect a million or billion dollar corporation to provide health insurance for their people to who work slightly less than 40 hours a week. has anybody bothered to read mr. ellmendorf's report all the way to the end coming and you heard mr. jeffries and others t

mr. chairman, and welcome, mr. secretary. i'm going to just give you my questions and then have you respond given the time constraint. it's good to hear that you support the legislation. it's my understanding, however, that dhs is currently engaged in a working group whose recommendations will be coming out in may. and so i just want to give, get your feedback as to whether you think it's, it would be great for us to be informed by what the working group comes out with as we move forward to bring forth legislation. i also want to raise the issue of personal, personnel surety. this is the direction that nppd is going with components of cfab's raises some issues of longstanding concerns of this committee. lack of standardization and harmonization in the area of personal surety rumors across critical infrastructure sectors. if you would address that. and then finally, a comment. i wallet to applaud you on your -- i want to applaud you on your commitment to comprehensive immigration reform and add my voice to encourage you to pri

mr. chairman. and i'm hoping that we'll get to some of that today. d with that i yield back. >> gentleman's time expired but let's see. mr. turner, you had no opening statement. and we'll go back to mr. c connolly and before i do, ask unanimous that the gentleman from tennessee mr. cohen be allowed to participate on the panel. without objection, so ordered and joined by mr. davis to be identified after mr. connolly because he is on the committee and not the subcommittee and then alphabetical order and hear from them next. mr. connolly, you are up. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing to examine the federal response to state marijuana laws. i want to be clear from the outset. i'm not unsympathetic to the concerns raised by skeptics on decriminalization. as a child of the '60s, i witnessed firsthand the ravages of drug abuse on so many friends, so many idols my generation had in both hollywood and in the music scene. i count myself, frankly, a skeptic. further, as a former senior professional staff member, one of my jobs wa

mr. chairman, for calling this hearing. >> thank you. senator kirk. >> mr. chairman, i just wanted to highlight and praise dr. collins for the a.m.p. effort that brings together ten pharmaceutical companies. one headquartered in illinois. biogen. smith kline, johnson & johnson. institutionally these are all shareholder sponsored entities who all are going to be very interested in bringing something to market eventually which actually means actual patients will be helped. and not 25 year -- with all these institutions coming in to play they are only interested in the clinical application of what they find. and for a lot of the people, i'm sure that's where they are most focused on. >> senator, i appreciate your raising a.m.p. because i'm personally very excited about this and put close to three years in trying to build the momentum and was thrilled that it was possible to announce this just a couple of weeks ago. it is unprecedented to have nih and academic researchers getting together around the same table with equal financial contribution, with these ten pha