mr. cummings, aej others. mr. connolly, the whole committee.for your persistence to bring the data act to fruition. and for holding this important hearing on early implementation phases. as i've testified before this committee before, i think effective implementation of the data act can have profound implications for increasing the transparency of government spending for the public. to facilitate better management by agency managers by giving them more accurate and timely information to manage by and thereby promoting efficiency and effective so government and also help facilitate efforts to reduce and hopefully eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in federal government and identify overlapping duplicative programs that can be identified and remedies. now effective implementation, m my opinion and experience, will not happen without strong leadership by o & b treasury and attention by the agencies. and i think our recent report on usa spending.gov illustrates the challenge here. five years after implementation, and 2012 data on usa spending.gov we

mr. cummings, of course. >> just one thing. maybe, mr. chairman, during the course of this hearing, you can confer with counsel at some point. >> that's what i'm going to do. i'm going to go on with the hearing and we'll try to do this behind the scenes because i don't want to delay the hearing for what has proven to be -- and mr. mica, i will seek additional time for you if we can get the information. >> thank you. >> mr. norton is recognized for five minutes. >> excuse me, i want to thank you mr. chairman. again for your friendship, for your service, and for the respect you have shown for the american citizens who live in the district of columbia, demand to be treated as free and equal americans, and you have always done that. i appreciate your work on this committee. very difficult committee, and i sympathize. dr. gruber, i accept your apology. i'm not going to question you further. your statements invite acts of demagoguery. you will hear enough of those. i decline to participate. ms. tavenner, the 400,000 difference, 400,000 differen

mr. cummings. >> 30 seconds. e thing i failed to, when i was complimenting you earlier -- >> you're not taking any of that back? >> no, no. i wanted to take a moment, mr. chairman, express my deep appreciation and respect for your staff and for my staff. i know a lot of people will be moving on to new jobs, but these are folks that work night and day, trying to present the very best that they can to this committee and to the american people. i take a moment to thank them for all that they have done. this is a key, time in american history. and i appreciate it. thank you. >> well, thank you and, because of your wise comments i'm going to pile on just in one sense, mr. cummings. we do have the best staffs on the hill. they do countless, thousands of hours of deposition and transcribed interviews. they pour over more documents than any other committee of the congress and they're able to qualitatively search for and find in ig reports, in freedom of information reports and obviously in working with whistle-blowers, th

mr. cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. before i began i know today is your last hearing. and as chairman of the oversight committee, i want to thank you. as you said a few moments ago, we have taken this journey together. and it has been a great journey. i said during your harnking of your portrait right there -- >> thank you for saying i was hung. >> that i believe that everybody who comes along your path comes along your path to make your better. and i will tell you, mr. chairman, you've made me a better person in so many, many ways. i want to thank you. i want to thank you for your service. i want to thank you for your dedication. i want to thank you for taking the time to get to understand these issues in a very, very intricate way. a lot of people have not been in the many meetings we sat in, i don't know how you do it but you seem to be an expert on so many, many things. and i know it is because it is your passion. and so i thank you. in a way i wish we had last week's hearing on the data act today. because it was such a positive note for bipartisanship. and it show

mr. cummings working together to make government work better for people. o i join my words in congratulating you. >> thank you. and senators, i apologize for not giving you a fox moment. mr. chairman -- >> the gentleman from virginia. thank you, i hope my colleagues from the senate will indulge. i want to congratulate you also. thank god you didn't have that gavel when you began your chairmanship. but it is fitting that you get it at the end of your tenure. i want to congratulate you today on the news that the legislation, the federal i.t. acquisition reform act is in fact headed for passage both in the senate and in the house and i say congratulations to you. it was an honor collaborating with you on such an important topic. such a great way to cap your career. congratulations. >> thank you. all other accolades can wait until you vote because you ni k you have a vote in a few minutes. senator warner and junior senator from ohio, senator portman, and senior goes first -- mark you haven't taken your self out of run for president either. >> i don't feel that'

mr. cummings were sitting in we chair or anyone else, could expect no less. >> mr. chairman, i think his counsel is talking to him. >> mr. chairman? a t on that question, i have politifact document here and they have a fact checker thing that has, you know, all kinds of numbers. they went into this in depth as to what the gentleman was paid. i wonder if we just enter this in as part of the record -- >> we'll certainly be happy to enter in without objection. >> all right. thank you. the gentleman from ohio may continue. i have unanimous consent you have an additional 30 seconds without objection. >> i think i have a question for mr. gruber on the table. i'm waiting for his answer. >> i was informed i should report all moneys received from this fiscal year and the two previous years. i did that. >> i don't care what you were informed. i care about what i'm asking you. how much money did the taxpayers, state or federal, pay you to have you then lie to them? hat's what i want to know. >> over this year and the previous -- >> no, no. look. this has been a five-year ordea

mr. cummings. >> you had not heard that? i hadn't heard it either. >> i don't think so. >> we will check on that. let me just say this. one of the things that i think about and talk about the older i get is that we have a limited amount of time to be in these offices. and i'm so sorry, mr. gruber that you said. i'm sorry the mistake was made. i believe it was a mistake. but what it does it distracts. it distracts from all the good things that are being done with regard to this law. that is the most painful part of all of this. you know? i talked to a lady the other day who had to wait for the affordable care act to go into affect to get breast cancer treatment. i mean, i can -- story after story after story. now we have to spend this time dealing with something, mr. gruber, that you were conjecturing about. i just told my staff, i said, we ought to learn from this. watch what you said. it can lead to significant consequences. i was sorry to hear about mrs. loomis' husband. i was curious, what did you want to say? >> first of

mrs. cummings. that kind of tenacity and courage rubbed off on me. as i'm mber as clearly sitting here when she would me that story -- i do understand then, i was probably to understand than -- but that was a defining moment in my life. she lived to be 92 years of age. she passed six or seven years ago. [applause] 92, that's a long time. >> when you were a young man, and you are very busy. in addition to school, and honor society, you had a lot of odd jobs. but even then, if you were a bit of a rabble-rouser. you write, do you like to drink white water from a white water fountain. what did your mother say about that? hell out of ed the me. that was the custom in the south. she had beencondition to be like that. >> i thought that was an interesting point in your book. back then,people in to live ion were used young hat -- it was the ones, who said,, you are crazy why are you living like this. >> that's true. me do this -- backup,, and put the book in context. a lot has been written about marion barry. a lot of photographs have been taken. but those in

mr. cummings. we do have the best staffs on the hill. they do countless thousands of hours have transcribed interviews. they pore over more documents than any committee and the congress and they are able to qualitatively search for and find in ig reports and obviously in working with whistleblowers things that no other committee can find. i think that is a genuine statement for both sides. there's no better committee staff than we are honored to have and i thank you for bringing that up. now go to to the german from ohio mr. turner. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. gruber you have said your statements were inexcusable and insulting. i certainly understand when someone gets caught saying something that is inflammatory how you might want to recant it however some of the things that you said were substandard play bass and although they may be inexcusable and insulting they were said. in the end they may be true. i want to walk you through some of the statements that you made that were substandard in nature. you said you did complex microsimul

mr. cummings. we do have the best staffs on the hill. they do countless thousands of hours have transcribed interviews. they pore over more documents than any committee and the congress and they are able to qualitatively search for and find in ig reports and obviously in working with whistleblowers things that no other committee can find. i think that is a genuine statement for both sides. there's no better committee staff than we are honored to have and i thank you for bringing that up. now go to to the german from ohio mr. turner. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. gruber you have said your statements were inexcusable and insulting. i certainly understand when someone gets caught saying something that is inflammatory how you might want to recant it however some of the things that you said were substandard play bass and although they may be inexcusable and insulting they were said. in the end they may be true. i want to walk you through some of the statements that you made that were substandard in nature. you said you did complex microsimul

mr. cummings. he and i have to consult with each other before any decisions are made. but that memo was pretty important to our understanding of how a false narrative was perpetrated to our fellow citizens. >> you want him. >> i want to talk to everybody who has access to relevant information. >> do you expect to call former secretary of state hillary clinton? >> i don't see how you can have any definitive accounting of benghazi without talking to the secretary of state at the time. >> so we expect hearings from january we'll see those three, at least they'll be requested their presence? >> we won't do those three in january. i need the remainder of the document production from the state department before i can interview secretary clinton. they've been cooperative and they've been helpful. but as you know with a really good lawyer, you can't examine anyone until you have all the documents. >> what's the problem get the documents to me. we've been talking about this now for two years and a couple months. your committee hasn't been around that long. but what's the delay

mr. cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first of all, i would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. in particular, i want to thank you, secretary starr. i listened to what was just stated and asked, but my what stated. but my concern, and i'm sure it's the concern of the entire committee is when all the dust settles, that the request of every single family member that we met, when the dust settles i hope it's carried out, and that is, that our facilities are safer. so that things are not like this, an unfortunate incident does not happen again. the department's update shows continued strong progress towards full implementation of the arb recommendation. the total elimination of risks is a nonstarter. for u.s. diplomacy given the need for the united states government to be present and places where stability and security are often most profo d profoundly lacking and host government support is sometimes minimal to nonexistent, end quote. nonetheless, we serve americans serving overseas our best effort to keep them

mr. cummings: thank you very much. i want to thank mr. jeffries for calling this special order tonight. and let me say to america, whenever law enforcement officers -- a law enforcement officer shoots and kills an unarmed citizen in this great country, america has a problem. and i want us to be very careful that we don't become distracted and not address the issues. and i know that we in the congressional black caucus make sure that we don't get involved in motion, commotion, emotion and no results. and that's what this is all about. because the things that we're talking about is trying to bring about change, not just for our young people today, but for generations yet unborn. and so let me just briefly state that i'm very pleased with what the president did today. i think it's a step this the right direction -- a step in the right direction. the effort to get body cameras, 50,000 of them, to establish a task force. ight i along with 100 other leaders wrote to the president and we just asked for certain things and i'll yame them and then yield back to the gentleman. we asked d.o.j. deve

mr. cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first of all, i would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. in particular, i want to thank you, secretary starr. i listened to what was just stated and asked, but my what stated. but my concern, and i'm sure it's the concern of the entire committee is when all the dust settles, that the request of every single family member that we met, when the dust settles i hope it's carried out, and that is, that our facilities are safer. so that things are not like this, an unfortunate incident does not happen again. the department's update shows continued strong progress towards full implementation of the arb recommendation. the total elimination of risks is a nonstarter. for u.s. diplomacy given the need for the united states government to be present and places where stability and security are often most profo d profoundly lacking and host government support is sometimes minimal to nonexistent, end quote. nonetheless, we serve americans serving overseas our best effort to keep them

mr. cummings point is actually good, that it's a combination of a d-u-n-s which is quickly assign versus the cage system which can be very cumbersome when even rockwell and lucky, very large companies sometimes sell unit to each other and find themselves in a real conundrum. so if you would answer it fully i think would help us understand the limitation of the data act. >> we will definitely do that. >> thank you. mr. lankford. >> let me join others in the accolades for getting a chance to serve with this chairman and very much appreciate being able to serve in which is handle things here. mr. comptroller, what to make a couple of comments on comments you have in your written statement as well as some you'd meet in oral statement as well. from your written statement, the data act was enacted to address these challenges among other things did act requires number one establishment of governmentwide data standards by may 2015. how is it going on that? do we have a firm deadline on those in place? what's the progress report? >> i think that the treasury and omb and the agencies are off to a

mr. cummings: thank you very much. i want to thank mr. jeffries for calling this special order tonight. and let me say to america, whenever law enforcement officers -- a law enforcement officer shoots and kills an unarmed citizen in this great country, america has a problem. and i want us to be very careful that we don't become distracted and not address the issues. and i know that we in the congressional black caucus make sure that we don't get involved in motion, commotion, emotion and no results. and that's what this is all about. because the things that we're talking about is trying to bring about change, not just for our young people today, but for generations yet unborn. and so let me just briefly state that i'm very pleased with what the president did today. i think it's a step this the right direction -- a step in the right direction. the effort to get body cameras, 50,000 of them, to establish a task force. ight i along with 100 other leaders wrote to the president and we just asked for certain things and i'll yame them and then yield back to the gentleman. we asked d.o.j. deve

mr. cummings. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. cummings: thank you very much. first of all i want to thank you, ranking member rahall, for this time. i also thank you for your work on this legislation and for your decades of service to our great nation. you will be sorely missed in the transportation committee and indeed in the congress. i also want to thank chairman shuster, chairman hunter, and ranking member garamendi for all of your hard work on this legislation. i rise today in support of this measure, h.r. 5769, the howard coble coast guard and maritime transportation act of 2014. it's interesting that mr. coble just got up to make sure that he thanked everybody, but i want to thank him when i served at the -- as the chairman of the subcommittee, he was one of the -- one of my staunchest supporters. he was the epitome of bipartisanship. and he always made it clear that the coast guard was sometimes not put on the front burner but the back burner. he wanted to make sure they were on the front burner. i want to thank him for th

mr. cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first of all, i would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. in particular, i want to thank you, secretary starr. i listened to what was just stated and asked, but my what stated. but my concern, and i'm sure it's the concern of the entire committee is when all the dust settles, that the request of every single family member that we met, when the dust settles i hope it's carried out, and that is, that our facilities are safer. so that things are not like this, an unfortunate incident does not happen again. the department's update shows continued strong progress towards full implementation of the arb recommendation. the total elimination of risks is a nonstarter. for u.s. diplomacy given the need for the united states government to be present and places where stability and security are often most profo d profoundly lacking and host government support is sometimes minimal to nonexistent, end quote. nonetheless, we serve americans serving overseas our best effort to keep them

mr. cummings: thank you very much. i want to thank mr. jeffries for calling this special order tonight. and let me say to america, whenever law enforcement officers -- a law enforcement officer shoots and kills an unarmed citizen in this great country, america has a problem. and i want us to be very careful that we don't become distracted and not address the issues. and i know that we in the congressional black caucus make sure that we don't get involved in motion, commotion, emotion and no results. and that's what this is all about. because the things that we're talking about is trying to bring about change, not just for our young people today, but for generations yet unborn. and so let me just briefly state that i'm very pleased with what the president did today. i think it's a step this the right direction -- a step in the right direction. the effort to get body cameras, 50,000 of them, to establish a task force. ight i along with 100 other leaders wrote to the president and we just asked for certain things and i'll yame them and then yield back to the gentleman. we asked d.o.j. deve

mr. secretary, are saying, give it up. and by your own argument, i might add, you're making the argument you should give it up. there's a culture change so big you're describing it to ranking member cummingsnd a world that is so dangerous that you're using all kinds of words that we all agree with. so why in the world hang onto this thing? >> for a very specific technical reason, sir. we pick a place. sometimes the best that we can get in a short duration if we're going to go back in. we have to make decisions on what needs to be done and what level of things we can't possibly do. i can't create 100 feet of setback when there isn't 100 feet of setback and we may have to accept that. at a certain point we have to make decisions, are we going to accept that? do the rest of the things we need to do. or are we just going to say, no, we're not going to accept that? and then continue looking until we find a place. by the way, i've never found a place to lease in 30 years in the department that actually had 100 feet of setback that was available. >> secretary starr, what is different than the reasoning you just articulated to me just now from the reasoning that put us in benghazi and that allowe

mr. speaker, i thank congressman welch for yielding me time as well as chairman issa and ranking member cummings for their support in bringing this bill to the floor. i rise today in strong support of h.r. 4030, a bill to designate the post office located at 18640 northwest second avenue in miami gardens, floe, as the father richard mar kess-barry post office building. the reverend canon richard livingsston mar kess-barry -- barry was born in miami, florida, to bahamian immigrants. he attended the miami-dade county public school system and worked as a garbage collector before school and dishwasher after school. he earned his bachelor of arts in 1962, that same year he, married his college sweetheart. the couple is married for 52 years and has one daughter and two grandsons. reverend barry's lifelong devotion to the church began in 1965 when he became the only person of color enrolled at the virginia theological seminary. three years later, he earned a mast for the beginity and in 1989, he was the youngest person to earn a doctor of divinity degree in the 200 year history of the virginia theologi

mr. secretary, are saying, give it up. and by your own argument, i might add, you're making the argument you should give it up. there's a culture change so big you're describing it to ranking member cummings and a world that is so dangerous that you're using all kinds of words that we all agree with. so why in the world hang onto this thing? >> for a very specific technical reason, sir. we pick a place. sometimes the best that we can get in a short duration if we're going to go back in. we have to make decisions on what needs to be done and what level of things we can't possibly do. i can't create 100 feet of setback when there isn't 100 feet of setback and we may have to accept that. >> what is different than the reasoning you just articulated to me just now from the reasoning that put us in benghazi and allowed four people to be killed? what is different? >> i will admit that there is some measure of risk in what i am saying. but -- >> huge risk based on what you're saying. >> i don't agree that it's huge risk. >> you just said it's a dangerous world filled with extremists and disaffected youth. that was five minutes ago. >> true. >> i think we have to be able to make decisions to progr