mr. lobiondo? >> thank you secretary, general for being here. i have a two-part question for you. i see that this year, in this year's budget, you submitted a request for approval to enter into a second multi-year contract for the ch-47 chinook helicopter. since you have been using the multi-year for chinooks for the past five years, and i understand that one will expire this year, what have you seen as the biggest benefit for you and the taxpayer of having the authority that has led you to request a second multi-year contract? and the second part of it, mr. secretary, is the armed aerial scout program an army priority? >> as the ch-47, we found that multiair contract to be very efficient. we're very, very pleased with the product and the product l e line. and as we have looked hard at our acquisition strategies, both successes and failures over the last several years, the ch-47 contract as it is currently configured seems to have embodied a lot of the answers and a lot of the solutions to some of our challenges. we thought it was in the best interest both in terms of production l

mr. lobiondo: i -- mr. loebsack: i thank the gentlelady, ms. slaughter. i thank her effort and the effort of congressman walz as well for initially bringing this bill forward. at a time when we now heard about some things we heard on "60 minutes" at a time when really nobody was paying attention to this issue. these two folks had the courage to bring this forward. i want to thank them for that. i was really proud to be the fourth co-sponsor of this legislation back in may, at least this version we are talking about, not the current version that's on the floor. i really think that it's absolutely urgent that we fix the current loophole that as already mentioned by so many of my colleagues, that allows members of congress to use information that they obtain in a nonpublic fashion for their own financial benefit. this is something that on the face of it simply makes no sense that we should allow that to happen. not in a democracy. not certainly in congress and this institution. it was mentioned that this institution's not much respected right now. in fact, t

mr. lobiondo. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for your testimony today. i can truly tell you as a pilot there is a palpable difference in the cockpit when you have the avoidance systems using the gps. when you are flying in the coming from the east going into salt lake city and you know you are skirting the top of the mountains, it is a comforting feeling to have that gps. but, light squared has agreed to a standstill as i and a stand on the use of the upper portion of the spectrum and it's a portion that is actually closest to the gps signal and stated that it would like to work on the gps to develop the strategies as they put it in order to initiate the commercial operations in the upper spectrum what two or three years. is in your opinion and understand when your testimony as you said there is no mitigating conclusion and do you think that two or three years to be able to find some type of strategy is in that window? and number two, from what we know, even though we really can identify the mitigating strategy, the cost to the general aviation to implem