mr. meehan: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and tend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. meehan: mr. speaker, yumeds. -- i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. meehan: mr. speaker, i rise in support of my bill, h.r. 3488. this legislation would require that the secretary of homeland security meet certain conditions and requirements prior to establishing any new u.s. customs and border protection preclearance operations in foreign countries. the custom and border patrol's preclearance operations overseas inspect and examine travelers and their merchandise in foreign locations prior to their arrival in the united states, and then once cleared of foreign soil, passengers do not have to clear customs upon arrival in the united states. congress has a long history of supporting

mr. meehan: mr. speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 2952, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 241, h.r. 2952, a bill to amend the homeland security act of 2002 to make certain improvements in the laws relating to the advancement of security technologies for critical infrastructure protection, and for other , -- for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. meehan, and the gentlewoman from new york, ms. clarke, will each control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. meehan: mr. speaker, i ask that he can that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. meehan: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pr

mr. meehan of pennsylvania. the chair: is there objection? without objection, the request for the recorded vote is withdrawn. accordingly, the ayes have it nd the amendment is adopted. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? mr. crenshaw: mr. chairman, i move that the committee do now rise. the chair: the question is on the motion that the committee rise. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it, the motion is opted and accordingly, the ommittee rises. the speaker pro tempore: mr. chairman. the chair: the committee of the whole house on the state of the union, having had under consideration h.r. 5016, directs me to report that it has come to no resolution thereon. the speaker pro tempore: the chairman of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee has had under consideration h.r. 5016 and has come to no resolution thereon. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in rec "washington journal" continues. >> host: we are back with califo

mr. meehan for five minutes. >> i'm not sure i understand that answer. you said you didn't know who they were, and yet their names are on the top. >> sir, the acting director at the time was familiar with the employees and wrote down their names to make sure that if they were in the office that day, and wanted to be addressed by the committee staff, that they be made available. >> you had the philadelphia office. you've heard testimony that there are 96 white boxes of essential return mail and eight small cabinets of military mail. some of which were holding claims that had been existing for as much as three years. were there, in fact, 96 white boxes in the cabinets with that kind of mail? >> sir, i was just appointed to the director's position in philadelphia. my understanding from the report is when that was initially raised, the undersecretary asked the pension fiduciary service director to send his staff up there, and i would need to review the final report to identify -- >> this was raised in february of 2012. >> yes, sir. >> it's now 2014. >> yes,

mr. meehan of pennsylvania. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 661, the member from pennsylvania and a member opposed each will control five minutes. mr. meehan: i offer an amendment to the financial services appropriation bill and -- i would like to commend chairman crenshaw to stopping the culture of spending and continuing the culture of savings that we have seen from his subcommittee chairmanship. given our country's current fiscal situation, we need to be mindful of limited resources and do more with less. one of the most basic concepts in budgeting is balancing wants versus needs. the need is something that you have to have, something you can't do without. a want is something that you would like to have. good example calcium. it is necessary for survival, but ice cream, on the other hand is a want. everyone needs calcium but people would do just fine without ice cream. this congress understands the difference between wants and needs. my amendment prohibits any funds from this bill being spent by the g

mr. meehan. >> mr. secretary, i'm very grateful for your leadership of this agency at this particularly difficult time. you know my respect for you. i do respectfully disagree with you on this issue with regard to the deferred action on child arrivals. i've been, as you know, a prosecutor and we've been fighting violence and drugs for the last decade or more. the one changed factor has been the new permissive policy of this administration on deferred action for child arrivals. i also want to associate myself with the comments of my colleagues both here and on the other side. i hope every college kid who is sitting here with their visions of the important world they're playing with social activism and looking at investments for colleges or global warming will appreciate that when they're sitting in their dorm smoking dope purchased from these drug gangs, this is the implication, and maybe there is a little time for social activism there, too. regardless, let me ask you a question about your apprehending

mr. meehan for five minutes. >> mr. chairman i want to thank you for the courtesy of being able to be with you today and ms. ruell i see by your testimony you are warned by his supervisor that you were at the philadelphia management center that you are not permitted to report issues to your director and i greatly regret that and appreciate the courage of you being here today. in addition your testimony and those of your colleagues has opened the door to the appreciation of we are seeing exactly the same type of cooking the books on the benefits side of the va as has been exposed on the health care side. this is a whole new expiration of the management problems at the va. your testimony is very compelling. you've talked about improper shredding of documents documents and he you talk about beneficiaries getting improper payments and in many cases duplicate payments. you've talked about the failure to rectify once those payments have been improperly paid and you've talked about the failure to notify the irs of what could b

mr. meehan vote aye. >> aye. >> mr. hastings votes eye. >> aye. >> mr. woodall votes aye. mr. massey. mr. collins. mr. collins votes aye. mr. meadows. >> aye. >> mr. bentovolio votes aye. mr. desantos votes aye. mr. cummings votes no. mrs. maloney votes no. miss norton. miss norton votes no. mr. tierney votes no. mr. clay. mr. lynch votes no. mr. cooper. mr. connelly. >> anyway. >> mr. connelly votes no. miss spear. >> no. >> mr. cartwright. >> i would like to associate myself with the words of the ranking mechanical b ining memb. >> miss duckworth. >> no. >> miss kelly. >> absolutely not. >> mr. davis. mr. welch votes no. mr. cardenas. >> no. >> mr. horseford. >> no. >> miss grisham votes no. >> all members voted? the clerk will call -- >> on that vote, sir, 14 -- 19 ayes. 14 nos. >> the resolution rejecting the claim that david psimos is immune from being compelled to testify before congress on matters related to his official duties is approved and we stand adjourned. >>> now a live picture from capitol hill as a house foreign affairs subcommittee is meeting to discuss u.s. policy t

mr. meehan for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, thank you for the courtesy of being able to be with you here today. and ms. ruell, i see by your testimony that you were warned by a supervisor that you were at the philadelphia management center. that you were not permitted to report issues to your director. i greatly regret that and appreciate the courage of you being here today. in addition, your testimony and those of your colleagues has opened the door to the appreciation that we're seeing exactly the same type of cooking the books on the benefits side of the va as has been exposed on the health care side. and this is a whole new exploration of the management problems at the va. your testimony is very compelling. we've talked about improper shredding of documents, beneficiaries getting improper payments. and in many cases duplicate payments. you've talked about the failure to rectify once those payments have been improperly paid and the failure to notify the irs of what could be the ability to recapture some of those. a

mr. meehan. >> commissioner, thank you for taking the time to come up and be with us again today. i know you came here before and i know we're going through a lot of detailed testimony, but the baseline is accurate that to the best of your knowledge when you testified before that the e-mails were not available from ms. lerner during the period that they had been to the best of your knowledge that they had been destroyed because they were recycled on the tape. and i'm not questioning that testimony at this particular moment. but i think what has people interested is mr. kane came up here not so long ago, and he's a very sophisticated guy. his job is to produce documents for investigations and litigation and other kinds of things. therefore, he not only has a very detailed understanding of the process, but a deep appreciation of the implications to do or failure to do including exposure for failure to do things. he also has a very sophisticated understanding of how to answer questions with respect to this. appreciating that when he's under oath, anything he says will put him in a pa

mr. meehan, for five minutes. >> i remind my dleticolleagues, fitzgerald was a colleague of mine. there were people who were investigated and convicted as a result of that matter. we have gone a long way in this without even getting close to that particular issue. miss o'connor, i have great respect for your history as an attorney and you yourself have identified that you manage complex litigation matters before you came here, so i'm asking for some of your insight even though this may have been prior to your actual involvement, but in june -- early in june 2011, in fact, june 3rd, chairman -- ways and means chairman dave camp sent a letter to the commissioner in which he identified alleged discriminatory practices on the part of the irs, very specifical specifically. from your perspective when somebody alleges discrimination, do you think that there's ever a chance that that matter gets to litigation? >> allegations of discrimination do sometimes get to litigation, yes. >> yeah. so they do sometimes get to litigation. >> mr. chairman, could i please -- could i please -- >> around