mr. pitts: i support -- urge support of the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from north carolina reserves. the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. slaughter: mr. speaker, i want to ask unanimous consent to insert into the record our copy of a letter to speaker john boehner from mr. van hollen, ms. rosa delauro and myself on this issue. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. slaughter: and i'm certainly pleased to yield one minute to the gentlewoman from california, a member of the energy and commerce committee, mrs. capps. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. mrs. capps: i rise in opposition to this bill to put the government between a woman and her health care provider. this is yet another instance where the house majority's exploiting their position to use hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund partisan, baseless smear campaigns. today we're asked to vote to do it again. despite finding no evidence of wrongdoing through multipl

mr. pitts: i support -- urge support of the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from north carolina reserves. the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. slaughter: mr. speaker, i want to ask unanimous consent to insert into the record our copy of a letter to speaker john boehner from mr. van hollen, ms. rosa delauro and myself on this issue. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. slaughter: and i'm certainly pleased to yield one minute to the gentlewoman from california, a member of the energy and commerce committee, mrs. capps. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. mrs. capps: i rise in opposition to this bill to put the government between a woman and her health care provider. this is yet another instance where the house majority's exploiting their position to use hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund partisan, baseless smear campaigns. today we're asked to vote to do it again. despite finding no evidence of wrongdoing through multipl

mr. pitts: i support -- urge support of the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from north carolina reserves. the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. slaughter: mr. speaker, i want to ask unanimous consent to insert into the record our copy of a letter to speaker john boehner from mr. van hollen, ms. rosa delauro and myself on this issue. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. slaughter: and i'm certainly pleased to yield one minute to the gentlewoman from california, a member of the energy and commerce committee, mrs. capps. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. mrs. capps: i rise in opposition to this bill to put the government between a woman and her health care provider. this is yet another instance where the house majority's exploiting their position to use hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund partisan, baseless smear campaigns. today we're asked to vote to do it again. despite finding no evidence of wrongdoing through multipl

pitts? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, madam secretary, for coming today. i want to emphasize that i think you should prioritize christians and ethnic minorities for the p2 resettlement program because i think they're most at risk. let me go back to this question about all the young men in the refugee flow that dr. burgess raised. and the type of vetting processes that are utilized before admitting refugees to the united states. i heard you say there are stories. you checked the international criminal database. what other steps do you take to vet these refugees? >> well, if you want to get in deep to the details, we can have a classified briefing, which we've been giving more often now to members of congress. and dhs are really the experts on it. but the steps include then the referral from unhcr, so they weed out people who are not appropriate to refer to us. the preparation of their case, very importantly the interview by dhs examiners, and then checking their names and their biometric data, their fingerprints against u.s. law enforcement and national sec

pitts. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we have brought nearly 2,000 syrians to the united states as part of the u.s. refugees admissions program since 2011. the numbers have climbed very slowly. last year we brought in 2015 1,682. so almost 1700. >> is that because of vetting issues? >> well, there were a couple of things. first is that when there's a crisis and people flee, you don't automatically start a refugee resettlement program. our hope initially is that they'll be able to go home again. quite candidly, in the first year or so of this crisis, i really thought that it would be over soon and people would be able to go back. so when that did not become the case, in 2013, unhcr started to think about a resettling program for syrians who had fled to neighboring countries. that's where most of the refugees who have been referred to us are. they are living in the countries that neighbor syria, and some -- the top four countries are turkey, jordan, lebanon, iraq, and also some are as far afield as egypt. and we already wer

pitts? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, madam secretary, for coming today. i want to emphasize that i think you should prioritize christians and ethnic minorities for the p2 resettlement program because i think they're most at risk. let me go back to this question about all the young men in the refugee flow that dr. burgess raised. and the type of vetting processes that are utilized before admitting refugees to the united states. i heard you say there are stories. you checked the international criminal database. what other steps do you take to vet these refugees? >> well, if you want to get in deep to the details, we can have a classified briefing, which we've been giving more often now to members of congress. and dhs are really the experts on it. but the steps include then the referral from unhcr, so they weed out people who are not appropriate to refer to us. the preparation of their case, very importantly, the interview by dhs examiners, and then checking their names and their biometric data, their fingerprints against u.s. law enforcement, and national s

mr. chairman. chairman pitts, ranking member green, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i comforted as both founding dean of the indian university of richard m. fairbank school of public health as well as the former state health officer of arkansas to discuss a very important and far-reaching public health issue, the heroin of prescription drug abuse epidemic, and the deleterious effects which were experiencing across the country in a mild state of indiana. we know addiction is a tragedy, not for the addicted person alone, but also for families, employers and entire communities. addiction is often at the root of myriad social, mental, public health problem. it harms all in his path, even the most innocent among us. newborns have been exposed to opioids in utero are often born with a condition called neonatal abstinence centered american left taking the number of affected babies is five times higher me a ring the surgeon opioid use of the same time period. the financial cost of drug addiction for health care criminal justice and education are staggering. in my state of in

mr. chairman. chairman pitts, ranking member green, representative books, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i come before you today as the founding dean of the richard m. fairbanks school of public health as well as the former state health officer of arkansas, to discuss a very important and far-reaching public health issue, the heroin and prescription drug abuse epidemics and the deleterious effects we're experiencing across the country and in my home state of indiana. we know addiction is a tragedy, not for the addicted person alone, but also for families, employers, and entire communities. addiction is often at the root of myriad social, physical, mental, and public health problems. it harms all in its path, even the most innocent among us. newborns who have been exposed to opioids in utero are often born with a condition owpioids. in the last 15 years the number of aekt iffed babies is five times higher, mirroring the abuse over the same time period. the costs for criminal justice and education

mr. pitts of pennsylvania, bls black of tennessee, mr. bucshon of indiana, mr.uffy of wisconsin, mr. harris of maryland, mrs. hartzler of missouri, mrs. love of utah. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2015, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 30 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. interesting day, interesting week. and i was in here listening to the colloquy between our majority leader mccarthy and the minority whip and i heard my good friend, very intelligent, clever, witty friend from maryland, mr. hoyer indicate republicans bring us to the brink time and time again talking about i guess the debt ceiling. and sometimes it's just good to stop from the rhetoric here and the lines like bringing us to the brink and really good to look at the history of the situation is. ecause you know, for 40 years, until newt gingrich led with the contract of america, republicans captured the majority in the house and senate for the first time in 40 years, the democrats kept bringing us to the brink,

pitts? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, fellow commissioners and distinguished panelists and guests. i want to thank all of you for your participation here today on this hearing on europe's refugee crisis. the term crisis does little justice to the dire situation that refugees are facing. the war in syria, where more than half of the population has either been killed or displaced, has been raging for over four years now. the war's ensuing expansion and related brutality in neighboring countries have left millions of victims with no choice but to leave the lands that some groups have called home for thousands of years. many have observed this to constitute the greatest migration and refugee crisis since world war ii. and this is especially troubling when you factor in the relatively small scale of the populations and regions in conflict. however, the roots of this crisis go far beyond the war in syria, as witnessed by the participants in the migration flows. people from across the middle east, africa, afghanistan, even the balkans are contributing to this mass exodus from areas of str