it is an amazing program.ike i said, i do not think we could have made it as well as we have without it. i think it would have been a much bigger struggle for us as a small company. anyway, i want to continue and expand this company, and i plan to use the jobs now program over and over again. you know, i really want to encourage other small companies to use it, to utilize it end up in it that from it as i have. i want to introduce you to maticia, the first person from the jobs now program. she is an amazing baker, amazing person. smart, funny. she is really shy. she may not say a lot right now. but i want to point out that she has helped make some of these beautiful pastries and breads and sandwiches, and she is just amazing. here she is. [applause] >> hello. i went through the jobs now program, and it really helped me. i feel like f i would not have gone through the jobs now program, i will not be where i am today. as far as jobs now and the general assistance program, like, general assistance helped me pay f

what i am speaking about is developing this carry programs. -- the personal security programs. as concerns about this proposal in will discuss that later. one it because at earlier hearings -- one, because of earlier. i had assurances the quick card would be used as a standard id whether waterside orleans site. my concern is additional personal security programs will make the duplication. that is one thing the committee needs to look up here did last year at the subcommittee hearing i asked if the department could integrate to the end of the personal security program, and yet the proposal does not make clear it is an acceptable background check. now is not the time for dhs to go reinventing the wheel. it also includes planned response, including a response for 85 items. i look forward to hearing from the witnesses to confirm, but i believe several of the action items have been initiated or complete it. i am disheartened by the lack of progress in the program. this seems to stem from the fact that no one knows if the program will be reauthorize by congress. the facility's securi

of a program. so the result is yet one more obstacle for american families trying to care for their loved ones. these are the people who will lose out and definitely lose out by this repeal. so i strongly urge my colleagues to vote against the -- this bill, and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. pitts: thank you, madam speaker. at this time i yield one minute to the gentleman from illinois, mr. lipinski. the chair: the gentleman from illinois is recognized for one minute. mr. lipinski: i rise today in support of fiscal responsibility and in support of h.r. 1173. the class program was created with a good intention, releaving the crushing burden of long-term care. but we've known from the beginning this program would not be able to sustain itself without a massive bailout from taxpayers. the c.b.o. said so. medicare's chief actuary said so. more recently, secretary sebelius concluded the class act was totally unsustainable

and the program. growers are troubled by the great cost of using the h 2-a program, especially the adverse wage rate. growers have to build free housing for the guest workers. america needs a guest worker program that is fair to everyone it impacts. farm workers and guest workers. a program must provide growers who want to do the right thing with legal labor. it must protect the livelihood of american workers and rights of guest workers. it must keep in mind the pocketbooks of american families. i have introduced legislation, the american specialty agriculture act, that accomplishes these goals. it establishes an h 2-c guest worker program responsive to the needs of the american growers and maintain strong policies. it does so without the mass amnesty for illegal immigrant farm workers that failed in 1986. let me highlight the provisions of the bill. the bill puts the agriculture department in charge of the h 2-c program. in order to minimize red tape, it stream lines the process for workers by making

program. it will have reflected a truly collaborative effort on the part of four agencies. we're extremely grateful to the planning department staff for their partnership to sfmta staff, including their leafbiad on this effort, who are here today. i would be remiss if i did not appreciate reach a heigachel hyd others. i will turn this presentation over to alicia, and you should have some slides at your desk. >> good morning, commissioners. felicialicia jonbaptist. this is been a long-plant effort between the four offices. the program itself is innovative in that it relates to the develop a process, which are currently distinct and separate from the environmental review process and the impact fees in such a way to allow for the city to comprehensively fund assets of systematic transportation network improvements that better meet our transit first and other mode tight -- multi-modal transportation components. we have three components. first is the way we conduct impact analysis under ceqa, six -

the program was not meant to be another epa style program designed to find people or bureaucratic back door to overregulate chemicals. it was meant to be a collaborative effort to secure high risk facilities with facility appropriate measures based upon risk presented. congressional intent was that cooperation would get facilities into compliance. we did not intend to increase federal revenues through enforcement actions. i hope dhs is not looking to band on our original intent. last month i acknowledged this was a work in progress. i felt security was being enhanced and significant public and private investments were being made to implement the program. i still believe security at facilities with klem calls is much better today than before congress gave dhs the first ever regulatory authority. unfortunately, my confidence in dhs and the substantial amount congress has given to it is not nearly as strong. someone compared this to an unmanned police car positioned at the site of a highway. it wards off speeders but not much else. we need to be assured that dhs' program has a plan and in

and corresponding expenditure program. we are currently addressing an ordinance which would enable the changes i am describing now. coming back to the purpose of the program, it is worth emphasizing. by making a change to the way we look at transportation impact under environmental review, coupling that with in a citywide impact fee, we can have a full systematic program that allows us to comprehensively offset the impact of development on the transportation system in a way that is consistent with our transit first policies. looking in a little more detail about what these programs are -- looking in a little more detail about what these program components are, we do look at when we did an environmental review today and looking at transportation analysis, we consider transit the late entrants a crowding as metrics, but the backbone of the way we do that analysis is by looking at automobile level of service, and automobile level of service, for those not familiar with it, looks at what is the speed of automobile group put in

the detailed work program starts on page 30. we have a focus this year, as always, on the state legislative program. the state budget reform process has had a number of negative affect on the transportation program. it has affected the reliability and availability of funds. ahead -- it has also affected the process ability of new funds for the transportation. -- it has also affected the possibility of new funds. this does not show signs of letting up. the efforts this year will continue to be to protect transportation funding, and to oppose any takings or our win borrowings related to transportation funding from a dedicated funding, that somehow or another has been borrowed or diverted to other users in the general fund at the state level. the main reason for that is that it is very difficult to plan for large infrastructure projects if we do not know we have a reliable source of funding, even though one exists and is dedicated in theory to the projects. it is also very difficult to retrieve our leveraged goals which the local s

of a program. so the result is yet one more obstacle for american families trying to care for their loved ones. these are the people who will lose out and definitely lose out by this repeal. so i strongly urge my colleagues to vote against the -- this bill, and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. pitts: thank you, madam speaker. at this time i yield one minute to the gentleman from illinois, mr. lipinski. the chair: the gentleman from illinois is recognized for one minute. mr. lipinski: i rise today in support of fiscal responsibility and in support of h.r. 1173. the class program was created with a good intention, releaving the crushing burden of long-term care. but we've known from the beginning this program would not be able to sustain itself without a massive bailout from taxpayers. the c.b.o. said so. medicare's chief actuary said so. more recently, secretary sebelius concluded the class act was totally unsustainable

this is not totally reviewing the program, just rebalancing the program. in terms of the request itself, the project will begin in march of this year and end by january of next year. it does require a small amendment to the five-year prioritization program to create a new project to allow for the funds in this specific project. in the projects that will be funded out of this program after the request will have to be preceded by a comprehensive amendment to the entire five- year prioritization program, so that would be something that comes before this committee, and you would understand how the new a valuation effects the five- year prioress stati prioritizat with that, i will turn it over to mike for his presentation on the whole program. >> migood morning, commissioner. many of its mike salibury. as staff has mentioned some i will give a brief overview of the program prior to the decision about the allocation. this slide, if you have the information printed out in front of you, this outlines the goals of traffic calming. improving pedestrian bike safety,

here are some of the programs. the other major program is the sewer system improvement program. she gives updates on that one, so i will skip that as well. hetch hetchy is one we have been working closely with. the program director is working on the quarterly report. just be responsive to her needs. we hired a project manager to work with the fire department and the cbd as well. the last major project is 525 golden gate. some of the major accomplishments we are proud of is we're working on contract initiative says we identify it on slides 20. we identified contracts worth a total of $827 million. 32 professional service contract for $94 million and we are rolling out our online invoicing system to about 620 users. the other thing we are working on is the middle of your proposals and what you can do a mind to produce the paper and make it more efficient and make a level playing field. the other major accomplishment this we have been working with juliet to focus on the minor tender preparedness program. apprentice training and other programs. we have been looking for ways to promo

now, that loan program, the 1703 lon program is continuing. the atvm program is continuing. we still think those are worry projects. going forward, we do see a need as part of an overall plan to finance projects. projects, for example, where you have a solid technology like on who wind technology is very solid, a known technology, a way of financing it so we can deploy these with power purchase agreements low risk. there are other -- so that's one part. there are other parts i think that really could help drive it forward. bloomberg new energy finance just completed a study about a month ago summarizing what happened in 2011 and projections for 2012. they said, if -- and they looked at all forms of energy, new, gas turbines, coal, wind, solar all the way down the line. they said if you have 10% finance, borrowing charges for all these forms of energy, wind today -- and this is wind on a site that's a four site, not a six site. it's a moderate site, within 10% or 15% of the cost of the loss form of energy today which is new gas, and we expect that to improve still further. we

in 2009, only 2,807 farm jobs in texas were certified for h2a program, meaning the program fills 1.8% of the texas needs, this according to the texas department of labor. to ensure the industry a future work force, we need a model that is more flexible, scalable and market oriented. congress lungren is offering a visa for agricultural workers. it requires a biometric visa, criminal background check, incentives for workers to abide by the visas and return home when the work is done. the closer a new program comes to replicating the way, the farm force moves now among employers and crops the more likely it will meet the industry's needs. to ensure programs actually work it will likely need to beed amrpted by the united states department offin agriculture instead of the department of labor, which has a long history of implementing the h2a program. a workable program may meet the needs of the dairy and livestock industries. these operations have difficulty finding workers and their need is year-round. any solution must avoid needless disruptions of the industry and must accommodate the la

the supplemental program was an effort to look at the tanf program in a national way. to acknowledge that there were some states that had very, very low benefit levels. there were other states like where mr. camp, the chairman and i come from, where the levels were higher, were better. and so we made a decision not to simply say that those states that had an adequate benefits, clearly inadequate, that the kids would suffer. so if you want to put it this way, taxpayers in some states, if you want to talk about it that way, were decided -- we decided that there was a national need here. and as senator baucus has said, there wasn't -- it didn't involve a huge amount of money nationally, but in terms of the needs of particular children, it was a substantial need. and so in the effort to find some balance, there were lots of problems in the final legislation. one had to judge whether on balance we should move forward or not. there was this decision to try to have some balance for the kids of america. and so i don't think it's an issue of scope. it's an issue of

program beginning in fy 13. that will provide for 25 new and 19 remanufactured airframes. we're asking for $1.2 billion for the blackhawk, which -- which is in a new multiyear program this year. if i said chinook, it ends a multiyear program in '12, begin a new one in '13. the blackhawk began a new one in '12. so we are in the second year of that one and asking for 59 new blackhawk aircraft associated with that. we're also asking for $1.2 billion for co-patchy equipment. and committed to heavy lift asset asking for ten new and 40 remanufactured block three apaches. sorry. combat aircraft. we're aski ining the for $518 million for grand systems with support equipment that enable us to equipped two more companies that will give us a total of 17 companies in the army. 15 in the active component and 2 in our special operating forces. and then we're asking for $486 million in oco for replacement of two apaches. six chinooks and 16 weari ie warriors, significantly lost or damaged in the current war effort. turning to

we continued two program funds for the lifeline transportation program, established to improve the ability of low income communities. that is also administered by the authority. $10 million went to nine projects, including the balboa park station, other stations where we worked closely with commissioner abel lovalos' depa. hunters point revitalization, randolph transit access, improvements to route 29, 08 to treasure island, as well as other transit services. the livable communities and teammate block grant saw an amount of activity as well. $20 million in programmed projects including pedestrian transit improvements on market and haight, soma, streetscape improvements on second street, broadway avenue, bike trail projects, and safe routes to school education program, projects at sunset elementary. commissioner campos: before you move forward, we have a question from commissioner carmen chu. commissioner chu: in terms of the safe route to school program, i know this is one thing that the area had applied for multiple times, unsuccessful in getting. has been a huge party, given the fact tha

you heard earlier about the cp program. we're looking at the issues of long-term debt to support the capital program, and that will keep cynthia quite busy as well. that is a very brief bird's-eye view of the activities that are involved in this year's budget. i would be happy to answer any questions. this is an information item this time. >>commissioner chiu: this is the prof and sa preliminary look ate budget, but when you anticipate to come back before us? >> hopefully next month. i also wanted to take a minute to point out to your question on the cost of the line of credit and so on. that is actually included in the budget discussion. 2.5 million now. we're hoping to reduce that radically with the new line of credit. probably to half. close to that anyway. commissioner wiener: any additional questions or comments? we will open it up to public comments. seeing none, public comment is closed. no action is needed. item 11. >> internal accounting report an investor report for the six months ended december 31, 2011. >> cynth

this is the program. no. you decide for yourself that you are ready to do this, and then you feel more committed to it and why do you want to change? what are the motivating factors? and actually asking them... there is a reason why you do it, because you get something out of it. it is not all bad. there is a reason why people continue to go back to that drug. so you have to get to that root also. there is a reason why people continue with their particular drug. so empowering a larger group of health care professionals has been our mission, and we hope they will continue to carry it on in their practice and then refer them for treatment. and really sharing the responsibility for the wellness with the patient? correct. obviously it is a very important part. buy-in, absolutely. and it works, too, right? yeah, absolutely. i mean, the research shows that it really works. it does. fran, dr. greene basically told us that within screening and brief interventions there are some referral issues that you tell the patie

it is a special program. it takes a period of time for employees to earn the right to paid sick time. but let me be very clear. we did it not as a matter of convenience, but we made the ultimate decision that having people who prepare your food come to work sick doesn't make any sense. people who care for your parents or grandparents in a nursing homecoming to work sick doesn't make any sense. and people caring for our children in day care programs coming to work sick does not make any sense. ultimately, we decided that we

programs. kay bailey hutchison in texas, mayor of the senatember appropriations committee has played a key role in funneling programs and resources to the johnson space center in to the houston area. nelson -- >> host: and those voices are also a reason why we see the ale nasa program broken up in a lot ouarts of the country. >> guest: exactly. the facility in alabama, the marshall space flight center,y a facilities in california, utah,o contractors all over thee ntra country. so it is a national support program, but i again people realizing and contacting realizing that if there are limitations to what they can achieve in this climate. >> host: back to the phones, the paul, an independent from nsas.wood, arkansas. good morning.: >> caller: i don't agree on much of anything, but we do need to get to the moon for helium. we can use that for nuclear fusion, which is virtually nofol radiation, tremendous amounts of energy, and we can use that to get off of the independent on these terrorist countr

programs. that has reached almost 3000 middle and come families and they go below the 90-100% that bmr gives. they go to 120%. with our assistance program, the average ami is 82%. an income of 65,000 the year. which seems remarkable that someone could purchase a home at 82% ami but they manage to bring it together. with all these numbers, again, we go back to the conclusions i talked about at the beginning. we talked about rental apartments out of reach and the target from 0-50% ami, the smaller affordability gap for 50-80% but there are fewer deed restricted units. we are talking about ownership. for sale houses are out of reach. and our down payment programs to 120%. for above moderate, they are relatively well served by the met -- rental market. it becomes difficult at the larger bedroom size. there is a smaller ownership affordability gap. so in terms of some of the policies that director lee will talk about, we want to throw out some ideas for discussion. one item for discussion is a possi

closure programs that we have. supervisor avalos: the idea i had around the foreclosures was, last tuesday, there were about 20 families that were imminent of being evicted, and i guess there was a call for a moratorium from some of the families and community groups to see if there was a way to prevent the evictions of being carried out. i guess the options that the city might have, we can see the options we have to prevent evictions during the month of december, at least, during the holiday. >> let me back up briefly and give you a thumbnail description of our efforts in this area. briefly, on the rental side, our support for homeless families primarily exists in resources river to community-based organizations. we support about $1 million or so through a combination of community development block grant funds, shelter funds, and stabilization fund, a nonprofit organization funds, eviction and services to families and individuals at risk of being evicted each year. on the for closure prevention side, our primary re

the whole program has built over 1 million units in 20 years. it is a fabulous program. it helps extremely low income people all the way to home ownership for people just beginning. this is an incredible example of that. the couple of days ago, the president made a huge announcement about housing. one thing that does not get as much play in the press is the focus on the very poor. he made a $1 billion commitment to the first affordable housing trust fund. he has said it will be included in his budget in a few weeks to congress. that affordable housing trust fund is focused on rental housing for people at 30% or below the area median income, folks like those that will get the opportunity to call this place home. we're very excited because we're already working on what has been passed but never funded. we're calling on congress to fund it. the president has also made a commitment that included in his budget will be $15 billion program called project for build. it is the neighborhood stabilization program to rehabilitate foreclosed properties across the country. it will put

author visa program or a combination program. and include h-2a. any solution you have said must deal somehow in a prakts cam and hue main -- practical and humane way with the current work force. why do you think it's important to replace them with the workers? >> they just aren't there. if you take them, you find out who they are through the e-verify program and if you're to remove them to the desert island and had a huge vacuum of need, there's not an adequate supply to fill the jobs. a lot of the folks that are doing this work that have been here, they're driving pieces of equipment that are worth more than the most expensive mercedes. i mean, they understand what they're doing so it is paramount we find a way to find those who are already here that don't have legal documentation, to be able to go through some system, to get that legal credential, that visa to allow them to work here. >> in talking about the skill set, my district that i represent in california is pretty urban, but we have some agricultural activity as well. es

community colleges, certificate programs or programs that will qualify for degrees. and we actually just need to make a special effort. our labor department in our state is doing that. i've asked all my commissioners to be mindful of that. we're talking to all of our private and public universities to make sure that they understand that this is a special obligation that we owe to the people who have served us -- >> i agree with you. let me ask the question of governor snyder. you know that we're very concerned about our young -- young teenagers and young adults, particularly latinos and african-american, their unemployment rate is so very, very high. what are you doing in your state to address that problem and that group so that they can get jobs? >> that's a very timely question. because we're doing our budget message next week. and one element of that that will be included is something unemployed. because you're right on in terms of saying particularly young people in our urban areas, we need to do something. so part of our view is, is let's put a very focused effo

and priorities to the program. both penny and i feel strongly that the challenges we have identified are not significant, but they are also not in seiz e insurmountable. i would also like to echo the undersecretary's focus on the action items. we've already made tangible progress in addressing some of the challenges in the report. one of the things in the report is the ability to cite security plan reviews in a consistent, reasonable and timely fashion. to help overcome task difficulties in meeting this challenge, iscd is utilizing an interim review process that allows the department to utilize plans in a more effective and timely manner. using this interim approach over the past few months, iscd has more than been able to quadruple the number of the authorized plan. specifically throughout all of 2010 and through november 28, 2011, we had conditionally authorized ten site security plans. in the subsequent two months leading up to january 23rd of this year, we conditionally authorized an additional 43 tier 1 site s

program. this would be < allowable maximum parking. we of zoning districts where there are maximal allowing parking. potential fee waiting for affordable housing up to 100% and constraint on the policy discount program is that it cannot exceed $40 million in value over 20 years. if we exceed $40 million in value, we put a wrist to apply the expenditure program, and because that is serving as a way for the project to premeditate impact of it is very important we build and implement the program as it has been identified and modeled. so that still leaves us with a substantial amount of funding to apply discounts. we are of course seeking feedback from the commission today on the correct application of discounts come and whether there is something we missed in this so far. whatever direction week it will then be implemented through the draft ordinance, which we're going to introduce in a couple of weeks, maybe three weeks. in terms of implementation of the program -- commissioner olague: i was gla

the program doesn't work. they know it won't work, and it's a false sense of hope to say that it will. h.h.s. studied for 18 months eight different scenarios to fix the class act. from $391 a month premium to $3,000 a month premium. they concluded the same result. the class act is not fixible. short of a mandate, there's no way to fix the class act. now, our friends on the other side have had several opportunities, offer amendments to fix the class act. first of all, h.r. 1173 was marked up in the energy and commerce health subcommittee, and they didn't offer an amendment. at full committee, the democrats didn't offer comprehensive plan to fix the program. and now with nearly four hours of debate, still no amendments to fix the program. without a mandate, there's no way to fix it. . mr. chairman, we must get this program off the books and start over. it was wrong when it was passed and a liability on our budget. and the american taxpayers who would reject any further feament by the federal government to requir

prior to that, i had definitely had the sense that the program was an evolving program, that changes were being made, but they were being made in due course with appropriate diligence by the program managers. in july of 2010, i discovered a discrepancy in the way that people were being paid within the program and moved at that point to correct it. in the fall of 2010, we posted a announcement to -- >> let me -- >> -- of the program. >> not to be disrespectful, just to move to another question because the timeline is kind of important for us because you testified before us march 31st of 2011 and statements were made -- again, that's my comments back to mr. waxman was, you know, we were given a pretty good signal that things were going well. small problems, but nothing major. one of the questions i asked you was about the high-risk tiering process and the reasons for the drop in the number of those facility tiers. at that time, i was not aware of any mistiering problem. were you? >> no, i was not, sir. >> if not, when did you first learn about the tiering problem? >> i first learned ab

all other programs, such as the center for alders, the institute of aging, case management programs, these are all things we kept an eye on and were aware of. about 10, 12 years ago it became part of a 16-committees around the country that form the community partnerships for older adults and young adults with disabilities. this really opened a door for us and away we have not had before. as part of that war, we formed a communications workgroup and lgbt partnership group. the lgbt partnership group, just as the other groups that were meeting, put together a plan and put to other ideas and things they thought or durable within an environment where the money was. there was a lot of money, but what could we do? they came forward to our commission, give a very interesting report. part of that report was a request that we as a department found about $20,000 for an education program they had been running and had just lost their funds for. we were pleased to be able to do that, because it is very clear, especially talking about issues of discrimination and march solicitation, that if you do