Transcripts For CSPAN Review Of 2018 Federal Budget 20170827

Overall number in the law, the budget control act, requesting basically a little bit over 1 trillion. 1. 1 trillion as the law allows for. Within that number, he really departed from the budget control act numbers, and he requested a lot more for defense programs. About 54 billion for security related programs. And covers that with an equal amount of cuts in nondefense spending, 54 billion. So thats a violation of the budget control act there. But more than that, its very politically unpopular. Yes members really like the , defense spending increase, but they dont like taking it out of nondefense programs agriculture cut more than 20 . Transportation, federal housing programs cut 15 . Labor, health, Education Programs cut similarly. State Department Programs cut tremendously. And congress is rejecting that. They dont really have their own plan nailed down. While they are inclined to give a lot more to defense, they are not as interested in those nondefense spending cuts. It matters of this budget control act. And the caps that were put in place, explain to our viewers, give them a remind of the budget a reminder of the budget control act and why the president has to stick to it. Nancy this is a law that was passed when obama was president and he was working with the congress, with leaders in a different party, and it was an agreement that they made to set caps on Discretionary Spending. Not those mandatory programs where you have your Social Security checks and so on going out every month, but Discretionary Spending. They agreed to very firm numbers. And if those numbers arent honored in the annual appropriations process, you have something called budget takestration kick in and the funding for the programs down a lot. Budget sequestration is something that members of congress understand and they want to avoid. So if a budget came across the floor of the house and went to the senate with numbers that dont comply with the budget control act, the bill, the package, can be challenged under budgetary point of order and can be knocked down. Thats what we would expect to see. If somehow the house gets a package like that through and sends it to senator Mitch Mcconnell, majority leader. We dont expect hell get the 60 votes for that package. Host our cspan viewers saw the president s cabinet members, the heads of each of these agencies, go up to capitol hill, testify about the president s priorities for their individual agencies. How did Congress Respond . What did the house appropriators do . These are the lawmakers who get to decide what the final number is for each of these agencies. Nancy the House Appropriations committee, the members, the chairman, rodney frelinghuysen, was very polite with these officials. But it seemed that hearing after hearing he told the cabinet officers, remember, congress has the power of the purse. And we set the spending priorities. That message was hammered home time and time again. And we heard the same thing at Senate Appropriations with the republican subcommittee chairman there also. They are not going to follow the president s budget. They are going to set the spending levels like they always do. And i think one of the problems this year has been that they havent really found the president s budget submissions that credible. The first one was what they call the skinny budget that only dealt with Discretionary Spending and not with mandatory programs, tax revenues, economic forecasts. And then when the full budget came out in may, that document had a 2 trillion err in it. These things were not credible and the members of congress reacted pretty poorly to all of this. The worst thing is that there wasnt enough guidance in those documents. So appropriators were mostly on their own to figure it out. Host what have appropriators done so far . How much has been approved in the house . How much has been approved in the senate . When lawmakers return in september, whats left for them to do . Nancy well, a lot is left over. What happened in the house is that the House Appropriations committee worked very hard in the last few weeks before the august recess to get all of their bills out of committee. They worked night and day. Day after day, to report their bills. And four of those bills were put together in something called a minibus and taken to the house floor the last week before Congress Went out of session. That included the big defense bill. And that covered about 800 billion in spending. But none of those bills were passed individually this year. And over in the senate, they worked in the last few weeks before the august recess to mark up six bills. But none them have so far gone to the senate floor. And well be waiting to see if they can get any of the other bills through committee in september. This is one of the first years where we didnt see even an attempt to bring individual spending bills to either the house or the senate floor in the summer. So when they get back in september, House Speaker paul ryan is going to bring up the other eight unfinished Appropriations Bills in the house as a package. Bring them to the floor, and then the word is, is that at the end of that process, attach those four bills that were approved in the minibus, put them in that final package, create a 12bill omnibus appropriations package, and then send it over to the senate. But because that package is going to violate the budget control act, greatly exceeding the caps in that law, its not likely to get the 60 votes that it needs for Mitch Mcconnell to bring it up on the floor. And then congress will only have a week or two before the government runs out of money once again and the leadership and white house will have to get serious and negotiate a stopgap spending bill to prevent a Government Shutdown on september 30. Host nancy of bloomberg bna, thank you very much. Thank you. And now into the hearing , rooms. First we take you back to late may when white house budget director economic mulvaney testified before the house and Senate Budget committees on the president s overall budget request. Chairman black, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for having me here today. Secretary mulvaney its great to be here. To be back in this committee. I served in this committee for two years and its an honor and privilege to be here on behalf of the Trump Administration. Mr. Lewis, welcome. You are sitting in my chair. Its an honor to be here. Im not going to read my opening statement. I am going to make a couple comments and get right to the question and answers. When we looked at the budget for the very first time, i picked it up on friday, the new foundation for american greatness, i spent most of the weekend as you can imagine, reading it. And as i went through it, it struck me we could have come up a different title. And the title could have been the Taxpayer First budget. Because the first time in my memory at least this is a budget that was written from the perspective of the people who actually pay for the government. And we went line by line through what this government does and asked ourselves can we justify this to the folks who are actually paying for it . If im going to take money from diazbalart in taxes and im going to spend it on a program, can i justify to him actually spending that money . If im going to take money from ms. Schakowsky, can i justify it . Can i look you in the eye and say i need to take this money from you in order to give it to a disabled veteran. I think i can. Im not sure i could look at mr. Woodall and say i need to tyke take some of your money to give it to a program thats completely ineffective, doesnt help anybody, and ripe with waste, fraud and abuse. Thats the perspective that we brought to this budget from the very beginning. Maybe thats whats new about the new foundation. The other thing that is new is it does balance. As you know, its been a long sme since the president s budget has balanced. It hasnt happened since i came here in 2010. Somebody mentioned this is a moral document. It is. Heres the moral side. If i take money from you and no have no intention of ever giving it back, that is not debt, that is theft. If i take money from you with an intention to pay it back and show you how i intend to pay it back, that is debt. What we have been doing for two too long, both parties, in this city have been taking money from people without laying out a plan for how were going to pay it back. We start doing that with this budget. This budget does balance within a 10year window. Something that is completely new in this town. Whats the foundation . The foundation for the plan is 3 growth. In fact, that is trumpanomics. Its whatever can get us to 3 growth. I can assure you when i am in the oval office with the president and talking about trade policy, talking about Energy Policy, talking about tax policy, health care reform, budgets. Were trying to figure out a way to get to 3 growth. I have news for you. Both parties, if we do not get the 3 growth, it is unlikely well ever balance the budget again. That is not a plan. That is not a plan for the future. That is not moral to take money from people without having a plan to pay it back. We do everything we can to try to get to 3 growth. I look forward to questions today about how we do that. We do all of this, by the way, and still fund the president s priorities. You heard it by now, we wanted more money for National Security, border security, Law Enforcement, veterans, school choice, even paid parental leave. For the first time ever, President Trump, the first president of either party, is proposing a National Paid parental leave program. 20 billion in this budget to do that. We dont touch Social Security and medicare. Following through on his campaign promises. And were able to do all of that and still balance. Why . Because what we did here is try and change the way washington looks at spending. We no longer want to measure compassion by the number of programs that we have or the number of people that are on those programs. We want to measure compassion, true compassion, by the number of people we help to get off of those programs. We dont want to measure our commitment to the country by the amount of money that we spend, but instead on the number of people that we help get off of these programs and get back in charge of their own lives. That is what we think makes this the american greatness budget. Because we are going to try to get the country back to where we have a healthy economy, people are working again, people are optimistic about the country. If you are under the age of 30, you never had a job as an adult in a healthy American Economy. A healthy American Economy is very, very different than what you have seen for the last 10 years. The dynamism and optimism that comes from that is what this this administration is about and what this president promised. We will do everything in our power to deliver. The budget is a start to that. Again, madam chairman, thank you for having me. I look forward to questions and explaining the budget to members. You have said that the foundation of your budget is 3 growth. I have looked every which way at how you might get there and you cant get there. As a consequence, i think it is disastrously consequential to build a budget on 3 budget. The bible says you cant build a house on a sandy foundation. What it does is it perpetuates a myth we can go out there and balance the budget without touching entitlements. Its not only a myth, its frankly a lie. And if it gets started at the executive branch level, it moves from there. So i think that this notion literally the speaker of the house talked today about the notion of 3 growth and how we can balance the budget. I just again, as earnestly as i have looked at this, i dont know how you get there. What this does is it creates real debates. Legitimately, myself and democratic colleagues can see things quite differently. But for us to have a real debate, we have to base it on real numbers. I would also say its important because im a deficit hawk as you well know. And if you are wrong on these numbers, it means all of a sudden we created a twoplus trillion dollar hole for our kids and grandkids here going forward. I want to walk through a couple different numbers with you. One, this budget presumes a goldilocks economy. I think thats a very difficult thing on which to base a budget. If you look at the average economic expansion in the history of our country, its 58 months. The current expansion that were in is actually the third longest economic expansion in American History. Were at 94 months. But what you presume in this budget is not only will we not have a recession, though were in the third longest economic expansion in history, but its going to keep going for another 214 months. Its not only unprecedented, i would think that to be unreasonable. It assumes that the stars perfectly align with the economic drivers. Can you guess the last time when we had an Unemployment Rate at 4. 8 growth at 3 and inflation , held at 2 . Its never happened. The last time that gross was at 3 , held for a sustained period of time, the 10year bond yield below 5 , youall presume 3. . Can you guess the last time that ever happened . Secretary mulvaney i trust the assumptions chairman sanford its never happened. Were going way out there on the curve in terms of assumption. In terms of the ingredients of growth i broke out some numbers , here. Capital formation would have to go to the record level that we have seen in terms of Capital Growth from 1964 to 1974. Though Capital Formation actually goes down as people retire. They withdraw from the savings accounts. Labor force growth would have to go to see what we saw in the 1970s and 1980s when women were joining the work force en masse. Even if you include the Labor Participation rates and took them back up to the numbers that we saw in the 1990s, we would see a. 2 , a decimal increase not a percentage increase. It would require either radically opening immigration or radical change to demographics as we have 10,000 baby boomer s retire each day. If you look at productivity growth, it would require numbers again that we havent seen since the golden days of 1958 to 1967 and the wave of consumer appliance, and completion of the highway system to achieve what we were seeing. Even if we were at the 1990 numbers, we would only see one quarter of what is necessary to achieve 3 growth. The rand corps says rejection of 15 is to be presumed with aging. I would lastly submit this for the record which is to say, if you look at the correlation between o. M. B. And c. B. O. The gentlemans time has expired. Thanks very much, mr. Chairman. Before we go further, i find it a little bit unfair that mr. Mulvaney and many people in the Trump Administration disparage the director of the c. B. O. When it was tom price, the former republican chairman of the budget committee, who appointed dr. Hall in the first place. Senator sanders lets get that clear. Mr. Mulvaney, as you know the United States today has more income and wealth inequality than any major country on eth. Top. 1 now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 . 52 of all new income today is going to the top 1 . But your budget thinks that it is good Public Policy to provide 52 billion in tax breaks for the wealthiest family in this country, a family already worth 128 billion. You think that a family like the Walton Family where one guy owns four ferraris, one maseratti , that are worth more than 65 are just in desperate need of million, massive, massive tax breaks. You think that sheldon aidleson, who among other things contributed 5 million for the trump inaugural, is in need of a massive tax break, as well as the koch brothers. My question is pretty simple. I want you to tell the American People why you think it is a good idea to give 3 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 at a time when the rich are becoming much richer, while at the same time you are going to low 17 going to throw 17 million children in this country off of Health Insurance because of the unconscionable cuts that you are making to medicaid. Why are you going to throw seniors in the state of wyoming or state of vermont off the meals on wheels program, maybe the one nutritious program that they get a day, why youre going to throw women and lowincome babies off of the w. I. C. Program at a time when infant mortality rates in this country was already high. You really think its a great idea to tell a lowincome pregnant woman that you are going to take away the w. I. C. Program, take away nutrition programs from children, in order to give a massive tax break of 52 billion to the Walton Family. Please explain your logic to the American People. Secretary mulvaney ill see if i can handle each of those in reverse. Let me deal with c. B. O. First. I cannot disparage who i dont know. I dont think i have ever disparaged the director. Senator sanders you made a dismissive remark. You guys appointed the director. Secretary mulvaney the results are awful. Senator sanders you appointed him. Lets go with that. Secretary mulvaney i measure performance by results. Senator sanders your opinion is the results are terrible. I have suggesting it was a member of the Trump Administration who appointed this gentleman. Not some kind of radical democrat. Secretary mulvaney so we can agree they put out bad data. Senator sanders we can agree you guys are beating up on the man u appointed because you do not like his results. Back to the question. Mulvaney w. I. C. Serves all projected recipients. Meals on wheels is not reduced at all. Change we make is to the senator sanders you tell me that secretary mulvaney the program is funded through the old age, Senior Nutrition Program through h. H. S. Which we dont change. Senator sanders not true. Secretary mulvaney some states do choose, choose to use senator sanders you eliminate that program. Bottom line is answer the question. Secretary mulvaney the total money for meals on wheels that comes from cdbg is 3 . That is it. I dont know how you can possibly contend senator sanders you are eliminating the program that funds not only meals on wheels but many other programs at the discretion of governors. Secretary mulvaney you asked about medicaid as well. The slashing of medicaid, the dramatic cuts to medicaid is a Slower Growth rate in medicaid. Theres oneyear exception during the Affordable Care act the American Health care act, where we the bill calls for the end to expansion. And there is a small reduction that year. But generally speaking medicaid , spending goes up every year. Senator sanders so does health care inflation. We go through these games every single year. Inflation is going up a lot faster than the money you are putting in. Let me get back to one question. Why do you think the Walton Family needs a 52 million tax break . Secretary mulvaney you are basing that assertion on the only tax detail we have in the budget. If we want to have a talk about why were repealing that, i would be more than happy to do it. Senator sanders tell me. Secretary mulvaney ordinary people are paying more. Senator sanders ordinary people do not have the wealth of 120 secretary mulvaney the average 128 billion increase senator sanders answer the question. The wealthiest family in america gets a 52 billion tax break as a result of the repeal of the estate tax. Tell the American People why you think thats good when you cut medicaid and you cut programs for kids . Secretary mulvaney we dont cut medicaid. Were talking about repealing obamacare. The result senator sanders throwing 23 million off Health Insurance. That is right . Secretary mulvaney which is a c. B. O. Number i think you agreed could be wrong. Senator sanders i didnt agree at all. A billionaire family get a 52 billion tax rate . Tell the American People. Secretary mulvaney we think its wrong ordinary folk theordinary folks lose coverage. Senator sanders is the Walton Family ordinary . Secretary mulvaney ordinary people are losing Coverage Today under obamacare. Senator sanders i asked you why the wealthiest family in america is getting a 52 billion tax break. Mr. Mulvaney because repeal the obamacare. Senator sanders you end the estate tax. That applies to the top. 2 . Secretary mulvaney im sorry. I thought the assumption was we were looking at the tax reductions contained in senator sanders no. Obamacare. Senator sanders no. Were talking about the repeal of the estate tax. Secretary mulvaney the budget assumes a deficit neutral tax plan because when we wrote the budget, we did not have nearly enough specifics to assume what you are assuming, which is the specific reductions. Yes, the proposals that the white house published about three or four weeks ago, the principals we set forth doesnt does include a reduction of the estate tax. Senator sanders repeal. Secretary mulvaney repeal. I think its mathematically impossible to take those general principles and assume a direct impact on a particular family. You cant do it. Nobody can do it. Senator sanders thats not true. We dont know when people will be dying, thats for sure. But you can secretary mulvaney we dont know people will be dying. Senator sanders the truth is the family is worth. Secretary mulvaney im sure they will die eventually. Bernie sanders that we can be sure of. Mr. Secretary, the floor is yours. Chairman thornberry, Ranking Member smith, members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to testify in support of the president s budget request for fiscal year 2018. I appreciate the committee accepting my written statement for the record. Andjoined by the chairman the new comptroller. He is new but will be vital to gaining your confidence that we know where our moneys going once you give it to us through a good audit. This budget request holds me accountable to the men and women of the department of defense. Every day more than two million , Service Members, nearly one million civilians do their duty , honoring previous general generations of veterans and Civil Servants who have sacrificed for our country. And its a privilege to serve alongside them. We in the department of defense are keenly aware of the sacrifices made by the American People to fund our military. Many times in the past, we have looked reality in the eye, met challenges, and build the most capable fighting force in the world. There is no room for complacency and we have no god given right to the victory on the battlefield. Each generation of americans from the halls of congress to the battlefields earns victory through commitment and sacrifice. And yet for four years, the department of defense has been subject to or threatened by automatic acrosstheboard cuts as a result of sequester. And mechanism it to be so injurious to the military it would never go into effect. But it did go into effect. And as forecast by then secretary of defense panetta, the damage has been severe. In addition, during nine of the past 10 years, congress has enacted 30 separate continuing resolutions to fund the department of defense. Thus inhibiting our readiness and adaptation to new challenges. We need bipartisan support for this budget request. In the past, by failing to pass the budget on time or eliminate the threat of sequestration, congress sidelined itself from its act of constitutional oversight role. Continuing resolutions coupled with sequestration blocked new programs, prevented service growth, stalled industry initiative, and placed troops at greater risk. Despite the tremendous efforts of this committee, congress as a whole has met the present challenge. With lassitude, not leadership. I retired from military Service Three months after sequestration took effect. Four years later, i returned to the department and i have been shocked by what i have seen about our readiness to fight. While nothing can compare to the heartache caused by the loss of our troops during these wars, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the combat readiness of our military than sequestration. We have only sustained our ability to meet americas commitments abroad because our troops have stoically shouldered a much greater burden, but our troops stoic commitment cannot reduce the growing risk. It took us years to get into this situation. It will require years of stable budgets and increased funding to get out of it. I urge members of this committee and congress to achieve three goals. First, fully fund a request which required an increase to the Defense Budget caps. Second, pass an f. Y. 2018 budget in a timely manner to avoid yet another harmful continuing resolution. And third, eliminate the threat of future sequestration cuts so we can provide a stable budgetary planning horizon. Stable budgets and increased funding are necessary because of four external forces acting on the department at the same time. The first force that we must recognize is 16 years of war. When Congress Approved the all volunteer force in 1973, our country never envisioned sending our military to war for more than a decade without pause or conscription. Americas long war has placed a heavy burden on men and women in uniform and their families. A second concurrent force acting on the department is the worsening Global Security situation. We must look reality in the eye. Russia and china are seeking veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions on their periphery. North koreas reckless rhetoric and provocative actions continue , despite United Nations censure and sanctions while iran remains the largest longterm challenge to mideast stability. All the while, terrorist groups murder the innocent and threaten peace in many regions and target us. A force acting on the Department Third is adversaries actively contesting americas capabilities. For decades, the United States enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain or realm. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted. Today every operating domain, including outer space, air, sea, undersea, land, and cyberspace , is contested. The fourth concurrent force is rapid technological change. Among the other forces noted thus far, technological change is one that necessitates new investment, innovative approaches, and new Program Starts that have been denied us by law when we have been forced to operate under continuing resolutions. Each of these four forces, 16 years of war, the worsening security environment, contested operations in multiple domains, and rapid pace of technological change, requires stable budgets and increased funding to provide for the protection of our citizens and for the survival of our freedoms. I reiterate that security and solvency are my watch words as secretary of defense. The fundamental responsibility of our government is to defend the American People, providing for our security, and we cannot defend america and help others if our nation is not both strong and solvent. So we in the department of defense owe it to the American Public and to the congress to ensure we spend every dollar wisely. President trump has nominated for Senate Approval specific individuals who will bring proven skills to discipline our departments fiscal processes to ensure we do so. His first step to restoring readiness is underway. Thanks to congress willingness to support the administration request for an additional 21 billion in resources for fiscal year 2017 to address vital war fighting readiness shortfalls. Your support put more aircraft in the air, more ships to sea, and more troops in the field to train. However, we all recognize it will take a number of years of higher funding delivered on time to restore readiness. To strengthen the military, President Trump requested a 639 billion top line for the 2018 Defense Budget. This budget reflects five priorities. First priority is continuing to improve war fighter readiness begun in f. Y. 2017. Filling in the holes from tradeoffs made during 16 years of war, nine years of continuing resolutions, and budget control act caps. The second priority is increasing capacity and lethality while preparing for future investment, driven by results from the National Defense strategy. Our 2018 budget request ensures the nations Current Nuclear deterrent will be sustained and supports continuation of its much needed modernization process. The third priority is reforming how the department does business. I am devoted to gaining full value from every taxpayer dollar spent on defense thereby earning , the trust of the American People. We have begun implementation of a range of reform initiatives directed by the 2017 National Defense authorization act and are on track to enter into a full agency wide Financial Statement audit as required by statute. I urge congress to support the departments request for authority to conduct the 2021 base realignment and closure, or brac, round. I realize the consideration the careful deliberation members must exercise in considering it but it is one of the most successful and significant efficiency programs. We forecasted a properly focused base closure effort will generate 2 billion or more annually over a fiveyear period. Enough to buy 300 apache helicopters, 120 f18s, or four virginia class submarines. The fourth priority in the budget request is keeping faith with Service Members and the families. Talented people are the departments most valuable asset, but we must continually balance these requirements against other investments critical to readiness, equipment, and modernization to ensure the military is the most capable war fighting force in the world. Investment in military compensation, blended retirement, and military health sustainre essential to the talent we need to sustain our competitive advantage on the battlefield. The fifth priority is support for overseas contingency operations, the f. Y. 2018 president s budget requests 64. 6 billion, focusing on operations in afghanistan, iraq, and syria. Increasing efforts to sustain natos defenses to deter aggression and global counterterrorism operations. I am encouraged by the isis and other terrorist organizations represent a clear and present danger. And i am encouraged by the willingness of our allies and partners to share the burden of this campaign. Moving forward, the f. Y. 2019 budget informed by the new National Defense strategy will have to make hard choices as we shape the f. Y. 2019 to 2023 defense program. The department will work with President Trump, congress, and this committee to ensure future budget requests for sustainable and provide the commander in chief with viable military options that support americas security. I am keenly aware each of you understand the responsibility we share to ensure military is ready to fight today and in the future. I need your help to inform your fellow members of congress about the reality facing our military and the need for congress as a whole to pass a budget on time. Thank you for your strong support over many years and for ensuring our troops have the resources and equipment they need to fight and win on the battlefield. I pledge to collaborate closely with you for the defense of our nation and our joint effort to keep our armed forces second to none. Chairman dunford is prepared to discuss the military dimensions of the budget request. Its an honor to join secretary mattis and secretary norquist here tonight. Im honored to represent the men and women in uniform. Its because of them i can begin by saying with confidence the your armed forces today are the most capable in the world. The competitive advantage we have enjoyed is eroding. A number of factors have contributed to that. Since 9 11 an extraordinarily , high operational tempo has accelerated the wear and tear of our weapons and equipment. Meanwhile, budget instability and the budget control act have forced the department to operate with far fewer resources than required for the strategy of record. As a consequence, we prioritize nearterm readiness at the expense of replacing aging equipment and capability development. We have also maintained a force that consumes readiness as fast as we build it. We lack sufficient capacity to the meet current operation requirements. Were rebuilding and maintaining full spectrum readiness. The secretary and Service Chiefs have addressed the dynamic in their testimonies and i concur with their assessments. But beyond the current readiness, were confronted with another signature challenge i assess to be near term. While we have been primarily focused on the threat of violent extremism, our adversaries and potential adversaries have developed advanced capabilities and these are specifically designed to limit our ability to protect power. They recognize our ability to project power is the critical capability necessary to defend the homeland, advance our interests, and meet our alliance commitments. Secretary mattis alluded to it today, russia, china, and iran feel the wide range of cyber, space, aviation, air time, and maritime and land capabilities. These are specifically designed to limit our ability to deploy, employ, and sustain our forces. Russia and china have also modernized a Nuclear Arsenal , while north korea has been on a path to build a nuclear icbm that can reach the United States. In just a few years if we dont change the trajectory, well lose our quantitative competitive advantage. The consequences will be profound. It will adversely affect our nuclear deterrence, our conventional deterrence, and our ability to respond if deterrence fails. Alternatively we can maintain , our competitive advantage with sustained sufficient, and , predictable funding. The f. Y. 2018 budget is an essential step. However this request alone will , not fully restore readiness or arrest the erosion of our competitive advantage. Doing this will require sustained investment beyond f. Y. 2018. Specific recommendations for f. Y. 19 and beyond will be informed by the forthcoming strategy development. However, we know now that continued growth in the base budget, or 3 above inflation is the floor necessary to preserve todays relative competitive advantage. We ask for your support and while we do that we recognize , the responsibility to main taint trust of the american taxpayer. We take that seriously and will continue to eliminate redundancies and achieve efficiencies where possible. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and ensuring americas sons and daughters are never in a fair fight. With that im ready for your , questions. You have been blunt in your assessment of russia as a principal threat to the United States. Russia has been seemingly relentless in its provocations, buzzing our ships in an irresponsible and dangerous manner, flying long range strategic bombers to alaska and violating the i. N. F. The president has been silent about this hostile action. There is much speculation as to why. I guess my question to you, mr. Secretary, is do you believe that Vladimir Putin has any real interest in a mutually beneficial, Good Faith Partnership with the United States. General dunford, how do you plan to respond to this Russian Military provocation . At this time, congresswoman, i do not see any indication that mr. Putin would want a positive relationship with us. That is not to say we cannot get there as we look for common ground. But at this point, he has chosen to be competitive a strategic competitor with us, and we will have to deal with that as we see it. General . Congressman, last year we requested 3. 7 billion in what is called the european reassurance initiative. This year, we have requested 4. 8 billion. That money is designed to increase our forward presence in europe. We will increase the combat teams and the equipment. It increases the exercises we conduct in europe, all of which is designed to deter russia and assure our partners we can meet our Nato Alliance commitments. Significantly changed our force posture in europe. And our exercises and capability developed with our partners in response to growing russia capability and aggression. Do you believe that russia is our adversary . I think we have an adversarial relationship with russia. A competitive adversary relationship, yes, congresswoman. Secretary mattis . Mr. Putin has chosen to be a strategic competitor, yes. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, i was disappointed by the significant proposed cuts. Proposed cuts for the fema preparedness Grant Programs. The program which helps the most at risk urban areas such as new york prevent and prepare for terrorist attacks would be cut by 26 , and the state Homeland Security Grant Program would be slashed by more than 25 . Overall, the fy 2018 budget proposes a cut of 919 million to fema Grant Programs that really help Law Enforcement prevent and respond to terrorism and other disasters. To put that in perspective, we would cut vital funds to protect the top terrorist targets in the u. S. By 31 . Which is equal to roughly half of what you are proposing to build a wall on the Mexican Border that is not needed. State and local jurisdictions cannot effectively plan for, establish, and maintain their preparedness programs when support from their federal partner is inconsistent and subject to major deviations. Mr. Secretary, could you please share with us the impetus for proposing such drastic cuts to the programs . Is it based on any sort of analysis that our states, major urban areas, and other jurisdictions, are well prepared for terrorist threats without federal assistance . I would offer to you that in the 120 days, give or take, that i have had this job, i have visited a number of larger cities, new york, chicago, boston, mcallen, texas, a number of places. Met with the mayors, the police chiefs. I have been to a couple of very large police and sheriffs organizations that have met here in d. C. A couple of months ago. Met with them, talked to them a lot. I interacted with the National Governors association that was here in d. C. , which was 48 of the governors. The point is, the state and local men and women of Law Enforcement and the people we work with fema works with, are highly capable. There was a time i would offer back before 9 11, we did not think much about it because terrorism had not really come to our country. Many of these grants and initiatives were put into place immediately after that. But as you might imagine, the men and women in Law Enforcement locally and on the state level, with federal help, have risen to the occasion. They are very, very capable, fema type people in the states and indeed many cities have them. I would not say these funds are not very helpful for those states and localities, but i would offer that it isnt as grim as you describe in terms of taking them away. What i mean is, if we take away this money, which the budget does some of that, their efforts against terrorism and other aspects of disasters wont immediately collapse. My offer would be that we were looking for money and we evaluated a number of different places, obviously, and we took where we thought we could take from. But again, i am absolutely confident that the men and women out there in the lands of the United States have risen to the occasion over the last 15 years since 9 11 and are very, very good at what they do. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask the question, mr. Chairman, but i am really surprised, mr. Secretary, at your response. There is no question that in new york city these people are capable and are carrying out all their activities with distinction. I will check with them. I have not heard they dont need that money and that money is an essential. If new york is a target, it is beyond my comprehension that you could think it is ok to make those deep cuts. Thank you. I didnt say they dont need the money. I just said we have found places where we think that the funds no longer needed in the way they once were. I will be happy to get back to you, but i would like that response in writing, and i will check with the people who are responsible for these programs in new york and maybe have them document how essential these funds are. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary i want to thank you , for your service to our country in the marine corps and your prudence and the president s prudence in being careful in spending our constituents precious tax dollars. In particular, i want to thank you and the president for focusing on restoring the rule of law, which is the one thing that unites us as americans. We understand in this country that our liberty lies in Law Enforcement. That is a fundamental principle of who we are as americans and we appreciate you focusing on that. I would like to say that congressman duncan hunter, sr. , spearheaded an effort to build a wall on the border, and israelis know how effective a wall can be. It makes sense on large parts of the border. West texas may not be as necessary, but above all, we appreciate your focus on Law Enforcement. Existing law has been on the book since the 1950s that the individual crossing the southern border is subject to up to six months imprisonment if they enter the country illegally. On the second offense, they are subject to imprisonment up to two years. I want to bring your attention to a judges very successful effort in the del rio sector. A good friend of mine is well acquainted with them. The judge in that sector with the support of the department of justice, they used their good hearts and their common sense in a compassionate way to ensure that existing law is enforced uniformly and fairly. And as a result, before President Trump came into office and the promise of the enforcement of the law resulted in such a precipitous decline in illegal crossings, the judge simply enforcing existing law, they saw the lowest level of illegal crossings since Border Patrol began taking keeping records, as i recall. You and i have worked together closely to support judge moses. I want to bring her to your attention. Mr. Secretary, the program she put into place is called operation streamlined. I encourage you to expand that up and down the border. As chairman of the commerce, justice, science, appropriations personnel, u. S. Marshals to make sure that processes are handled in it with it protects everyone possible due process rights. Youre exactly right, need to make sure those judges are there at the border to handle people who come across and received a notice to appear. They got a notice to appear. Suddenly, they were gone. Simply by enforcing the law. Join that people show up for those Immigration Judges. This is upanddown the border. We all know we need that good relation with mexico to have people across back and forth with good and commerce. We wanted to ask you about operation streamlined if you are familiar with it. If you could speak about what is currently happening and individual is apprehended on the southern border. These are removal proceedings before a judge like judge moses. I am not getting smart on operation streamlined. One of the things i have learned this immigration think is the most complicated. If we tried to make it any more complex or hard to understand, we cannot have done any better. Also subcategories, they will , they could be mexican. They could say that i dont want to enter the system and they can go back home. One of the things we found in an anecdote on the second week of , in the ring, on the rivers edge, with the refillable real people understand, recommend great men and women each. Find and stopill traffickers, mexican traffickers on our side of the border. Ive been here for 14 years. I know the names of many of them. We will pick them up and they will be with illegal aliens. They will opt to simple go back to mexico. The whether it is one day or one year later, they will go back. The cost this is important in terms of the numbers crossing the border. The fair to travel on the network and get into the United States went from an s m of the figure to people who we are talking about, peasants from the Central American republic, or thousand dollars, life savings. An incredible amount of money for them. They cannot afford it. That is one of the factors. That simple thing. Starting to arrest and prosecuting them. I learned from judge moses that they cannot see the assets of human smugglers. That is the change in law we need to make. Greg thank you so much for this opportunity. Mr. Secretary, thank you for what you do and what your men and women do, i appreciate it. I am from texas, i represent the border, i live there, my family is there, every the air, i drink the water, i dont go there and take off and think i know the i have to say that i my time here, we have seen secretaries come and go. We will probably see you come and go. My only advice is understanding the system we are in. The executive branch. Sometimes some of us might disagree with you. Ill think it is correct for you to tell members of congress to shut up if we disagree. Might agree with you more than others. Otherwise, it will be a long time for you. I think you get that within 90 days of being sworn in. I want to focus on the wall. I dont support the wall for several reasons. In, private Property Rights, texas, we respect private Property Rights, it is dear to us. Number two is the cost. Regular event would be 6. 5 million per mile compared to 1 million of technology and i think mr. Taylor in the military, there is a lot of technology out there that works well for the military. It should work well for us down there. That is number two, number three is environmental. There is a treaty between the u. S. And mexico as to where you can put barriers. That is an issue you have to look at. Number four, 40 of the people we had here are over phase. You can put the most beautiful wall that you want to. They will either fly in, drive through a bridge or come through boats. The report that came out talks about over space. That overstates. Moreover stays more over stays. Accordingteresting is to homeland, there were more canadians that overstayed than mexicans. I think your report said 120 thousand canadians would stay. Only 40,000 mexicans. Those that are probably not correct or accurate. I think you all looked at playing and boat and they look at land crossings also. Should bee visa state one. I dont support the wall because a natural barriers. I think President Trump acknowledged that there are l barriers to the border. This is the most beautiful wall at the port of lucia. If you have seen big ben, those are walls. I dont think you can come in and put another wall on top of this cliff that we have. I think you would agree with me. If you go down some the lower part of the river, the rio grande, which is the natural barrier, does not go straight. It snakes up and down, and that is my district down there. The u. S. Side is the top part. Look at the river and the way it snakes. I have taken a small plane from laredo to bronxville going a few miles an hour, snaking over. And it is going to be very hard to put a fence, unless you take private Property Rights that we have. All i am asking you is that you work with the local Border Patrol, worked with us, and just say that we cant just use the fence. We know what happened with the berlin wall, we know what happened with the chinese the great wall of china, we know what happened with that. And i am just saying we have to be smart with how we secure the border. We spent 18 billion a year with border security. The last time we were together with chairman carter, we were in the center border with mexico the southern border with mexico, with 80 billion we put there to help mexico secure the border. 80 million compared to 80 billion. They stop or people coming across than the whole Border Patrol did. All i am saying is, mr. Secretary, we want to work with you. I know it is a very difficult job you have. Some of us have been doing this for a long time. We want to see legitimate trade, tourism, and not impede that, and we just want to work with you. Just to conclude, my time is up, some of us want to work with you and please take advantage of our expertise. I am probably in dangerous ground, could i make a comment . Yes. Two comments, really. Since i have been in this job, everything the congressman has said about the border and where to build it, where not to build it, there may be places we do it, other places we dont, we have said that since day one. Yes, you have. What you have said about the southern border, when i was on active duty helping the mexicans construct this border strategy and help them implement it, under the radar, quietly, and it has worked very effectively. They stopped 160,000 Illegal Migrants last year, and returned them to the countries of origin humanely. Great progress. We stopped more than that last year, but the point is the southern strategy works. You have also probably heard me say that the one yard line stand, day in and day out, does not work. The protection of our border starts 1500 miles south. Everything you have said about what we should be doing i have been saying and thinking about for 120 days. My shut up comment. One thing, with all due respect, that is different between my experience in the u. S. Military and my experience now, is that the men and women of the u. S. Military, you can throw rocks or criticize and god knows we deserve some criticism. You can criticize the policy of what they are trying to execute in the world, but the one thing that we never hear certainly from this institution his is criticism of the rank and file men and women who put their lives on the line in the u. S. Military every day. You never hear that. In this job, all i heard day in and day out, nazis, stormtrooper tactics, prejudice about the men and women, footsoldiers, if you will, that stand on our border or inside our country and protected. And i would just ask that, to criticize me, criticize the trump policies, but please recognize that my men and women are doing the same kind of thing a day in and women in the military are doing. Give them a break, and that is what the shut up, it was about. I just need to respond quickly. Let me say this. Nobody has attacked the men and women. They are attacking the policy. I have been attacked as well, because you and i agree on a lot of things. I have been called some of those things, too. I want to welcome secretary kelly. This is a hearing on the department of Homeland Securitys fiscal year 2018 budget. This is the third time that secretary kelly has appeared before this committee, the second time as the secretary of the department, and we welcome you and appreciate your service to this country. Many, many years of it. In lieu of my opening statement, i want to make a couple comments. By location, i am an accountant, by vocation, i am an accountant, so i have gone through budget meetings many, many times. I want to talk about the history of the budget of the department of Homeland Security. When you take a look at the the Budget Authority, the first fiscal year was 2004, and the departments budget was 36. 5 billion. Had that budget grow by inflation, todays request would be a little under 50 billion. Instead, the total Budget Authority is 70. 6 billion, about a 93 increase. From my standpoint, that represents president bush, president obama, and now President Trump, they realize the threat environment that america faces has become more severe. It is metastasizing, and they need more resources to keep this homeland safe. As much as i am concerned about the longterm budget situation in this country, the 20 trillion we are already in bed, we cannot be penny wise and pound foolish. I dont think i have seen an accurate assessment of how much Economic Loss we had because of 9 11. We need to do everything we possibly can, and that is the top priority of the government. I want to be completely supportive of the secretarys request. Tough budget times, but we need to allocate the resources to keep our homeland safe. The next point i want to make is the dramatic change we have had in terms of total apprehension. We have a chart here. What i have done, because we only have three months of history under the new administration, i have gone back and had my staff prepare a threemonth moving average of apprehensions along the southwest border. And it is incredibly revealing. Prior to the last three months, on average, we were apprehending a little more than 122,000 individuals coming to this country illegally. 122,000. And now, we are at about 46 of the previous four or five year average. That is a remarkable result. Since taking over this chairmanship, and being on this committee, i have been on this committee looking into illegal activity on the southwest border. I have said repeatedly that the worst thing we need to do is be committed to securing the border and a limit incentives for and eliminate the incentives for illegal immigration. I would say lax enforcement of our laws is a reason. Under the new administration, we have committed to securing the border. I was a little concerned when people were taking credit for this reduction. I think that signal alone that we are committed to securing this border and will enforce our laws has had a powerful effect, and i think we are seeing the results right now. I commend the secretary for standing strong against severe criticism, and actually enforcing the laws of this nation. With that, i will turn it to our Ranking Member. Thank you, and thank you secretary kelly for being here. You appeared here a couple months ago after being confirmed. Look at the developments that have occurred in the few months since then. You have had to be all hands on deck for serious issues facing the national and Homeland Security. On may 11, you met with the Airline Industry executives with concern over electronic bans in terms of international travel. On may 12, we had a Ransomware Cyber attack that struck more than 200,000 computers in 100 50 countries, shutting down auto production in france, and closing doctors offices in britain. And of course, tragically on may 22, a terrorist bomber killed children and adults in england. These are just a few examples of why we are counting on you and why we respect the job that you have to do every day and how difficult it truly is. The importance of your work also speaks to the critical responsibility this committee has in providing oversight. I have never, ever known of a Government Agency that works better with less oversight. Asking hard questions is of course the way you do aggressive oversight, and i am to give and i am really, particularly pleased that you are not afraid to ask tough questions. It is who you are. You have been that way throughout your career. In fact, i noticed that in the speech you get to the coast guard cadets, tell the truth to i will quote you hear, tell the truth to your seniors even though it is uncomfortable, even though they dont want to hear it. They deserve that. Tell the truth. I know you will continue to speak truth to power, and i look forward to your honest assessment and how we can help you in that regard. While none of the three terrorists would have been impacted by the proposed travel ban, a lot of discussion in the United Kingdom is about the government the conservative partys cuts in Police Resources over the last decade and how many fewer resources there were on the ground to try and prevent those terrorist attacks. I am concerned that the president s budget plans to cut critical tsa programs at a time we cannot afford to let up on the security measures. A large portion of these cuts are taken from the viper teams, the Critical Response teams that are deployed throughout the country to provide critical assistance in securing some of the most attractive soft targets for terrorists in our country. The president s budget aims to cut the viper teams from 21 to from 31 down to just 18, to cover the whole country. The urban Area Security initiative, which has been a lifeline for major urban areas, they havent so many soft targets because of the large population, those also have the cut. Those have also been cut. The president s budget will eliminate the Law Enforcement reimbursement program, which provides assistance to Law Enforcement agencies who help secure our airports. Hundreds take part across the country, particularly for smaller airports, this is critically important. The president s budget will also programs that provide critical assistance to our transit programs transportation programs. The Grant Program will be cut in half. The Port Security program will be cut in half. The president is calling for complete elimination from the terrorist attacks Grant Program. I am concerned that these priorities are not getting the attention they deserve, especially in light of what is going on around the world. I think we may be focused on the shiny objects known as the travel ban, when instead we need to be focused on how many people we have, in your terminology, general, boots on the ground, in terms of being able to identify and prevent these terrorist attacks. The difference in terminology is very important, because as you know, the majority of drugs and other contraband come through our country through the ports of entry, and the cpb officers are responsible for finding them and stopping them. We cannot neglect our ports of entry as we try to increase resources in terms of Border Control and i. C. E. Agents. There are a lot of important issues ahead of us. I have questions and i know the committee does, too. I cannot tell you what it means i cannot tell you i cannot tell you how much it means to all of us for you to come here and answer our questions. I hope the rest of the administration follows your example. It is the tradition of this committee to swear in our witnesses, so if you would please rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you will get before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god . You may be seated. Secretary john f kelly, prior to joining dhs, he worked closely with u. S. Law enforcement and dhs personnel in a coordinated effort to combat the flow of drugs, people, and other threats into the United States from across the southern border. Secretary kellys career has included Extensive Service in the marine corps, and served as assistant to two military 22 secretaries of defense. To 2 secretaries of defense. He returned from retirement to serve the American People as secretary of Homeland Security. General kelly is a retired fourstar general, a goldstar parent, america could not be more appreciated to have you serving in this capacity. We look forward to your testimony. Ranking member mccaskill, distinguished members of the committee, every day, the department of Homeland Security protects the American People. It is a great pleasure to appear before you today to talk about the tremendous and and women of the department in the missions they carry out in service of america every day and night, 24 7, 365. Anyone who understands the fundamental role of our government understands that the responsibility every day begins and inns with the protection of the homeland and the security of our people. No other mission is more important. No other consideration more pressing. None. The president s fiscal year 2018 budget allows us to expand our ability to protect our people. The world is a different place today. We can it no longer think in defense, we must think in terms of the security overall of the homeland across the numerous domains of a potential attack and defense. The department of Homeland Security is making a difference in fighting the home game while the department of defense fights the away game. Together with and because of the effectiveness of agency integration, with the fbi, nsa, dts, and a million state, local, and over one million state and tribal professionals, America Today is safe. It is prepared in a way that most could not envision the day before a 9 11. But the plots to attack the country are numerous, the perpetrators, relentless. We need a fully funded budget that matches our mission. No more continuing resolutions. I think this budget does it. The budget requests 44. 1 billion in discretionary funding for the department of Homeland Security. It also requests 74. 1 billion for major disasters. When you are talking about numbers like these, it is easy to lose sight of what is behind each dollar. But when you get down to it, behind each and every dollar i hardworking men and women who every dollar is hardworking men and women who have dedicated their careers and risked their lives to protect the American People. Every dollar invested in the tools, infrastructure, equipment, and training they need to get the job done is an investment in prosperity, freedom, and the rule of law. Above all, it is an investment in the security of the American People. Recent events show you cannot invest too much in the security. Terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in kabul, manchester, london, are perfect reminders of the dangers we face globally. They also demonstrate the need to do whatever we can to keep our people safe, that means Getting Better about verifying identity, making sure people are who they say they are, and working with our International Partners to raise their awareness and their defenses, and force them to do so, at least to operate at the levels we work at. Domestically, one of the most important enhancements of this effort is an enhancement passed into law 12 years ago by congress, one that most of our states and territories have taken seriously and already adopted. Many others are working hard at compliance. In those 12 years, someone elected or appointed state and federal position to have the responsibility to safeguard the nation, have chosen to drag their feet or ignore the law passed by congress. I will not. Real id will make americans safer. Real id will soon be enforced at airports, ports of entry, and all federal facilities. There is a critically important 9 11 commission recommendation, that others have been willing to ignore. I will ensure it is implemented on schedule with no extension for states that are not taking the effort seriously. For those states and territories that cannot or will not make the january deadline, they should encourage their citizens to require other forms of id compliant with the real id law. Like passports, available of course from the state department. We need to prevent bad actors, regardless of race, religion, or nationality from entering our country. In recent years, we have witnessed an unprecedented spike in terrorist travel. There are more terrorist hotspots and foot soldiers now than any time in modern history. In syria and iraq, there are thousands of jihadist fighters who have converged from more than 120 countries. It is our superb military machine acting in coalition with other likeminded partners as they succeed on the battlefield in the caliphate, these fighters returning home to europe, south asia, southeast asia, australia, and the western hemisphere. Who knows what they are up to, but we can guess. They are hitting what they think are safe havens to continue their plotting and advance their toxic ideology of hate, death, and intolerance wherever they are allowed to hide. We expect some will look to travel to the United States to carry out attacks. With this context in mind, the president has issued an executive order to the entire executive branch, to prevent the entry of aliens who seek to do us harm. For the Current Court injunction, it prevents us from taking steps to improve the security of the homeland until we see how the court action plays out. While some discuss debate and argue the name kyle argued the name, title, professional men and women like me are in the business of limiting the president s intent to secure the nation, and we are doing that. We will let the selfappointed critics talk about the name. I just hope the Congress Sees the wisdom of what the president is trying to do to protect the people, and that congress are willing to work with those of us in the business of securing the nation. And it has been my experience, with less than four months on the job, that congress is in fact committed to that. The injunctions have prevented us from putting a temporary ban on travel from aliens from six countries in states of civil war, our state sponsors of terrorism, and basically failed states. They are states that were identified in 2015 as nations of great concern. At the time, the expectation was those in the business of securing the nation lawfully, would focus additional attention on these nations and others in similar circumstances for accurate vetting. It has nothing to do with religion or skin color or the way they live their lives, but the security of the United States and nothing else. These countries are either unwilling or unable to help us validate the backgrounds of persons within their borders. I can tell you right now, because of the injunctions, i am not only confident we are doing all we can to beat out potential to weed out potential wrongdoers from these locations. The injunction also prevents us from looking into the information we need to conduct proper screening, not just from the six countries identified in the executive order, but every country across the globe. It also prevents me from conducting the review under the executive order, with the goal of improving security of our refugee program. Bottom line, i have been prevented from doing these things that would keep america safe, and i anxiously await the court to prevent its action so i can get to work. The men and women of dhs will do everything we can and always, always, always within the law to keep the American People safe. But the delay has prevented us from doing that, what i and those familiar with the threats we face believe we need to do to protect our homeland. Again, sir, i appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee today. Thank you for your continued support and the committees continued support for the great men and women of the department, and the mission we take so seriously. I remain committed to working with congress in protecting the American People. I have made changes to the Organization Since i have been the department had, department head, to do exactly that, to increase responsiveness, availability of witnesses. We have done all of that in a big way. Im glad to answer any questions you may have, sir. Thank you. You are watching cspans review of the federal budget process. President trump submitted a budget request of 1. 1 trillion to congress, and since then, house and senate has held meetings with cabinet secretaries to work toward finalizing the budget for each agency. When Congress Comes back into session, there will be 12 legislative days to finalize the 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2018, which begins on october 1, 2017. Next, we go back to june 13, and a hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on commerce and justice, where Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein testified on the president s 2018 budget request. Our 2018 budget request shows a strong commitment to the Justice Departments Top Priorities. It provides more funding to fight terrorism and cyber crime, to tackle the opioid epidemic, and to combat illegal immigration. It also gives us the resources we need to support our state, local, and tribal partners. This budget reflects three important themes. Number one, truth in budgeting. Number two, increases in efficiency, and number three, focusing on priorities. These changes are critical and they support the executive order of the president to reorganize agencies, for the goal of increasing efficiency and effectiveness. The budget is honest one, eliminating from the books thousands of reviews leung funded and vacant positions that give the impression of the number of personnel on duty. These positions have been vacant for years or have never been filled at all. Secondly, this budget seeks to identify areas where we can cut back without harming our mission. Finally, the budget allows us to do our work with every tax dollar. National security remains our highest priority. We price a wide array of threats, from terrorism, to espionage, to cybercrime. We also need to come to terms, senators, with the growing challenge which i know you are all familiar with. Growing dark refers to Law Enforcements increasing inability to lawfully intercept Realtime Communications and stored data. Even with a warrant, as a result of changes in technologies, this severely impairs our ability to conduct investigations and bring criminals to justice. Our Law Enforcement officers operate within the constitution, and they respect legitimate privacy interests. But when there is a legitimate need to access information and we have a court order or other authority, click safety is Public Safety is jeopardized when we are unable to obtain that relevant information. Our Department Must adapt to evolving challenges. The Justice Department is also committed to protecting the American People from Violent Crime, and from the adverse effects of illegal drug distribution, both of which are spiking at alarming rates. Violent crime is rising in areas of our nation, and drugrelated injuries and deaths are increasing across the country. Senators, the evidence of this is indisputable. Rising Violent Crime and increasing drug abuse are devastating Many American families, and the Justice Department is confronting these crises head on and we need your help. The proposed budget provides Law Enforcement agencies with extra support, so they can target the worst violent criminals and Drug Trafficking rings. It also provides to 30 230 additional assistant u. S. Attorneys to focus specifically on our efforts to fight crime. Those in Additional Resources will enhance the abilities of federal Law Enforcement to fight crime, and keep our communities safe. We are focusing also on getting a licit drugs off of the streets through strong enforcement efforts, and through our drug takeback programs. In addition to that, we call on doctors, pharmacists, and pharmaceutical companies to take a hard look at their practices, and help us develop ways we can reduce the harmful overprescription of pharmaceutical drugs. The American People also expect our government to secure our borders, and restore a lawful system of immigration. The department of justice will do our part, along with the department of Homeland Security. Our proposed budget provides much needed funding to hire 75 additional Immigration Judges and support personnel to reduce the unacceptable backlog in our Immigration Courts. It will also allow us to hire more deputy u. S. Marshals, and 30 more border prosecutors, so we can effectively apprehend and prosecute criminal aliens who threaten our communities. The federal government does not maintain Public Safety alone. 85 of Law Enforcement officers in our country, are not federal. They are working for state, local, and tribal partners, and we rely on them heavily. The men and women serving on the front lines are the first line of defense and keep our communities safe. They deserve our support. The budget maintains our commitment to these valued partners, and prioritizes Grant Funding to the programs that have proven to be effective. This budget funds important priorities, while helping us to achieve a more efficient department. We will do all we can to be good stewards of the resources. We have a duty to avoid waste, and safeguard taxpayer money, so it will be available to fight crime and protect people. The Justice Department is home to 115,000 men and women who work every day to serve, protect, and defend the American People, and respect the constitution of the United States. This budget makes it possible for us to do our jobs with the investment set forth in this budget, we will continue to work for all americans. In my few remaining moments, i learned this morning about an incident in georgia, in which to Correctional Officers were murdered in the course of transporting prisoners, in georgia. I talked with our Marshals Service director this morning, and we have committed all federal resources to help catch those fugitives and hold the perpetrators accountable. My thoughts are with the victims and their families, and the support of Law Enforcement personnel, who are working on this case today. An attack on any american Law Enforcement officer is an attack on every american Law Enforcement officer. Senators, im happy to take any questions about our proposed budget, and i look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you. I have tried to stay within the budget area this morning. Specifically, what is the department of justice doing to accelerate the hiring of new immigration justices Immigration Judges . This is one of my Top Priorities. I have been on the job for six weeks, and i learned pretty nearly and my tenure, about this extraordinary backlog in immigration cases. It is been one of my Top Priorities to address that. Our fiscal 2018 budget includes 145 million to enhance or security. Also, i believe 100 450 people, judges and support staff to address that backlog. This also includes assistant u. S. Attorneys, and 7 million to prosecute violations of immigration law. , also also, to address your question about the backlog, we are focused on that. One of the challenges we had was bureaucratic delays in hiring and filling vacancies. In addition to 75 new judges and their support personnel, we are also expediting hiring more Immigration Judges to fill the existing vacancies. It is a big challenge. Were going to make a top priority. To put an end to the increase in the backlog, and then more efficiently and quickly reduce that backlog. Everybody that has a case pending in our Immigration Court deserves a resolution of the case. The fbi is in a time of transition. James comey fostered a number of improvements to make the fbi stronger, from the ways we collect and use intelligence, to our cyber programs, to leadership and diversity issues. We are going to continue to do our best to make sure we make progress in those areas. The threats we make are constantly evolving. We must constantly examine the way we do business, to ensure we are doing everything we can, in the best way that we can. I believe the fbi maintains a sacred trust the American People, to protect them and upholds the constitution. We do that with the precious resources that those people, and this committee, give us. The fundamental element of that sacred trust, is making sure we are always good stewards of the taxpayers money. We have tried to be good stewards with the money provided, and have been conservative in our budget requests. We ask for what we need, and when we need extras in certain areas, we dont hesitate to tell you. The fbis budget request includes a . 7 billion in salaries and expenses. This will support 33,000 positions, 12,484 of which are special agents. 2950 our intelligence allen analysts our intelligence analysts. We need all of these people. They are the lifeblood of the fbi. They are over and beyond everything else, our best and most impactful resource. The fy 2018 budget represents an increase a decrease of more than 400 million from the fy 2017 levels. This will result in a reduction of more than 1600 positions. Let me shift briefly to program enhancements. I would like to highlight a few of the things we have requested. In cyber, we have asked for 41. 5 million to build on our cyber capabilities. These are investigative capabilities, collection capabilities, and analytic capacity. The frequency and impact of Cyber Attacks has increased dramatically. We need to shift from reacting after the fact, to preventing such attacks before they occur. We have got to collect the best intelligence and we have to share it with our partners, both in Law Enforcement and the private sector, in realtime. And to do that, we have to hire the best cyber tell. Cyber talent. We are asking for 19. 7 million to counter threats from foreign services, and also from Insider Threats from trusted employees and contractors. In the area we refer to as going dark, we request 21. 6 million to address this problem. And this is much more than getting into locked devices or communications, which is a part of the issue but not the entirety of it. Going dark is impacting our ability to execute lawful court orders, and that is a growing problem. We still have our priority for Violent Crime. Violent crime remains one of our highest priorities, for good reason. The challenges our partners at the state, local and tribal level every single day. We are asking for 33 positions and 3. 4 million, to implement recommendations from the attorney generals tax force task force on crime reduction. We have asked for an additional 22 million to sustain our capabilities. That period of time when a target becomes operationalized, has condensed over the last couple of years. And if you are concerned with modalities that concern vehicles, and bladed weapons, that will further compress that time that we refer to as, from flash to bang. One of our best tools against that threat is lawful surveillance. I will talk about one of our highest legislative priorities for this year, and that is the reauthorization of fisa section 702. This gives us the ability to collect intelligence from foreign persons outside the United States. This intelligence is incredibly important. Is a tool the entire u. S. Government benefits from, and it is one, if we lose it, this country will be less safe. Without it we dont have a window into the activities of terrorists, spies, weapons to live relators weapons are liberators, or others who might be coming after us. We might not know what is coming our way. We are also asking for resources to disrupt transnational criminal syndicates. And, to maintain our Biometrics Technology center. These enhancements are important and necessary to keep the country safe. In conclusion, our leadership has changed, but the fundamental things about the fbi will not ever change. Our commitment to keeping the American People safe, a fidelity to the constitution and the rule of law, and our core values, respect, compassion, fairness, accountability, leadership and diversity, and of course, adherence to the constitution. These are the values that have made the of the eye what it is today. We will stay focused on the mission, we will keep doing great work, with your support, because the American People deserve no less. I am happy to take your questions. Thank you, director mckay. Your salaries and expenses this years 45 million below 2017. And this is the ascension that i the omb made that we would be under a continuing resolution, which fortunately did not happen. The request appears to leave the fbi with a hole to fill. I want to ask you, how would this fbi affect the fbis ability to address terrorism and home grown violent extremism . It will certainly impact us in many ways. It is a broad and deep enough reduction, that it will touch every program. It will touch headquarters, and it will touch our field offices. It is a reduction that is not possible to take entirely, against vacancies. It is a reduction that will touch every description of the employee within the fbi. We will lose agent positions, analyst positions, and professional staff. We went through a. Of sequestration a few years ago, where we reduced by 3000 positions during the course of sequestration. It has taken us quite some time to hire our way back up to full strength. We are on target to be very close to full strength by the end of this year, and the reductions you described will take us backwards a step. Those are just recommendations. The subcommittee will have the final word on that. Youd much we supported work am a you know how much we support your work. The fbi requests and 8 million increase for surveillance of high priority targets. Why is that a priority, and how is the fbi meeting current surveillance needs . We are in good shape right now. That 8 million is all personnel fundings. It essentially enables us to protect 78 positions that would likely have been added, to the reductions that have been discussed. The demands we place on our surveillance teams have just been enormous. As the number of homegrown violent extremists and counterintelligence targets rose, those folks that we need to keep a very close eye on, sometimes on a daytoday, 24 hour basis, those resources become all the more important. Sewer reduction in that area would be especially tough for us. So a reduction in that area would be especially tough for us. We have a terrible problem with young women being exploited and sold into slavery. It is a catastrophic and heartbreaking situation. Can you talk about the work the fbi is doing to help fight Human Trafficking . Particularly in the southwest border area, where we have five field offices to address border issues, we have made a significant investment in terms of our safe streets task forces, in terms of the work we do with our partners at dea, dhs and others. Frequently, we find ourselves looking at the same transnational crime groups that are engaged in narcotics trafficking, that are also engaged in Human Trafficking. So it is the combined work we do in the task force environment that lets us be as protect as productive as we can be. It is an area that we want to keep focused on very closely and make sure we have the right folks doing network. Is the budget request satisfactory, in that regard . What resources do you need to beat back this terrible epidemic . I think the most valuable thing for us, at this point, is to restore those reductions that we were likely to sustain in 2017. What are the main challenges the fbi has encountered, regarding the supply chain, particularly the concern we all have with backdoors and trojan horses being built into hardware. Its an incredibly important area, and we have really tried to expand outreach across the government and across the private sector. We are in a unique position to see those threats come in, from the work we do in the counterintelligence side. We have tried to spread that word, utilizing things like the best practices document, to let folks know these of the threats they need to be aware of, particularly across the government, as they acquire hightech infrastructure for the symptoms. It has been great to see, in the last several months, the new administration has a deep interest in addressing some of the things we have seen, i there are a lot of ways we can be more effective in terms of monitoring foreign investment, especially in our hightech areas. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im concerned the special counsel you on pointed you appointed to investigate ties between the administration in russia, will not have adequate resources. Is the fbi is the special counsel being provided with all resources . I have had many interactions with the special counsel and his representatives. We have a great number of folks who have already been detailed to that team, and i have assured director mueller that we will do everything necessary, and deliver the resources to meet the needs that he has, to do that work. Thank you for the grantor. Is the f the eye is the fbi investigation continuing concurrently, with the special counsel investigation, or have all the resources been transferred to director muellers office . All the resources necessary to conduct the investigation that director mueller is now responsible for, have been cited to that effort under director mueller. The fbi continues to maintain responsibility for counterintelligence issues, writ large, against all our foreign adversaries, and certainly including our russian adversaries. We still do work in the russia counterintelligence space, but we are careful to leave what is for the special counsel, to the special counsel. This legit reflects the president s strong personal commitment to veterans. Focusing our resources to what is most important to veterans, and suicide prevention. We are already taking steps to meet the challenges that we face. We have established a the a count of billy office ava accountability office. We have recently removed to executive directors. I recently announced a new fraud, waste, and abuse prevention advisory committee. I have also directed the bams Central Office to remain under a hiring freeze for it minister the vas Central Office to remain under a hiring freeze for its administration. Veterans can now access data for their local bas, using an online, easy to use tool. No other Health System in the country has this type of transparency. We have made it easier for veterans to fill out Online Health care applications. Last summer, we received eight times as many online applications as the year before. Last month, we were able to process a disability claim in just three days. I said that right. They did this a disability claim processed in just three days. At our regional offices, we will be completely paperless for claims by mid2018. A few months ago, the call crisis line had a rollover rate and now that is less than 1 . We now have a new program to offer proactive support to veterans who are at high risk for suicide. This is my top clinical priority. This is my top clinical priority. But to keep moving forward we are going to need your help. We have 1000 facilities that are either vacant or underutilized and we are moving forward with 142 of those facilities. We need congress to fund our i. T. Modernization, with the system marti and used by the department of defense. System already in use by the department of defense. We also need congress to authorize an overhaul of our broken claims appeal process. To draft a proposal to modernize the system, and we are pleased to see the house get behind the bill. Now we just need the senate to act. We need congress to ensure the continued success of choice for veterans. Veterans are funding to our modernization efforts by choosing their the v. A. More than ever before. We need to fully fund choice and help us modernize v. A. Community care, for the Veterans Care Program. The Veterans Care Program will coordinate care, so veterans get the right care at the right time with the right provider, whether in ava facility or in a highperforming the air Community Care a high performing v. A. Community care facility. We look forward to your questions today. Thank you, dr. Shulkin. I have consistently said that any change in the appeals process, much fix the 170,000 veterans who have claims pending today. Would you commit to that . I would commit to that. Would v. A. Be able to accelerate decisions for those 470,000 appeals that are pending . The appeals, the board of appeals, are the ones we are most concerned about. If the senate votes to move the appeals modernization forward, we will have a process to expedite those at the time that the law passes, in moving forward. You are asking about legacy claims, and appeals. We do not have a plan to make significant progress on those. We are going to have to whittle away at them. The budget will add 142 more step to the board. That will allow us to make incremental progress. To deal with the backlog, we would be looking at 2026 before we dealt with the backlog. The one hope that i have, rather than adding a large number of staff to do with the backlog, is that we will give current veterans who are in the appeals process the option of opting in to the new process. If they choose to opt in, is going to have to be their choice, and they would have their appeal dealt with in the expedited fashion, in the faster fashion. So that is my hope to accelerate the backlog, to encourage veterans who, unfortunately right now would have to we for years to get to decisions, would opt into the new process. I would like to commend you because you gave a patently honest answer to my question. Not that i expected anybody else, but it is easy for Department Heads sometimes to talk in departmentese. But this is not going to do much, even if it is adopted, to move those legacy claims forward. We will still have 470,000 lames claims out there. I hate to, im going to quote now when i heard secondhand. Ive been told that ba recently told a Congressional Office bas line is to quote, very gradually, end quote, address the 470,000 legacy appeals. Different appeal reformist past, is that the plan and how long will that take . Yes, it would be gradual and it would be 2026. Yes. Mr. Chairman, let me just add because we sure that frustration. I find it really difficult to tell people who have submitted into the appeals process they have six years to wait on average to get a response. Ive asked the question, how to getre would it take that backlog addressed . The issue is, im not sure you want to know, because i was doubted. Around 800 million. , the Center Center testers everything we do as a committee will pale in comparison to the help we are going to catch with 800 million to handle those names for 2026. Appeals, they. Ll still be out there yes. You need to know the number, 800,000 will do it. We need to be prepared to find some way to do it. Get morepeople will and more anguish, less and less services and it will cause more and more albums problems straight thank you for being candid about that. The hard to make decisions. One of those will be to get those legacy claims done and ill let them build up in the future. We fix the ones that are back and we have another buildup, we will be mad. Watching cspans review of the 2018 federal budget process. In may, President Trump submitted a budget rest of 1. 1 trillion to congress and since then the house and senate have held Committee Meetings and hearings with cabinet secretarys to work towards finalizing the budget for each agency. Congress comes back into session in september, the house and senate will have 12 legislative days to finalize the 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2018 which begins october 1, 2017. Next to go back to june 22, and a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources secretary were Energy Rick Perry testified on the president s 2018 Energy Department urgent request. But request trumps for the department of Energy Provides 28 billion to advance our key missions focus on important investments including. Ensuring the safety and effectiveness of our new weapons arsenal, protecting our Energy Infrastructure from Cyber Attacks and threats, achieving computing and focusing the Amazing Network of our national laboratories, on earlystage research and development. In michaels are straightforward treated as our nation is Critical Energy and scientific r d mission, strengthen nuclear security, fulfill our Environmental Management commitment. Ive just handed you a rather rosy picture. While there is a lot of good news to report, there are other heard conversations we need to have. As youre well aware. There are approximately 120 , restoring states spent nuclear fuel or highlevel waste. Committeers of this have waste in their states. We have a moral and National Security obligation to come up with a longterm solution, dining the safest repositories available. This is a sensitive topic for but we no longer can continue to kick the can down the road. As a former legislative appropriator and agency head and governor, i understand how important following the rule of law is. Ive been instructed to move forwards towards that goal. ,he president s budget request 100 20 million to resume Licensing Activities for the Yucca Mountain of your waste repository and to initiate a. Obust interim Storage Program we also need to be good stewards of the taxpayers dollars. Billion ons spent 5 the project it is way over budget, with no end in sight. The army corps of engineers made a cost of 72 billion dollars and a 2048 completion date. The money appropriated for this project is my can be used towards other priorities, like National Security or cleanup that other sites. Theres a better, cheaper, proven way to this is tony him. Lutoniam. Thatct, were using process now. I look forward to having an ongoing job ongoing dialogue you in the days and months to come. Thank you very much, mr. Chair, thank you administrator pruitt for being with us today. Hope we can find ways to Work Together although youve heard a lot of us on the committee have concerns about the president s budget. I hope we can coerce you into making some changes. Like some of our colleagues have said before, we certainly disagree with the administrations stand on the paris accord and i come from the state of maine where people have a lot of concerns about Climate Change, and it has an effect on our lives every day. I want to mention, the Bipartisan Group of my colleagues in germany a couple of weeks ago when he announced it was made, and a lot of our colleagues in the bundestag, the government over there were so shocked we would make this decision and also worried that they couldnt trust the United States anymore to keep with an agreement and i want to echo the sentiments. I want to get into more specifics. Sometimes i think we could take someoneal issues who comes from the state of maine and understands the importance of the environment and the economy working together, and how much i hear about it or make it that you and, Climate Change to us is a real. Its not an environmental platitude. I would say proudly that the highest landings in the world are in a cafe where i live in icy lobster fisherman every day and a look at me with this fear and the rise of saying, what are we going to do . The ocean is warming around us, we are watching the migration of lobsters ive been to the coast and once they get to canada, they will belong to them, not us. Inre seeing a disappearance the shrimping industry. As my colleague said between the fishing industry there important economically. I cant go home to say to people in this is really happening. People in the ocean industry, Ocean Acidification does exist. We may sometimes disagree on this committee about the causes costs of Climate Change. Doing something about this is critical. I represent a huge coastline, and with sea level rising we may not see it every day, just a way they do in miami beach that we see it when people try to get a mortgage or sell their home or get insurance. These are economic issues. When you talk about uncertainty in the market base, where people live in coastal communities, these are the people i deal with everyday and they are looking at this with fear and concern and saying to me and i am saying to myself, what will i tell my grandchildren if we dont do something about it . Is my first concern in the second one, and i feel it mr. Kilmer, i could go on for 500 minutes and im confident the chair will let me do that, kind as he is straight this economic question for tourism were fishing states, Natural Resources states, and maybe you say one size doesnt it is all and is not the same as oklahoma. Represent one of those states, its in the tailpipe of the fossil fuel industry. I want to talk about clean air. We have deep concerns about the cuts in this budget and your approach to this. Im looking for any way i possibly can to work with you, but people in my area have deep concerns. Your attorney general through the Environmental Protection agency disagreed with these gets, and i know we all criticized at times for who supports the work we do, i want to take you at your word so i want you to hear, this doesnt work so well. We in the 80th we are the most Oil Dependent state in the nation. We know how hard it is to get over our fossil fuel dependence, and we are deeply concerned about cuts potentially to Energy Independence because we cant have more solar and more wind, we cant have that healthy balance. Concerned acutely about the rollback of clean air rules and the cuts in this administration. We have one of the highest rates of childhood asthma and that is just a tragedy, fact that so many people in our state have to deal with the impact of being at the end of the tailpipe of coal powered plants coming to our state, what do you think its like to see the highest rate of emergency room admissions because of asthma or have ozone alerts in the middle of our tourism season . We can say to people, dont come to our state because the air is going to be dirty right now. Talk about the uncertainty of the marketplace, this creates a lot of uncertainty. Youve heard a lot of our concerns. Theaid we should celebrate downturn in co2 levels. That is because we had higher fuel efficiency standards and we have invested more in clean energy. It also cuts your commitment to our state and we cant leave States Holding the bag, about 100 employees in our department are funded through the federal government. We dont get that money back if you take it all away. I think i represent what im hearing every day, and i dont see how more cooperation are more efficient the replaces those or thousand employees youre about to cut or put some of the money back in his programs we care about. Let me say first that i look forward to us, as you indicated, working together. I appreciate you saying that and its something i endeavored to do as well. With respect to attainment issues, it is a priority of our minutes duration to focus on achieving better attainment outcomes. As you know, when you look at asthma the two criteria pollutants we regularly there are several. Two of them predominate the impact of asthma, particularly ozone. The 2. 5 standard is better than any in europe. Making trends progress towards achieving Good Health Outcomes for our citizens. I believe we can do more. When i say celebrate progress, we have to recognize we have progress as a country, that we should recognize the success weve achieved, that it doesnt mean we stopped. Inmates we work with the states to get better data, not model data that monitored data, realtime data, and a focus on compliance and assistance with those states to achieve their outcomes and attainment program. With respect to c02, the president when he announced with drawl from the paris accord said Something Else as well. He said he wanted to continue engagement on this issue. I just left the g7. I spent days in bologna with my counterparts and we started bilateral discussions with them with respect to our continued leadership with his right to c o2 reduction. You mentioned the progress weve made to government regulations, predominantly in the mobile source area, that innovation and technology has about a tremendous amount of co2 reductions, particularly hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling, conversion of natural gas, the hours of our power grid. We should be focused on his election, using this form of we need to focus on using the latest technology that reduces emissions in a very meaningful way and focus on leading in International Discussions exporting that type of technology. This is not a sign of disengagement from the president made that they are, its a sign of saying it from a way of them is getting real action to reducing co2 to the implementation of what weve done in the past several years. I appreciate your thoughts and i hope it is not a wine of disengagement, and we are going to continue to focus on co2. Im not clear how we do that if we do funding for all these areas. Help you can continue talking to me about that. Hope you can continue talking to me about that. Congress did not address this from a stationary source for active treatment have tremendous regulation in the mobile source category. As far as the stationary sources, when you look at the Clean Air Act, i dont know how many of you were here in 1990, but if you ask members to amended that act in 1990, including congressman dingell, he described regulation of co2 and ghd as being a glorious mess, if thats how that framework is used. We have to ask the question of the epa, we cant just make up our authority. We cant just make up processes to address whatever objectives that have been identified. Andave to receive authority direction and process from this body. As we evaluate steps we will take it the agency, he will be on what are the tools in the toolbox we have and if theres a deficiency of those tools, we will let you know and advise you accordingly. Its very important that we recognize that. I just hope we can discuss the power plan again because i was about stationary wiener. Thank you. Since we brought up clean air, i havent asked any questions. Act is obviously very important to me and certainly to my state, and certainly my area. W, asct, as you kno administrator, the california was probably it was the first state to start cleaning up its 63, before thee 19 Clean Air Act was envisioned, cal of you had already started stepping forward to clean up its air and step up with pollution rules. Theres a history of bipartisan cooperation. Jerry lewis, a congressman here who helped create the south coast quality base, while certainly theres a lot of concerns about clean air, that i shared with governor reagan back when he was governor in 1966, and provisions in california to deal with that. In fact, one thing thats important to california is weve had these waivers for over 50 years. Ask the question, do you plan to continue the Clean Air Act preemption waiver that the agency granted to california. Probably the waiver is not under review. Youre right, this is something that has granted. Going back to the beginning of the Clean Air Act, because of the leadership the california demonstrated when it was reserved as you know, so its important to recognize the role of the states and achieving greater quality standards. That is something we are committed to in the agent he, and the waiver is not currently being reviewed the epa. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Administrator pruitt, thank you for being there. A lot of very nice things have been said about the leadership from you and this administration, from paris to rightsizing the agency. I want to associate myself with those accolades and compliments. A couple of quick things, i think you heard very clearly around this table you all appreciate, we want, we love clean air and clean water. In West Virginia Iron Mountain forest are second to none. Are an energy state in West Virginia. We have coal, natural gas, oil. You are also a huge resource date with the hardest working. Eople and your predecessor, candidly, and the Prior Administration, did everything it could to put West Virginia out of business. And put West Virginia out of work. I respect my colleagues from across the aisle, from washington, worrying about his 3200 employees from puget sound of losing their jobs. In West Virginia, as a result of the prior restoration, we did lose over 10,000 direct jobs mining, good jobs. We put so many people on the unemployment line because of the actions of the Prior Administration of the prior epa administrator. As the chairman mentioned a minute ago, the power of the purse. I know ive been working here in this committee to try to use the power of the purse to influence the direction of the work of the epa, and the policies, and i simply want to say thank you for creating signs of hope and opportunity for the hardworking people of West Virginia. We do have coal mines that are opening up great we have people going back to work to create a sense of hope and opportunity in their lives. I want to thank you for that. Numer one, i want to make sure its clear for all to herar and listen, does this administration make it a priority of having an all of the above Energy Policy . I think whats important is you look at how we generate electricity in this country. We need to have truly fuel diversity. As we had 1 growth in our gdp, theres not as much concern about grid security, but as we its to 4 growth, important to Utility Companies across this country only actually have diverse portfolios in which to generate electricity. You can actually store and this is important with respect to energy security, you can store hydrocarbons on. Theres only so much natural gas you to a pipe and if theres an attack on the transportation ability toputs your generate electricity at risk if you rely on any particular fuel source for generating electricity. It would be like a business having one or two clients and if you lose the client, your business goes away. Its important american citizens know that our price per kilowatt compared to europe, compared to other nations, is very competitive rate it provides us the ability to grow a manufacturing base, and the stability our focus should be on using innovation and technology, as decisions are made whether its hydro or new year or coal or natural gas, electricity we use at Innovation Technology to achieve the lowest emissions standards possible in each of the areas we regulate. In aadministration and you leadership role at the epa to see a future for coal. I believe its absolutely essential we had a very robust fuel diversity and how we generate electric in this country, and we already tv optimism across the country. You cite that. Its in all of the above strategy. Think this is really important. We should talk about Prescription Drugs as a huge driver of health care costs. The backlog, with generics or orphan drugs, is critically important. I love to do more with less. But weve got to do a lot more with a third less. And i just dont see how that works. You dont have to justify this. Ive heard the moral from a lot of different folks. In the end, if were going to be able to hold you accountable and you come back in and say, i didnt have the manpower to do it, thats our job here, to make sure you have the manpower you do it, and recommendations are really important when it comes to manpower. Theres fat and every agency and priorities in every agency. I would hope that you would be honest with us and say, this is a big issue. I think the generic drug thing is a huge issue and to get these high need generics out i think is something we should all try to achieve, but we also need to be realistic on the manpower. Its important. As youre trying to think through what you think are the appropriate allocations to support the agencys mission, we would be happy to work with you. Not only me, but this entire sub midi on your budget. Yourld love to get recommendations. I think this is an incredible driver in health care and we need to figure ways to reduce cost. Generics have been one of the bright lights over the last 13, 20 years. When we see hedge fund folks buying up Prescription Drug companies, what senator collins talked about, we have to figure out ways to block that whether its an agency or another agency. Thank you. Now i want to talk about importation Prescription Drugs. Theres been all sorts of efforts over the last 20 years and i know of from montana. Bills put forth here. Some good, some not so gbood. Do you think america should be allowed to import drugs from other countries . Asked totion has been fda commissioners across republican and democratic administrations, and theres a certification its currently legal to have drug importation as long as the secretary of health and Human Services can certify the safety of the drugs coming in, that legislation existed through republican and democratic administrations. I have not taken a fresh look at this. Im happy to look at it and i would remind the committee that fda commissioners dating back to when i was last of the agency 15 years ago havent been able to make that certification. Havent made the certification of safety, of it being a safe product. The ability to put in place a proper regulatory architecture that if you have reimportation of drugs, to make sure the chain of custody can be guaranteed, that youre actually getting a drug that was manufactured by the legitimate thats a legitimate concern. Theres also a legitimate concern of americans being down for their Prescription Drugs, almost to the point that we may be subsidizing other countries for their cheaper Prescription Drugs trade i dont know that to be a fact. And i go into montana, think the same can be said for north dakota oregon, we hear about this issue a lot. To take stepsing to address it. As you know, throughout were doing to try to bring competition onto the market, i think you are right. We are subsidizing drugs through the high prices we pay here to support research and development and we need to address that too. You for your answers, thank you for a thank you for your answers, for allowing me to go over time. Transportation we share the same goal. The president s 2018 budget represents able vision of our transportation and infrastructure, the administration has carefully studied our current spending patterns and taken a closer look at programs that may not be meeting their intended purposes, have outlasted their usefulness, or could be replaced with new initiatives that will better address future transportation needs. The president is requesting 76 billion for transportation. Fastrequest includes the act provides steady state funding for the majority of other transportation programs. The budget provides new policy direction in several key areas. First, our transportation infrastructure is crumbling and the urgent need of attention to address this concern, the president has proposed longterm reforms to change the way Infrastructure Projects are regulated, funded, delivered, and maintained. The president s plan will create centers for additional state, local, and private funding and will ensure that federal funding is leveraged to maximize infrastructure investment. The president has identified a total federal commitment of 200 billion for Infrastructure Improvements of which a person will be directed towards Rural America. Next, the president s fiscal year 2018 budget also includes a proposal represents a major shift to the faa. Despite spending billions of decades dollars, over of effort, the government has not been able to fully implement stateoftheart air Traffic Control technology. Air Traffic Controllers still use paper strips to keep track are guidedand pilots using 1960s technology radar, for example. Congestion and delays cost more than 25 billion annually and higher fuel costs, lost productivity, not to mention our quality of life. By 2020, air passenger traffic will soar to over one billion annually. Air freight is expected to more than double over the next three decades. Drones and Unmanned Aircraft systems will have to be integrated into the National Interstate air space. Without change, the current air Traffic Control system will be unable to keep up. So this administration for proofs that proposed moving air Traffic Control to a nonprofit, nongovernmental independent cooperative. Safety Regulatory Oversight functions will remain at faa. Involve an hold a longstanding conflict of interest issue with the entity airTraffic Control regulating its own safety. Worldwide50 countries currently have this structure of separating out airTraffic Control and air safety regulation. Finally, the president calls or reforming some of her other transportation programs like ftas Capital Investment Grant Program, the discretionary portion of the essential air the president also recommends that we revisit the tiger Grant Programs, the infrastructure is both outlined by the president will highlight alternative ways to fund worthy projects using a different funding formula moving forward. It also will recognize that the administrations commitment to Rural America as we revitalize our transportation infrastructure. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the president s budget. I am actually 20 seconds ahead of time. [laughter] i will be more than glad to answer your questions. Thank you, secretary. As you know, my state is home to two of the Largest National parks, mount regnier and olympic. Your proposal would cut both parks by 7 . Not regnier with their funding reduction of 181,000 and Olympic National park, 100,000. 900,000. Im trying to understand. These parks were already underfunded. The funding cuts will only make the problems worse. Can you explain why you think cutting these parks and support function and personnel on the front lines is the right strategy and balancing a budget . Infrastructure increased 38 million. That is not a cut. Secondly, the front lines are the parks. Since i have been secretary, i have been to let me make the list. Think i have been to maine, new hampshire, utah, montana, alaska, connecticut. I have toured monuments and it is clear the frontline is too thin. My assessment of the department of interior is we have too many middle management and above and too few in the parks. We are looking at going through a process, coordination with you, how to push more assets to the frontline. Every costcutting measure previous to this has always regionalized assets up, and we find ourselves too short in the parks. Yes, we need more scientists in the field and less lawyers. But also, you look at the stack on the regions we are too , heavy in the regions. Unfortunately, that has taken a toll at our parks. Secondly is the best funds for the parks are through the door. Tickets to the door. We had 330 million visitors to our parks last year. Half of our parks dont charge. We divided a tier system. And many of our parks dont even follow the tier system. So, we have to look at revenue as well, and publicprivate partnerships. We are looking at some of our parks on transportation. If you go to yosemite, the vicinity experience is now going up a freeway. Aboutgnier has challenges too many traffic. Publicprivate partnerships, how to move people and how to maintain the experience in the park is important and we are looking at everything. Mr. Secretary, i find the budget so focused on the oil and natural gas aspect of revenue that i think you are neglecting the fact that the Outdoor Economy generates 887 billion a year. 65 billion in federal revenue, 59 billion and state and local revenue. So, that versus the 2 billion you are talking about, or the 18 billion depending on Price Fluctuations for oil and gas, i want to make sure we are putting pedal to the medal in terms fo of the Outdoor Economy an opportunity. That will generate a lot more revenue for us. For fiscal year 2018, we have developed a carefully crafted budget, requesting 322 million. That is 5. 2 below the prior this will years of approximately 339 million. We also will not need any directed move or restacking funds, which amounted to 44 million and 16. 9 million in fiscal years 2016 and 2017. In addition we propose to reduce , our spectrum operation cap to from 170 million to approximately 111 million. This would enable us to transfer 6 million more to the treasury. We can all agree that budget reductions dont come easily. He will face the same challenges as other agencies in doing more with less. Implement and limiting budget and limiting budget cuts, implementing budget cuts, while maintaining essential services means rolling up our sleeves and rethinking how the Commission Functions and does business. In the past, fcc chairmen have emphasized that we are an entirely fee funded agency. It is important to remember that someone is paying our freight. That includes Small Businesses, individual licensees. As well as Larger Companies that pass along the fees to american consumers. It is imperative for the cc to fcc to be fiscally responsible and avoid unnecessary spending. If we reframe from regulatory overreach, we will recognize cost savings and economic growth. Results that benefit everyone. While we have experienced staffing reductions over the past several years, administrative efficiencies and better i. T. Have enjoyed the fcc remains productive. For example, this year, with 100 fewer staff the last year we have already managed to pursue an aggressive schedule for our commissionss were consider the highest profile matters. In 2017, we are averaging double the number of items per meeting then we consider last year. 523 bushes versus 2. 58. We expect the increased productivity to continue. Since i became chairman, we have been aggressive in looking for cost savings and our staff has already identified substantial reductions, like closing our offsite warehouse and improving our internal Mail Services for projected annual savings of 851,000. Youll also save another 280,000 by reducing the number of onsite printers and copy machines. As we move into 2018, we will resources ons advancing the 4 strategic goals outlined in our budget requests. First and foremost, we will concentrate on closing the digital divide. Revocable at the connect America Fund Phase two and the Mobility Fund phase two to bring text broadband and 4g lte to more of Rural America. These are complicated tasks, but our task force has a solid plan for getting the job done. If i may say on a personal note, i appreciate your initiative. This would be a substantial effort in connecting unserved americas with Digital Opportunity. I thank you for your leadership. Second, we will work to promote innovation from implementing policies to ensuring leadership in 5g Wireless Networks to authorize Television Broadcasters to use next Generation Television standards. Also to move full feed ahead on implementing the spectrum pipeline act to get more airwaves into the commercial marketplace for consumer use. Third, we will concentrate on protecting consumers and Public Safety. From combating illegal robo calls to improving Video Relay Service for the deaf and hard appearing americans we will , continue to pursue an aggressive proconsumer agenda. When it comes to Public Safety, we will continue to support those on the front lines across the country who protect us each and every day. Fourth and finally, we will focus on reforming the fccs processes. The American People deserve to have a transparent and responsive regulator. We have already made substantial progress on this front by making Public Commission meetings at least three weeks before the vote on them. There is much more to do, and do it we will. Looking ahead to the next fiscal year, im excited how the fcc can bring Digital Opportunity to more americans, promote technological innovation and protect the American People and improve our agencys operations. I believe this special request will help us advance these goals in a fiscally responsible way. Thank you once again for this opportunity to discuss the fcc budget proposal. I did want to come here to raise a question on Net Neutrality. I looked at the trump budget it cuts the fcc core budget by 5 . This may pale in comparison to drastic cuts proposed for other agencies but it is significant for an agency whose budget basically flat funded for years. Perhaps it is a reflection of an agency walking away from some of its core responsibilities. Nowhere do we see that more with Net Neutrality and broadband privacy protections. This is something i hear every single time i got home. In the airport, the grocery store, coming out of church on sunday. I hear it everywhere. In fact, nearly 4 million 4 million, and unprecedented number, called the fcc to reserve the internet as a free and open platform for all. I have appearing. Small businesses and Large Businesses have said the same thing. They want strong, meaningful rules to protect consumers and Small Businesses and startups. They want rules to protect the internet as an open forum for commerce, ideas and expressions. Hearings inry burlington, vermont small , businesses told me why the rules are so important. They dont want special treatment. This if they want assurance the internet remains an equal Playing Field so they can use it to expand their businesses beyond the vermont board without fear of prohibited fees are being squeezed out, especially internet havens. One company said they dont want special preference and what they dont want to be in a position where Small Companies can get squeezed out by Big Companies that can afford it. They said otherwise you will never see a Small Company start up again like them. The fccs landmark opener rules reflected the concerns of Small Businesses and millions of americans. The rules bend paid to play rules and could stifle innovation. The rules in the fccs landmark opener rules and sure the internet remains open to free speech, but immediately after President Trump appointed you, the fcc suddenly did an aboutface. You could almost hear the tire squeal. Your action is to gut the open rule seems to only have one cause. To ensure the large corporations can maximize profits at the expense of hardworking americans and Small Businesses. Small businesses that many of us have in our states. I am troubled. Im very troubled that under your leadership the fcc has turned from an agency whose primary objective is to ensure competition in the marketplace to one that has been coopted by money interest and date businesses that can squeeze a big businesses that can squeeze a competition. I hope you reconsider your it illadvised decision on the open internet rules, undermining Net Neutrality harms consumers. I will close with this. The past few months, we have seen efforts to undermine important consumer protections, not only within the fcc but congress. I am sadly not surprised. The Republican Leadership and President Trump have teamed up to side with corporate interests over consumers when they rolled back common sense broadband protections. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the isle, you have a lot of Small Businesses a lot of , startups that will be killed by this if corporate interests are placed above the interest of consumers, hardworking americans. It is on acceptable. America deserves better. Madam chair i will place my full , statement in the record. Thank you, senator lee. At this time, we will proceed without questioning, each senator will do five minutes per round. I will begin the questioning. My first question is about something that was alluded to in your statement, but also in commissioner oreillys statement about helping states figure out the best way to deploy broadband eliminate some , of the barriers. I know this is something you have been working on. Give me a quick status on that . I would like to say my city West Virginia just did pass a semicontroversial broadband expansion bill. I am very proud the governor signed. We have taken aggressive steps to work cooperatively with states and make sure we put broadband deployment front and center at all levels of government. Soon after i was designated chairman i said at the broadband deployment advisory committee. One critical working group of which is devoted specifically to states helping to find a model code so that states interested in broadband deployment can take an approved, offtheshelf set of guidelines to promote deployment. Similarly, some of the stewardship of universal Service Fund Programs we have worked cooperatively with states to make sure every dollar that is spent is spent wisely in unserved areas. I have met with a number of state officials. One state is doing it really well . There are a number of them. In tennessee, they have migrated next generation 911. Its an ipbased system. They have been very forwardlooking. I have worked well with Governor Cuomo in new york state to work to deliver subsidies to upstate new york. A lot of states every state i think shares that interest. They might have different challenges and different ways of getting there. Turning to the budget quickly or some comments that commissioner clyburn and commissioner oreilly made, coming from different angles. I want to give you a chance to respond, or anybody really, but possibler thoughts on agency structure, losing ftes, 5 shrinkage in the budget, how do you see that in terms of your ability to get your job done . The office of management and first, budget offered guidance in terms of the 5 figure, and we crafted the budget on that guidance. We also wanted to make sure we had our eyes on the prize, to make sure the fcc discharges its core responsibilities even if staffing is lower. Despite the fact that we have fewer staffers, we have been able to focus on doubling the input output rather with respect to meeting items, the highest profile issues. In the first month, we got across the finish line in a bipartisan way. We had a program to make sure that broadband reaches unserved americans. Weve also considered structural changes to make sure we use the assets we have got in the most effective ways. For instance, in the first speech i gave on this topic, i proposed the creation of an office of economics and data. One thing i have found is that our economists are sprinkled throughout various offices. Some are not as busy as others. Well, if the lawyers have a jennifer wu office of general counsel, and engineers have an office, what we consolidate all the economists in one office . It would allow us to deploy resources more effectively, attract economists to the agency, and give them an academic environment to consider Bigger Picture things. Write white papers, generate innovative ideas. We are doing the best we can to meet those core responsibilities within the constraints that have been presented to us. Thank you. Commissioner clyburn, we have talked about this in terms of coordination between the fcc and rus, we have resources for broadband deployment. We have some issues in our state with the initial stimulus package and the deployment of those funds as well. What are you seeing in terms of coordination with the fcc . Is this an area of strength or things that need to be worked on . I think both, to be honest. We have a federalstate joint Board Initiative framework for we are constantly in contact with our state counterparts about how we can do now we can build better relationships. The chairman was right to point he gives a blueprint for people to weigh in. I will also say there was only one local representative as it stands right now. Im hoping what we will continue to do is work with local authorities, work with companies, work with us and come up with maybe an Infrastructure Consortium that will better and in a more streamlined way get everybodys voices at the table everyones voices at the table, come with a collaborative framework and really do what you and i want, to connect america. I think there are better ways to do it, but only 3 concerted effort that only through a concerted effort in listening to state and local voices. Thank you. Thank you, chairman. Commissioner pye, there is widespread concern that the administration has been choosing not to respond to request for information from democrats, which counters a longstanding tradition in both parties as to how federal agencies ought to respond to questions. Will you commit to responding to all questions, whether from the majority or minority in congress . Thank you for the question, senator. Absolutely. I have done so and i will do so going forward. Thank you. I appreciate that. As we discussed yesterday, Consumer Privacy is concerned to me. On President Trump signed into april 3, law a new enactment that nullified the fcc that provided movement of protection for Consumer Internet privacy. The believe is the federal trade the fcc cannot currently provide the protection. What privacy protections are currently in place and who is enforcing them . Do you think there should be privacy protections for Consumer Privacy on the internet, and how do we achieve a restoration of or aimed towards a place where there are robust privacy protections for consumers . Thank you for the question. I appreciate your concern and a courtesy you extended to me yesterday in having this conversation. I think the baseline expectation of every consumer and regulator and elected official should be uniform expectation that Sensitive Information will be protected whenevery consumer whenever a consumer goes online. The federal trade commission was the cop on the beat out you 2016. After 2015, we stripped the ftc of jurisdiction. That left a hole in terms of privacy protections. Thus far, the only thing that applies is section 222 of the communications act, it applies to telecommunication characters. Carriers. The fccs rules privacy have not gone into effect. Essentially, in 2015, we had to figure out how to go forward. We established guidance based on our enforcement bureau, which provides guidance to the industry. What we want to make sure is we protect consumers as best we can and work collaboratively with the federal trade commission to make sure regardless of what agency is handling the issue, we need to make sure the consumer is protected consistently. Do you think it is clear who is responsible and has jurisdiction, or do you think is additional action easily taken . Currently the fcc has , jurisdiction over Internet Service providers. Thats why i have committed to working closely with members of the federal trade commission to make sure we have a consistent framework that protects consumers when they go online. The other area we discussed that i have concern about is Net Neutrality. When the fcc first proposed the rule, an Record Number of americans filed comments. I think it crashed the website. It crashed the phone system in my office when it was announced again, it happened again. That just indicates there is a lot of americans with strong views about trying to keep the internet open. How will you consider the Public Comments you receive and how will the commission way the voices of millions of americans who have serious concerns about internet freedoms . An important question. Thats part of why were having the public conversation. The fcc could have chosen to proceed through a declaratory ruling, simply saying what the previous fcc did is null and void. It was important to estimate to us we had the notice and comment process prescribed by the procedure act. We had a full 90 days of Public Comment in addition to the 3 weeks before the fcc vote to allow for that comment. Once the common period closes in the middle of august, we will take stock of the fccs terrific staff and try to figure out whether the fcc should move ahead and how. We will be guided by the principles of substantial evidence, by the facts in the record and the motivation to figure out what is in the public interest. I would be interested commissioner clyburn, and your , comments on those two issues. I have one left issue i want to briefly raised. I find myself wondering who is the referee on the field and the cop on the beat when it comes to Broadband Access service as it stands now. With the passage of the cra and the direction we have taken, i am not an attorney, but i dont think anybody is directing, is monitoring the balls and strikes. From the perspective i am worried. Im worried as a Broadband Customer and worried for the millions of others who are. I forgot the other question. Consumer privacy in the neutrality. How we provide some reassurance to the public the concerns will be taken seriously . Im hopeful that the 4 million comments will be taken seriously by this body. Regardless of what form they came in. People took the time to weigh in. The voices should be heard. We are responsible for doing the will of the people. Q a, the lives of Winston Churchill and george orwell. We talked with thomas riggs about his book, churchill and orwell the fight for freedom. They never met, for the hero of 1984 was named winston. Churchill read it twice and loved it. Orwell, a real leftist all his life, admired churchill across the political chasm. And wrote he was the only conservative he admired. Tonight at 8 00 on cspans q a. Journal,s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up monday morning, Bloomberg News White House Reporter discusses the week ahead of the white house. Centers project executive director talks about centrist candidates in 2018. Usa todays Kevin Johnson on the cost of protecting the president and his family. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern monday morning. Join the discussion. Monday night on cspan, American History tv marks the 50th anniversary of the detroit riots. Over the course of five days in july of 19 the seven, thousands 1967, thousands of troops were called in. 40 people died and it was 30 million in property damages. Among the guests, Detroit Free Press Editorial Page Editor stephen henderson. Word i have used over time is uprising, which i think captures all the things that were going on that week. If you think about what heather was talking about, things have been going on for decades in detroit to marginalize and oppress the africanAmerican People, destroy the africanamerican community. That was the buildup to what happened in 1967. The flashpoint was a pushback specifically against police aggression, police brutality. You also had lots of other kinds of pushback. The people in the streets Looting Stores were pushing back against the economic oppression that was taking place. They were pushing back against housing discrimination. An uprising of the captures all of that in a way that does not. One of the things i think is true is one which is real power in our culture. The word riot was used to dismiss all of those things after what happened happened. It was used to say, ignore this. Dont worry about the things that are behind this. We have taken care of it with Police Response and we will just move on. American history tv marks the 50th anniversary of the 19 67 detroit riots, monday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. When you think about a one day festival, the National Book festival, and you have over 100 authors from childrens authors, illustrators, graphic novelists, all these different authors all day. Over 100,000 people come in and celebrate books and reading. You cant have a better time, i think. Im a little prejudiced because i am a librarian, but any reader or anybody that wants to get inspired, the book festival is the perfect place. All the coverage begins saturday, september 2,s at 10 00 a. M. Eastern with authors including electric prizewinning authors David Mccullough and thomas friedman, former secretary of state condoleezza rice, and best selling authors Michael Lewis and jade events. Jd vance. September 2, starting at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan2s book tv. Cspan, for history unfolds daily. Cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies, and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. As washington gears for busy fall, were joined on newsmakers this week neil bradley, cheap policy officer for thu