Epacket approachs a year. And that is one individual. Commissioner owen, you may agree or odisagree on, that and id like to hear from you on it. But i dont believe that the evidence supports what you are saying in terms of this priority and the significant ramping up in terms of the last year, and certainly not with this kind of data, and do you agree with that, officer . Well, we learned an awful lot from the jfk pilot as it was begun. And it started with the very small amount of electronic data coming from france, and we had to train the officers how the effectively target and work with the Postal Service that the packages to be presented to were in fact, presented and we had to learn a lot from the pilot, and it is a slow road, and led to the delay in the International Mail facilities, but we are on the right track through, and there is a sense of urgency behind this, and we will continue to move forward. Mr. Cintron, are you planning to expand beyond the epackets . Yes, right now, we are targeting eight different countries, and when you are looking at the particular volume of mail coming from different areas of the world, we are asking the packages targeted from one country that is a greater concern to another at that particular International Mail facility. Let me ask a jgeneral question and turn it over to senator carper, and there is a need to focus on china and all of the evidence is from d. A. And elsewhere that is the source of most of this synthetic opioid coming into our country. And most of it comes through the mail. But we also know that as mr. Baldwin saidle earlier, this is a lucrative trade. There will be trance shipments through other means with whatever we come up with. So, mr. Nevano, is it true that if we just focus on one country and this kind of goes again to the state departments approach to dealing with countries around the world, that were likely to see trans shipments from other countries and likely well have a universal application of this, in other words, telling all countries, you want to do business with us, you have to provide this data is going to be required. Senator, thank you for your question. I would agree with that. As we in Law Enforcement improve on our ability to seize and intercept packages, the nefarious actors are only going to change their modus operandi. Theyre going to try to evade Law Enforcement efforts. Senator carper, and then i have a couple of more questions. Senator carper. Thank you, thank you. I dont know if anybody has ever heard of the name willie sutton. Every now and then we talk him. Famous bank robber thats long since died. Many decades ago, he was finally arrested and put in jail. They said, mr. Sutton, why do you rob banks . And he responded famously, because that is where the money is. That is are where the money is. Why do we focus on china . It is because that is where a lot of this stuff is coming from. Why do we focus on the Postal Service . Thats how a lot of it is getting into this country. Im reminded of a game that is played at the boardwalk in rehoboth beach, delaware, a place called funland for kids, a famous amusement park, famous for years. One of famous games is whackamole. This is not a game. That is. Its also a different version of whackamole because as soon as we convince the chinese to shut it down, there it goes somewhere else, and the money to be made, and one of the points that i have made and that we keep making is that this is a pullty layered approach, and we need a multi layered approach and we are doing that, and it is all hands on deck moment, and we are starting to sense the urgency. There is plenty for us to do, and one of the things that we talked about here, and so that Postal Service could use some governance and they have none. The Postal Service could use some predictability, and the ability to generate revenues that they need and we need to do a better job on that. So there is work for all of us to do here. I have a question of maybe mr. Owen and mr. Cintron if i could. First for mr. Owens staffing level, i would just ask at the International Service centers, would you talk to us about the Staffing Levels, how have they changed over the last five years at each of the last International Service centers that in the last year, we have increased the cbp officers by 20 in direct response to this threat. Prior to that i would say the Staffing Levels were pretty much stagnant for the last four or five years, but we have added 20 additional staff. Was much made of our need to tighten our borders for a variety of reasons. Human traffics, dogs, and other illicit activities. We focus a lot on Border Patrol agents. Think we have 20,000 or more positions ta that are allocated, and im not sure that we have that number to fill. Im not sure were able to hire that many people. Very have hundreds of positions. Correct me if im wrong. I heard for a number of years that customs and Border Patrol could use some additional people. We focus on the borders between border crossings. We also need to focus on staffing Proper Staffing at the border crossings themselves where all of this traffic, all of this commercial activity coming through, a lot of it is illegal. Illicit. Would you comment on that, mr. Owen, please . Yes. We have whats known as a workload staffing model and what that model does, it measures the amount of work and time it takes an officer to perform every task were required to do. How long does it take to do a sevenpoint vehicle inspection, border clearances, how much does it take to process a passenger at the airport and then we look at how often we do those activities at the country throughout the year. The workload staffing model that has been submitted to Congress Shows that we are understaffed by 2,518, and that is 2,518 say that one more time. Yes. 2,518 additional officers is what our workload staffing model that is provided to Congress Shows what we need at the ports of entry. Also 631 additional agriculture specialists are needed to address the needs at the ports of entry. Thanks, mr. Chairman. We need to take that to heart. Right from the horses mouth. All right. Mr. Cintron, i spoke in my Opening Statement about postal reform, they need to get the postal resources needed. They need to be successful as a business and provide the service that we need. Can you tell us what you think that the Postal Service needs over the coming weeks and months and the coming years and the next couple of yees to be able to properly handle International Package volume and to facilitate cbps screening efforts . Yeah. I think the obvious comprehensive postal reform goes a long way helping us financially, right . Were not necessarily waiting as it relates to the International Volumes as i talked about a minute ago. Were expanding the network itself to be able to handle any type of volume coming into the country. So from our perspective were doing those things. Were not waiting. Certainly the comprehensive postal reform keeps us on financial footing and allows us to invest in it. As you said, very important to think about the data, the technology, what everybody on the panel is talking about and thats where investments should be made to make sure that we can zero in on what were looking for. All right. Thanks. But reform will help us get there. Thanks. Mr. Siemer, any comments you have on this front, please . I think the only comment i would make is as they collect this advanced electronic data, we need to keep in mind the quality of the data. Its only useful for analytics if its structured for analytics. As we started looking at it last summer, it looks to us as if someone is manually inputting this overseas. Someones typing in the address. Our address, 1735 northland street. Theres probably 20 different way as human can type that. They can abbreviate street, north, they can put periods in there, add extra spaces. When you have humans entering the data u which is fed into the Postal Service and then match mod the targeting, it is almost impossible to match those addresses and packages going to those addresses. It really takes a tremendous amount of cleanup effort to make it suitable for those kinds of efforts. If there was any way to have our country structure it, it would help tremendously, but in the meantime some effort needs to be made to clean up by somebody. Were doing it for analytic purposes. But i believe that there are other approaches that we can add to the data set to help the analytics. All right. Thank you. Another one for mr. Citron, mr. Owen. They receive the bulk of the countrys inbound mail from other places. The Postal Service, cbp has this pilot program. Jfk using advanced electronic data targeting specific packages at jfk, and designed to help us to identify the high package volumes from hopefully preventing illegal packages from entering the country. A question for mr. Cintron, if i could. I trust the Postal Service appreciates the role of cbp. How do you plan to address our findings and recommendations specific to your agency . Ill say it again. How do you plan to address our findings and recommendations for true release specific to your agency . Yeah. Were certainly going to take all the findings that are in the report and go back and address them. Certainly key for us ads i brought up earlier, two things, one, working collaboratively to keep getting percentages, you know, while we had a bump for a couple of months, there were technical issues. When we looked at the growth of aed, it was significant growth. We suspect our collaboration would be higher this year. The other part is the holds. One key thing we found in terms of finding the 20 , which is significantly important to us. All the findings will get there, were going to get priority to make sure were addressing every one of those issues and abate them as quickly as we can. Thanks. Mr. Owen, could im convinced that you recognize that the vital role your agency plays in addressing this, but really the same question i just asked of mr. Cintron. Please discuss how cbp plans to address the findings and recommendations as it relates to your agency. The key is the advanced information. Wheel continue to work with them not only ensuring that the level is going up but the accuracy and timeliness of the data so we can be more effective with the far getting and designing protocol to make sure every package we ask for inspection is presented to us for inspection. All right. Any question for you this is my last question for both of you, mr. Cintron and mr. Owen. Have your agencies this is for both of you. Have your agencies agreed to a Performance Measurement system for trafficking the number of packages the Postal Service presented to cbp for inspection, and if yes, explain what youve agreed to, and if not, maybe you could explain why not. Do you want to go first, mr. Owen. Yes. Were still in discussion. When we place a shipment on hold, of course, we expect to see it. Thele challenge becomes if the data is not arriving prior to arrival or the data data is not getting done until after the cargo arrives. Then we have a plan for the Postal Service to retrieve that. Where that is working is, again, the data is presented prior to arrival. We target prior to arrival, and then the Postal Service will capture that. Theres no disagreement in that. Its these gray space areas that when the data came in late or the targeting was late, how do yout account for that, thats one area. Again, the ultimate objective is to have the targeting done prearrival and then theres no disagreement that those would be presented to cbp. Thanks mr. Cintron . Really, the only piece to add onto that are the other developments to go beyond the ifc, so if the timing is off and we have the ability to capture before the delivery, thats where the focus is going to be. Were in agreement on getting to the metrics we can agree on. In close, i would like to thank the chairman for the leadership on this front. It is vitally important for the hats that youve worn. I thank our staff for the collaboration theyve demonstrated to our leadership to address this challenge and bring a sense of urgency to it. As the chairman said earlier, theres no silver bullet. And thats obviously true. Id like to say not just on this front but every challenge, no silver bullet, a lot of silver bbs and some are bicker than some of them are bigger than others, and today, we have identified some of them, and some are bigger than others. In delaware, were big on the letter c, i dont know why. Were big on the letter c. We get caught the delaware way, communicate, compromise, collaborate. The letter c can be real helpful to all of us, you as well as us, and that is to communicate better and i hope this hearing is helpful in that to better coordinate and find other ways to collaborate. If we do those three things, it will be better off. This hearing started 2, 2 1 2 hours ago. Im told five people die every hour. Five people die every hour from this opioid epidemic, five people per hour. Which means 12, 13 people have died since this hearing. Theyre somebodys mom or dad, brother or sister, somebodys son or daughter. Niece or nephew. They are real people. Keep that in mind as we put the pedal to the metal. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator carper. Again, thank you for not just your cooperation on the report, but your input on the report. You and your staff made this report not just bipartisan, but nonpart san and we were able to dig much deeper, so thank you. Among the exhibits we talked about today was exhibit 1. This was a state Department Memo and i would like to enter it into the record without objection. We were talking a moment about about the 20 in terms of customs and Border Protection and having to finally find the data to be able to find the package and then having the package already delivered or otherwise unavailable. What is your experience with the fedexes and u. P. S. Es and the dhls of the world and the socalled consignment operators . Our report indicates that you do not have that slippage or the leakage in that case. Is that accurate . Yes. Theyre about 100 . Theyre very effective. What i think is important to note and remember is theyve been at this since 2002 with the passage of the trade act of 2002 that required the express courier operators to provide that advance data. I can tell you from my personal experience those early years as they were ramping up, they struggled with a lot of same issue, with providing the data, the data being accurate and timely and finding the parcel that customs was looking to hold. When i look at the success the couriers have had as success over the last 10 or 12 years, i see that as a model. So theyve come a long way. Theyre very effective at helping us to track down those shipments. I feel well be just as confident in the near future with the Postal Service as well. I appreciate your confidence and i hope that this hearing helps to focus on that issue because ultimately we want to make sure the data the data is usable as mr. Siemer said. Im sure you all have done the same thing. Cbp has had to clean up data as i understand and Getting Better data and understanding once you have the data its actually used. The model youve had is something we ought to look at. They were meeting with the hong kong Customs Officials and they talked about a few things i thought were interesting. One is there had been a bust working with dea and, you know, with, as i understand it, the department of Homeland Security as well. And that was a very successful bust in the sense that they were able to break up some kind of Network Going between china and hong kong, tran shipping to the united states. But theres only been one. And also their attitude. I will tell you, and mr. Murphy, you will appreciate this. Their attitude was, dont worry, its under control. That was the quote of the customs official, the most senior customs official that our staff was able to interview. Clearly not under control. But, again, this goes to the attitude that some of our former partners. And finally the fact that this advanced electronic data, as important as it is to commissioner owen to finding this poison, getting it off track, its also really important to your prosecutions, and mr. Nevano, you can speak to that for a second. The hsi, Homeland Security inspections, your special agents at facilities like the International Service centers that we talked about here could be a lot more effective in their investigations and dismantling these networks if they had the advanced electronic data, and maybe you could speak to that for a second. After Customs Border protection makes an opioid seizure at one of these international centers, how does the advanced data assist you and hsi in subsequent criminal investigations . Thank you for your question, senator. The quicker we get the information, the hire probability we have at conducting a successful prosecution. It also allows us as mr. Owens, i believe, stated earlier is it allows us to do a link analysis or post seizure analysis where you might be able to tie the links of previous seizure, tie a National Criminal organization. For example, we may have an organization or previous seizure that was in california and this seizure at jfk in new york. But fwinsd his or the based on the Historical Data we may be able to to tie it together and develop a Larger Organization that we can be able to take down a Larger Organization. It also helps us from the office of a safety standpoint, senator. Before our agents go into a home, its helpful to know the person that may be inside that residence or business, what type of criminal history do they have, do they have weapons, how can we best prepare our special agents for the security and safety of them before they actually enact a Law Enforcement operation. So that would be a significant concern that we would have, and i think that advanced data helps us in that aspect, senator. I think thats also important for us to note today that this is not simply about identifying a package and taking it offline. Its about the followthrough and prosecution. Its critical to follow through. Thank you. We had a lot of questions, im sure were going to follow up with some in the future. Senator carper. You have a question . Not right now, but the thought that has come to me, mr. Chairman, and our witnesses, my last year as governor of delaware, i had been advice chairman of the aga, one of our close friends, george. But there had been a lawsuit between all 50 states and the Tobacco Industry. The lawsuit was to get money from the Tobacco Industry to help Cover Health Care costs states were incurring because of peoples addiction to tobacco. Nicotine. The lawsuit was successful. Not only have they succeeded with issues but also a foundation was created called the oh, gosh, the Truth Campaign . American legacy foundation. The American Legacy Foundation was created. I was privileged to be founding vice chairman. And what we did is we went to work with young people all over the country to figure out is there a way we could mount a campaign, a Multimedia Campaign, not just the internet, not just films, not just television, not just print media, but a Multimedia Campaign to reduce the incidence of tobacco use of young people. If they were using, try to get them to stop. And if they had not started, make sure that they didnt start. It was hugely successful. And the key was hardhitting, direct messaging right to the target audience, and we saw a dramatic drop in Youth Smoking tobacco use and its actually persisted. Its actually persisted over the years. I always like to say find out what works, do more of that, and if were looking at a multilabored strategy, maybe part of that is to do a better job messaging to the target audience, whats as risk for them, for their lives and for their families, and we have something that works in doing just that. Thank you. So true. Thank you all for being here. We have followup questions well be providing. We appreciate your responsiveness not just today but during the course of the investigation. We have shared our report with all of you in advance, and we appreciate the fact that you have made some edits that you felt were appropriate including to make sure that we were not providing information that was inappropriate or in any way even if it was not classified, sensitive information, but i want you to know that it has been a collaborate effort not just with senator carper and myself, but with the partners of the federal government who have the job everyday to try to p protect us from this opioid epidemic, and we need to Work Together and continue to Work Together in smarter ways. We are are better than this. And when you think about whats happening around our country today with 40,000 americans dying of overdoses and thats the tip of the iceberg, frankly, as tragic as that is, so many lives are ruined, taken off track at a tremendous cost to our communities and families being broken apart, and we have to do everything that we can. S senator carper talked about all hands on deck, and this is the time, and this is the moment. We have to change the way we are operating to be able to stop these packages. Weve got to be able to prosecute those who are perpetrating these acts on our citizens. We have to to much more in terms of the prevention side as senator carper said in getting the treatment we need to stop this addiction. All of that is important. But heres one thing we know we can do and that is to tighten up our own Postal Service to be able to stop some of this poison from coming in. As was said earlier, it has an Immediate Impact on the price on the street. One of the reasons that fentanyl is pushing out heroin on the streets of ohio is the cost. I wont tell you its more powerful but its less costly. Again, im proud of the staff who worked on this report. I want to particularly thank agent mancuso. Im going to tell you were going to miss him when he goes back. His contributions were invaluable. I want to thank all the staff involved. Senator carper, i want you to comment on your team that was involved, and im going to comment on ours briefly. Thanks so much. Our team led by john covington, the staff director on the subcommittee on the democratic side, john kelvington, and of course, felicia hawkins, and w roberta barrios, and not just the work, but the collaboration and the spirit of the team that we have had on both sides. Thank you. And on our team, i want to thank andy plozewski for his work, darvish, mancuso, patrick warren. You didnt put your name down there. So i thank them for all of their hard work on this report. The hearing record will remain open for 15 days for any subsequent comments. Again, thank you for your testimony today and for your service on behalf of this country. This hearing is adjourned. This afternoon here on cspan3 a conversation on bipartisanship and civility in washington with four members of congress, rep tim scott of south carolina, republican congressman carlos car bellow of florida, and Debbie Dingell of michigan and Congress John delaney of maryland. Georgetown university is the host of the discussion getting underway at 5 00 p. M. Eastern, and you can watch it live here on cspan3. The president of the united states. Tuesday night, President Donald Trump gives the first state of the Union Address to congress and the nation. Join us on cspan for a preview of the evening starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. And then a state of the union speech live at 9 00 p. M. And following the speech the democratic are response from congressman joe kennedy. We will also hear your action and comments from members of congress. President trumps state of the Union Address tuesday night live on cspan. Listen live on the free cspan radio app, and available live or on demand on the desktop, phone or laptop at cspan. Org. This weekend, cspans city tour takes you to fayetteville, arkansas, and with the help of Cox Communications partners we will explore the literary scene and history of fayetteville. Watch the cspan cities tour of fayetteville, a arkansas, saturday at noon, and then sunday at 2 00 p. M. On the American History tv on cspan3. Working with the cable after fill yalts as aftefiliates a exploring america. Cspans history series landmark cases returns next month with a look at 12 new Supreme Court cases. Each week historians and experts join us to talk about the constitutional issues and the personal stoi ares are behind the significant Supreme Court decisions beginning february 26th at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. To help you understand each case, we have a companion guide written by tony morrow, landmark cases, volume 22, and the issues cost 8. 95. To get your copy go to cspan. Org landmark cases. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee recently held a hearing to m measure the impact of weather events on the power grid. The chairman of the federal regulatory commission, and the assistant Energy Secretary for electric reliability testified. We call this hear ing ing t order. I want to welcome everybody here, and senator mu koskcoskizg to be here shortly. Id like the to start by calling on the ranking member, senator cantwell, to give your Opening Statement. Good morning, i am sure that to
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