Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140530

Former be a secretary has a recommendation on how to change the department. How would you fix the Pa Health Care system . System . A. Health care 202 5853880 for democrats. 202 5853881 for republicans. For independents. Send us an email or send us a tweet. Good friday morning. A friend page has the story about the 1700 waiting list at the v. A. Facility in phoenix, arizona. The department of Veterans Affairs is now instructed has now instructed those vets that they can see a physician immediately even if its a private physician. This story from the los angeles cbs as the white house does not have it yet on the official schedule, the president is expected to meet with the be v. A. Retary cash with the to meet with the v. A. Secretary. As the bipartisan outrage builds on capitol hill after a scathing report from the department of Veterans Affairs, the issue today is the v. A. Secretary who will provide his own findings to the president. The front page of todays washington post. Bowing action as support dwindles. This from yesterdays news briefing. Vowing action i support dwindles. Confident that secretary shinseki has served his nation honorably as a soldier and a general and he has accomplished some very important things as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs. They include extending education benefits, reducing homelessness for veterans and reducing the size of the backlog for disability claims while expanding vastly the number of veterans who can make a claim. With the president right now have confidence in shinseki . Thats a yes or no question. Does he have confidence now . I would point you to what the president said im not going to improve upon his words in this regard. I asked if he has confidence. I understand the wordplay here. Its not wordplay. Its a central question. Host from yesterdays briefing and the assessment from jay carney. Front page of the york times talking about an exploding workload for those doctors. Cited for shortage is the delays at the v. A. Hospitals. This from the wall street journal. An editorial called the v. A. Possible in this culture. For lack got paid more of performance. Culture here bonus. The buck never stops. Lawmakers from both parties dont want be accused of not supporting veterans, so they give the v. A. Ever more cash to fix chronic problems like a long wait times that never get fixed. Unlike private medical systems, v. A. Centers are not punished for substandard care by investors and customers. A voucher system that allows veterans to get private care would inject competition into the v. A. And encourage improvement in quality. Lawmakers dont want to rattle the status quo, particularly in election years. Fixing the v. A. Is a political challenge that will first require the doctors in washington to heal themselves. This tweet from one of our viewers saying, fix . Can everyone a voucher that take to whatever doctor they want and not obama to let him decide. Jessica on the phone from west virginia. Our line for independents. Good morning. Caller i would start from the ground up. I would get an independent organization to go into these hospitals and look at their books and figure out what theyre doing wrong. Go from there. You cant start at the top. You have to start at the bottom. What is this hospital doing wrong and what can we do to fix this so that they can get their health care . Host thanks for the call. Website as an post piece this morning on inside the paper, some key facts about the department of Veterans Affairs and it looks at the size and the scope of the v. A. System. There are 9. 3 million veterans who are now enrolled in the v. A. Health care system. The Veterans Health Care Association has the largest integrated Health Care Network in the nation. , 828 russianitals outpatient820 clinics. To23 increase compared 2008. A large reason for that are those veterans returning from iraq and afghanistan. Next call from avery. South carolina. A veteran. Good morning. Caller how are you doing this morning . I have a couple of things we can do to help solve the problem. Number one, the veterans at the v. A. System here the veterans here need to join a support group. We all need to go up to the director of each va hospital and approach the director. Everybody is asking for the generals had. The generals head he is one man. All of these representatives whyng for him to resign arent they doing anything . Calmly times have they been to a va hospital how many times have they been to ab v. A. Hospital . In arizonasenator who ran for president and why did you not know anything about notsystem why did he know anything about the system . Host this on our twitter page. Sell the v. A. Hospitals to private hospital groups and absorbed the ba into medicaid the v. A. Into medicaid and absorb the v. A. Into medicaid and medicare. Want totor does not make the scandal about Eric Shinseki. They want to make barack obama responsible. In an interview with the publication, this from eric , this is a core competency question for the white house. The president seems to be in over his head. The full story is Available Online at politico. Com. Elections with a number of Key Senate Democrats asking for Eric Shinseki to step down. Gps is issuing this new ad in alaska. A national disgrace. Veterans died waiting for care that never came. He sits on the veteran affairs committee. Response, if there is a problem, they need to fix it. Four years ago, the nowector General Office some senators are blocking that bipartisan legislation. When veterans are dying, it is a problem. Host that is from crossroads gps. The v. A. Secretary during the first term of the Bush Administration has this from the wall street journal. How to fix the Veterans Affairs mass. Mess. Erans affairs its time to develop a new framework that promotes wellness and competence those whose quality of life and wellbeing have been sacrificed for our sake. The country actually compensates a significant number of evidence number of the veterans for the expected and ordinary effects of aging. We should do so only when those decisions are based on sound scientific and medical evidence byt the disease is caused such exposures. This is not what lincoln had in mind. Bread is joining us from washington. A veteran. Is joining us from washington. A veteran. An outreache was program for the homeless. After i got into Homeless Housing and the v. A. Started giving me therapy, i was able to work around in a help this only and help vets. I thought to the doctors, especially for the intellectually challenged, they they tell them that the v. A. Does not give up on them. Although they know the kinds of treatment that are available, the way the v. A. Keeps Public Safety there is good security in those hospitals that is important for people to keep in mind. Missionl keep some core that they do best. Things have a couple of to pat themselves on the back for. Host when and where did you serve . Caller i served in an Infantry Division for four years in the late 70s the late 1970s. Host if you are just tuning in or listening on cspan radio on xm channel 120, how would you fix the ba Health System the v. A. Health system . Eric shinseki will be at the Grand Hyatt Hotel here in washington. At 8 30 eastern time. From one of our viewers saying the v. A. Systemic failure is like a systemic failure in public education. The solution is to offer vouchers to vets to redeem at private hospitals. Inside the wall street journal is extensive biography of Eric Shinseki and his own background. The latest battle for him during his 38 year military career. He recovered from losing half of his right foot on a landmine in vietnam and went on to be awarded the bronze star for valor in combat and became the armys chief of staff. To stavet battle is off bipartisan criticism long enough to rehabilitate the department of Veterans Affairs after a report on wednesday that swayed many to begin calling for his resignation. He has worked to cut wait times for veterans to receive benefits, illuminate eliminate homelessness. Scheduling protocols for patient appointments were widely ignored and many veterans were cap off the official waiting list to make way times appear shorter than they were. That story from inside the wall street journal. Next is greg from Cherokee Village arkansas. Good morning. Cherokee village, arkansas. Caller i use the Veterans Administration as an air force veteran. Have is, there is not enough doctors. They have to figure out a way to and make thectors va hospitals Teaching Hospitals and not something where you feel like you have to have a relationship with the doctor. I end up saying physicians assistants i end up seeing physicians assistants, which is fine, but there are times when you need to see a doctor. The hospital i use is a teaching hospital. I have seen the same ophthalmologist i have not seen the same ophthalmologist twice in five years. Its a decent system. Does it take longer . Probably does. But you have 30 senators who voted against building new facilities. Overall, how would you assess the care that you have been receiving . Its not ats fine. Question of care. More veteransn of than what the hospital can handle. One of the points that we have been talking about this week is the budget for the department of Veterans Affairs has actually nearly doubled over the last eight years. Ise would argue that money not the problem. Its the culture or the workload. Caller that might be. If you need more facilities and better facilities, i think that is something you have to think about. The two that i have used when i was in san diego, there was one hospital for the whole county. , but thatat hospital was the only one. Pretty here in memphis memphis to from northern mississippi and eastern arkansas. A smaller one and there was another one in little rock. Basically covers all of western and central arkansas. A centralized location, but you dont have great access to it as far as getting there. Host we appreciate your call. A story on the republican strategy behind this. He points out that Republican Leaders have tried to turn asian seki problem into an obama problem. Tried to turn a shinseki problem into an obama problem. One of our viewers, heads roll first, then begin serious plans. T asking this question on our facebook page. You can join the conversation. Give the vets the same health plans that congress gets. Stop sending men to get injured wars. Next to my joining us from north carolina. Epublican line caller how are you today . I dont think i would be arrogant enough to say how to fix it. Offer, there should be a red flag or a canary in the who mine for those of us have been following the ongoing healthcare debate since president obama came in. As far as the role and the involvement of the government in delivering health care. Or delivering any services for that matter. Its problematic. Our government is getting so big ,nd so large and so cumbersome it cant react nimbly to the mans. Knew that the street we would see a surge of returning veterans. It cant react nimbly to demands. Its a political problem. With the Veterans Administration being part of the government that every Political Party uses boy or a meansg to garner votes. Me,any have said before give the veterans vouchers. Give them a card, a medicare. There is something called tricare. Get the government out of it as much as possible. , how you incentivize your employees will drive behavior. From what i understand, we hear all the time about these big bonuses being given out to Government Employees while we watch these and scandals explode. Whatever. He gsa, we hear about millions of dollars in bonuses being paid out. Same thing for the v. A. They are incentivized to minimize wait times. If they have long wait times and they know their bonuses at stake, you are incentivizing dangling the evil apple for them to do bad behavior. Im not saying private industry is perfect, but they are better in this regard in terms of incentivizing behavior to deliver Better Services to their customers. Host thanks for the call. A piece in the wall street journal touched on some of the things that you just shared with us. V. A. Benefits are being given to freely. Guys who served 30 years ago claimed the benefits because now, at age 50, they have flat feet. Come on. Other stories making news. Front page of the l. A. Times. Steve ballmer paying 2 billion for the los angeles clippers. The boston globe, a preview of the new book out june 10 by Hillary Clinton. All aroundsions stir as clinton readies her book tour. Political passions stir all around as clinton readies her book tour. In chicago, there are two seasons. Winter and construction. Demolition of the committee begins this weekend. The 55yearold bridge will lead to deep wars and massive backups in the greater chicago area. Front page of the atlanta journal, the state economy builds steam. From jackson, michigan. Welcome to the program. I just wanted to say that, the v. A. System is an example of socialized medicine. Not a lot that can be fixed, unfortunately. We are going to have a lot of patience with a fixed number of doctors and wait times and thances will be slower what we expect in the privatized sector. Host Time Magazine out yesterday has the story. Ssad won . More than 140,000 believed to have died in the threeyear civil war. Inside the wall street journal, this is one of the series of campaign ads in damascus. The assad campaign portrays a warm embrace. A massive poster of president assad donning a military uniform and sunglasses hangs from the vaulted ceiling of the capital. God has created you to be the president of the syrian republic. Life is sweeter with you. Similar billboards paying tribute adorning virtually every public space in damascus and other regime controlled parts of the country. Story this morning inside the wall street journal. Next jonathan joining us from charleston, west virginia. How would you fix the v. A. Health system . Caller good morning. Im sitting here for the last week or so listening to all these people they dont know what theyre talking about. Oldhey wait until they get they should have joined the american legion. On june 5. Pointment they will come to pick me up at the front of my door and take me to the clinic. And bring me back. Cant beat the v. A. System in charleston. We have a hospital in huntington. Have all take you we center here and if you dont know how to do the paperwork, they will do it for you. They will put you in the system. Host what are you being treated for . Caller i have been injured. My legs and everything. Did john mccain do anything about it . Hes a veteran. What are these congressmen doing . Host the hill newspaper, Alexander Bolton reporting that Senate Democratic leaders are moving ahead with legislation, planning a twopronged legislative response to the scandal. Senator reid is looking at a bill to hold senior officials at the v. A. Accountable for mismanagement and legislation that would address what theyre calling the root cause of the scandal by expanding veterans access to medical care. Looking at the healthcare component of the omnibus bill. The full story Available Online. Thisur put a page, problem has been going on since there have been vets. Boehner and pelosi resisted the cries for the ousting of the Veterans Affairs chief. Heres what blows he said yesterday. Elosi saidwhat p yesterday. Is the issue served by saying, ok, those people did that. They kept the information from the secretary and from the congress. Lets rewarded them by removing the secretary. Or, maybe, we keep the same person there who was reviewing the same set of facts. We will see. I really do think we have to be careful about thinking that just because you know the top person means that you have changed the systemic problem that exists in the organization 10 years before shinseki became the secretary. That is why im not there. I have a high regard for the secretary. He honors our country with the service. He has for his whole life. Cts will take us to a place where we should go next. Evidencebased decisionmaking is what is important to do. It is easy to call for somebody at the top to go. Is it a solution . Is it an answer . That remains to be seen. I respect those who have made their own decision about it because its hard, especially when we are talking about our veterans and the impact that it has on their families and their sacrifices. Battlefield, we leave no soldier behind. When they come home, we leave no veteran behind. This is an oath, a pledge, a commitment. We have to get this done and now we have to put it on the path of getting it done right. Will another issue that spark a lot of attention on monday as the president talks about Climate Change and global warming. Preview this morning inside the washington times, the white house touts Energy Record ahead of new regulations. We will be covering the president speech here in washington before he departs for europe next week for the 70th anniversary of the dday invasion and a meeting with members of the g7 summit. Inside the wall street journal is this piece. V. A. Chokehold. Federal labor unions are generally weak by comparison to publicsector unions. Boasts one of the largest federal workforces and Eric Shinseki bragged in 2010 that two thirds of it is unionized. 200,000 Union Members represented by the likes of the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees national union. This is a Government Run Health Care something unions know a lot about from organizing Health Workers in the private sector. Jim is joining us from chantilly, virginia. Independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I want to say thanks to you both for your show. I want to thank all of our veterans. I cant fix the Health System, at i have a quick fix and semiquick fix for the records thing. In a records manager consultant with5 years, a quick fix the documents right now that would be beneficial to jeff aller and his task i have great deal of respect for him and his mission that he has right now a records freeze on documents can be implemented as we speak to put a freeze on all documents relating to any kind of case. What the hearing is about. It can beficial sent out via email. Once its received, they approve it. Im sure they would. They would send it back to whoever the head person is and they can send out an agencywide records freeze on records. Email, hardcopy, electronic copy, all of the above. The minute that button is pushed and that email goes out agencywide, regardless of whether it it says keep the 30 days orays its an email, it does not matter. It cleans the slate and it would give jeff a chance to stick a of, we do notdyke know if it was a record. That would immediately make it a legal make it situation. We will pass that on. The government does not understand management structure. Of the quick notes from theingt Hillary Clinton in advance of her book out early next month. A look at the 1990s economy. This from the financial times. Look at those behind a potential Hillary Clinton run in 2016. It was Sandra Westfall of people eting with the formerout after secretary of state at her home that she was having a private lunch with the president on tuesday. The white house later did confirm that the president and Hillary Clinton did meet on tuesday. Before the president discussed the draw out of troops in afghanistan. We are going to take a quick break and continue our conversation on whats next for the v. A. Help system. System. A. Health jeff miller will be joining us. We are back in a moment. What has been resolved . We have this classic economic old problem with retransmission for video. You have companies doing this game of chicken where they cut off service to customers. They are starting to block traffic on the Internet Services for customers. The ultimate result is programming costs spiral out. You wonder why your cable bill keeps going up. One big reason is that the resolution of the does gives over retransmission where the is reallyy hamstrung by the rules and the way they are interpreted. The easy result is these parties eventually agree to deal. That is what im afraid of. To say that interconnection happens in a private way is great and i think there definitely should be role for private deals. If we get to that point, the interconnection would be a real tragic outcome. This weekend, the impact of an open internet from a progressive policy institute. Cspan2, our live program in real america features government films made during world war ii. Sunday afternoon at 4 00. You can now take cspan with you wherever you go. With our free cspan radio app for your smartphone or tablet. Listen to all three cspan2 b channels or cspan radio anytime. Cspan tv channels. Play our signature programs. Take cspan with you wherever you go. Download your free app online for your iphone, android or blackberry. Washington journal continues. Host we want to welcome jeff miller. He is the chair of the house Veterans Affairs committee. This talk about an issue that you have been talking about for years. How did we get to this point with the v. A. Health care system . Guest what you are seeing now is the fruits of a lot of manipulation and mismanagement. Its because of the size of the agency, its very difficult for any Single Person to manage it. That is exactly whats happening with the secretary today. Fear of no respect or retribution from leadership in regards to people not doing their job. You do hear stories of retribution from people blowing the whistle. That is the wrong way to approach the situation. Host is this a problem with the be a secretary or the white house and the president or a systemic problem that is inherent within the department . Guest its a systemic problem. This is much bigger than the secretary. He happens to be the person who sits in the chair right now. And honorable man. Everybody salutes him for his service. Its very apparent that the people within the system weve been telling him this for a number of years now people are either afraid or just dont think they have to tell you the truth. They will only bring him the good news. They wont tell him the bad news. That is why everybody at the house weree white caught off guard by how big this problem has become. Timescbs and the l. A. Reporting that Eric Shinseki will meet with the president. Its not on the official schedule yet. Your assumption that if this meeting does take place, whats going to happen . Guest i dont know whats going to happen. There will be a discussion about the secretarys future. Whether he believes he can continue to fulfill the duties that have been given to him. His resignation after the interim report was released. The fax that we had presented to get an interim report that was as bad as it was it is pervasive that the agency. I believe the president will seriously discuss how much longer, if any, the secretary can stay on his post. Host i want to share the Available Online. This headline, how to fix the Veterans Affairs mess. He says those veterans who have left the military and then come back and need care for prostate cancer, that is untenable. The system is inherently broken when it comes to that. He concludes with these words. I recognize that Veterans Service organizations have fought hard for these benefits. Nasa just that we reform. I now suggest that we reform. Its time to make certain that from this point on, the v. A. s top priority is to care for were hurt in battle. Guest i still believe that these are benefits that have been earned. They definitely need to be seen and taken care of. Whether it has to be done inside the walls of the karen v. A. System a huge problem erupted last year in a gusto, georgia and columbia, South Carolina where there were thousands of men on a waiting list for a procedure as simple as colonoscopy. Nine veterans died because they did not receive the care that they needed in a timely fashion. The v. A. Has already admitted that it was because of the late care that these veterans died and weve had witnesses come to arend testify that they terminal with cancer because they were on the waiting list. They never should have been there. They should have sent them out and allow them to get their care outside the system. The v. A. Is great at taking care of many of the people that they do. Things like hermetic brain injury, posttraumatic stress, spinal cord injuries the things you see in battle. They are at the cutting edge of a lot of the medical technologies that are going on. Thesystem does not have people in place to handle a lot of the things that are coming. You can geographically its hard for them to be able to the grout where the flow of veterans to figure out where the flow of veterans will come from. Host is it time to fundamentally rethink the mission of the v. A. . Guest that is already done today by categories 18. Those are that are 100 disabled are rated at a different label. What you have seen is, those at the lower categories are not able to get into the system. People will say, there are not enough doctors. Yesterday, we looked and there were some 400 physicians across positions that were unfilled at the v. A. We have to do a better job in filling those positions so that veterans can in fact go with good faith to their v. A. And know that they will be taken care of. Thevery foundation of agency that many parents look for as their only avenue for health care has been shaken to its core. Politico story from and rollcall based on interviews with your leader saying that they want to keep this issue alive and use it as a competency issue against the white house and the president. How much politics is behind this . Guest i want this issue to go away because the ba is doing what its supposed to do. This is not a political issue at all. This cuts both ways. Hard to noted very let politics interfere with the business that we do in our committee. Haveubpoenas that we served on the agency were totally bipartisan. We now have called for federal intervention we are having trouble right now getting the v. A. To comply with a subpoena that we give to them three weeks ago. They claim that they are finished. They are not. We will ask for the federal courts to intervene and actually force the v. A. To do what they have been asked to do, provide us the information we need as a congress to be able to do our oversight. Host calling for the to step down. Jeff miller is the chair of the committee. We will continue with our phone calls. You can send us an email. This from an annapolis calmest men. It is a government system that will never deliver firstclass care. Abolish it and to give vouchers vets. S to guest the idea of giving veterans the choice to go outside the system is something we have talked about for a very long time. Things that the v. A. Does very well and they should continue to do that mission. You cant abolish the v. A. Today. The infrastructure is out there. Too many hospitals and clinics and veterans that actually go to those facilities for their only care. The thing that a lot of people are not the things that people are not talking about is people who are hurt the most are the low income veterans because they dont have any other option. They dont have any other insurance, no other health care. They cant pay to go out in the private sector. These individuals are being forced into a system that they have no other choice to go. Host eugene joining us from virginia. Democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I listened to the debate the other night. There were does go rounds. There were two rounds. The first one sounded like it getting newsfor spots or something. There was no real communication between the senators or the committee and the witnesses. From everything that ive heard about the v. A. Im not a veteran they do a pretty fantastic job across the board. If im not mistaken, when shinseki to cover, a lot of this was paperwork. Rather than computerized. To be able to turn a system or computerom paper to while building this structure out at the same time, that takes good time. Im in Software Development and i know what those projects are like. Host thanks for your call. Aboutarings got underway 7 30 and wrapped up the 10 00. Of you havingnse members there to answer questions. You did not get the answers you are looking for . Guest not at all. We were asking for answers and they kept wanting to talk about other issues and how great the v. A. Was. Nobody is discounting the fact that they do provide a lot of great services. We were there to talk about the secret waiting list at phoenix and why the ba had not complied with a subpoena that we had given to them almost three weeks prior to that. We were not getting any answers. I further pressed and i asked her why we were not getting the information that we requested from the secretary. I have over 110 outstanding requests for information going back two years right now. There are thousands of questions that remain unanswered. Questions that go to the very heart of this discussion regarding access to health care. We have asked for gao reports. Are you actually taking the recommendations that the gao has given and implement in them . They have gone into a bunker mode. We want to be a partner with the agency, but they dont want to partner back with us. I dont think the veterans are well served when this becomes a political issue. Thats why we have tried very hard to not allow this to occur. Host harry reid is trying to take a twostep approach to look at what they are calling the root causes of the ba system v. A. System and additional funding for facilities around the country. Is money part of the problem . Years, thehe last 10 budget has doubled and its gone even more than that. 67 billion to 150 billion. What were looking at right now is an agency that cant spend the money that it has. They are already prepared carryover almost 500 million worth of Health Care Funding thats what makes the issue of the veterans so egregious. They have the money to do that and they chose not to do it. I dont believe the president would travel around the country and tout the fact that there have been great budget increases if he truly thought they needed more money. It we will look and see. We already know from the gao report that there is a manipulation issue that relates to numbers. I believe criminality is probably involved where people kept these numbers low so they could get promotions and bonuses because of it. Host finish this sentence. The root cause of the v. A. Problem is guest accountability. People are not held accountable bad choices they make. People will make mistakes. These are blatant errors that were made on purpose. Manipulation of numbers. Inhave asked, especially South Carolina and georgia, i have asked the secretary since january who was held accountable and what type of disciplinary action was taken. To this day, i received no response. When i pressed the other secretary on it, she said, i will get with you soon and give you that information. This has been going on since the beginning of january. Host jeff miller is the chair of the house Veterans Affairs committee. Randy joining us from illinois. Independent. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. Gentleman was happy to step down because of the way time to get into see the doctors and everything. I believe this has no difference. One other gentleman the leader of the house he is holding up a bill for a that has unemployment been waiting over five months. Today is the last day to have this bill brought up and these people, 2. 8 Million People are waiting for almost the same thing. For their lives to be fixed. People should ask the leader of the house to step down, too. Its almost the same situation. Guest im not here to talk about the emergency unemployment extension. This is not extension of the current unemployment system. This was an emergency unemployment process that was in 2009 when the economy gets so deeply. I cant answer as to why its not on the schedule today. We will be voting on the intelligence authorization bill later on this morning. I also serve on the Intelligence Committee as well. Host this editorial from the new york times. A lifeline for veterans waiting for care. The deeper problem is that the Veterans Affairs Health Care System has too few primary care doctors. They find it difficult to hire more because of its generally low pay scale. There is no way that a doctor in the system can be responsible for the care of 2000 more patients. Your response . Physiciansally, v. A. Have a lower number of patients that they take care of than the average position on the outside. Ava physician may take care of a couple thousand, somebody in the private sector might be in the double digits, up around 10,000 patients. Will do forfour colonoscopies in a day when a position in the private sector will be out there doing 1215. I dont know if you can equate the number specifically to the delays that are out there. That is something that our committee is well engaged and willing to look at. Every year, when we do the budget and the secretary comes to the helen talks about the abou whatt, he is asked else do you need . Every single year, the secretary says, we have everything that we need to do our job. Host let me share a couple of comments from our viewers and listeners. Its really four years in south korea and germany and the air force and lifetime medical care . Giving the veterans a voucher for private doctors wont fix the wait times. I live in a doctor and hospital rich area but have to wait weeks for an appointment. Jackson, michigan. Independent line. A veteran. Patienti have been ava for 15 years a v. A. Patient for 15 years. Ive had good insurance all my working life. This hospital, ive have had the best medical care ive ever had in my life. If you want the v. A. To work , use the ann arbor hospital as an example. Go there and see how they do it and how th have the others do the same thing. Go toembers of congress v. A. For their medical care. They will be there and they will see it firsthand. They are getting a bad name for a few bad places. Just like any organization, some dont do well. The majority of them are excellent. Ann arbor is one of the top 10 hospitals in the nation, i think. Probably the ol whole world. Be thanked should for his service. I will go to ann arbor, michigan at his request and look at that facility. V. A. E gone to over 40 facilities over the last year looking at how they provide health care and work on the disability backlog. What he says is absolutely true. Most people in the system, once they can get into the system, are treated well. They are satisfied with their care. And thats why we are not saying care the system apart. The system. Allow people to have a choice of going outside the system if they choose to do so so they can get their health care in a timely fashion. In the rural areas, ba requires those veterans to travel great distances in order to get their health care. Not only is the veteran imposed upon you have to go forfive aurs to visit a hospital or clinic, there is the extra expense to the v. A. Of having to could behen they put into the private market and allow them to go to a physician in their hometown. Host i want to go back to anthony. One of the Big Questions is, how would you fix the system . He has some recommendations. These points as well. The Obama Administration and congress have a moral obligation review regulations to ensure that the termination of benefits and all other decisions are beyond reproach. To seriously consider the realignment of the separate Veterans Affairs and defense Health Care Systems. The u. S. Government operates two systems, both caring for the same people in different points of their lives. Many benefits would be derived fully integrated system. He is absolutely right. I agree with him 100 . The congress has appropriated and the department has spent billions of dollars trying to be able to integrate their health records. We need a truly Electronic Health record where, from induction to death, the patient or the veteran and their record travel together. When you separate from the department of defense and to paperworketeran, your is filed somewhere else and they go to file for disability and the veteran is responsible for reconstituting that file. It takes you years in order for them to do it. It makes no sense in the 21st century that you would have two different types of electronic records out there. Im talking about spending over a billion dollars and telling them that you will work collaboratively. They decided not to go that route. They have different needs for this Electronic Health record the nba does. An v. A. Does. People are tying to figure out how to work around the system and not looking at what treats the activeduty person the best and gets the veteran the benefit that they earned. Host a comment from a viewer saying that the v. A. Is not totally dysfunctional. Bottom line, the remedy is what . Guest accountability and transparency. Exactly what the colors and folks who have sent in emails there areng thousands, hundreds of thousands of good folks working within the system. There are just a few in that many ofhat are causing the problems that exist today. The secretary either cant fire them, cant discipline them or want. I dont know which it is. That is why the bill that we gives the secretary the ability to fire discipline the top executives. With a widee house bipartisan measure and is being in the senate. This is one of the very first steps. Host before we take our last call or come are you satisfied with the way the president has handled this issue. Yout if you look back and see who the president has fired, disciplined, has control over, the only person i can remember general stanley mcchrystal. That is a problem. Last caller. Caller i finally got a chance to get in there. Everybody will be if you sat there and asked this but he sits there aloof, like his face is far away because Everybody Knows that republicans have been holding up every bill. They say they love the veterans. Every bill yall blocked. You have to explain this, sir. You say you love the veterans, right . I do and i think anybody who has worn the uniform for this country. As the chair of the Veterans Affairs committee. We have nine bills that passed the house with a wide bipartisan support that now set languishing in the senate. I have not voted to block any piece of legislation. Nor have i tried to stand in the way of the v. A. To do their job. We heard from the Inspector General on wednesday. The president will meet with Eric Shinseki this afternoon. What new do you think we will learn in the days ahead . Guest we are going to continue to do what we do and that is to provide oversight to rid i am anxious to see what we come back with. , who has responsibility over the health care provision, what to phoenix three different times and it took them that long to figure out what was going on. Host congressman jeff miller is chair of the Veterans Affairs committee. Thanks for being with us. Up next, we will continue our conversation on what is next for the department of Veterans Affairs with congressman Sheila Jacksonlee. After that, america by the numbers. Two experts on the food we eat and the products we sell. This is washington journal on friday morning. We are back in a moment. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] my son paul was in the hospital at childrens national. We were waiting to have his openheart surgery. He had been diagnosed with congenital heart defects. Part of the waiting for the surgeon to come back from in thes was being hospital, realizing all of these other families are there and you are kind of in the trenches with them. Family, maggie had been 39 surgeries in nine months. Various different problems. Through nine surgeries in nine different months. Various different problems. Pauls surgery, maggies family was not there. She had passed away the night before. It was really, really hard to imagine that that family had spent so much time waiting for her to get out of the hospital and she did not make it. We went into surgery that day. Eight hour surgery, his first openheart surgery of three. As we are sitting in the cardiac intensive care unit watching through a clear plastic bandage, my sons heart beating, which was a moment in and of itself, the nurse comes over and says you have a phone call. They brought me the phone and it was maggies mom, checking on pauls surgery. The strength and the grace and the fortitude it took for a mother who had lost her own child the night before to call and check on our child i think was a moment that i will always remember. Career andr on his his book special heart. Q a. Y night on eight includes the soviet fall in eastern europe. Many of the problems began at the very beginning. The attempt to control all institutions and political and social life and all parts of the economy. When you try to do that, then you create opposition and potential dissidents everywhere. If you tell all artists you have to paint the same way, you have just made the artist wants to paint another way to a political dissident. If you want to tell boy scout troops that they have be young pioneers, and it one group decides they do not want to do that and they form a youet underground group, have just created another group of political opponents from apolitical teenagers. Read more of our conversation with Anna Applebaum and other q a programs in sundays at eight. Now available for fathers day gift edgar favorite bookseller. Add your favorite bookseller. Washington journal continues. Host representative Sheila Jacksonlee joins us. Guest thank you. A dozen Senate Democrats have called for Eric Shinseki to step down. What is your view . American is a great and he has served his country and served his country well. I had the opportunity to sit in on a Veterans Committee hearing. I have a Veterans Hospital in my region. Think the general should come on behalf of this country that he loves, step aside. On behalf of the president that he serves, step aside. Is that this is at a crisis moment that really needs a crisis response. That has not occurred. That is not a reflection on his love of his work and the veterans. There is no doubt that he has worked for them, loved his nation. Battle, you find, and that you need a different Strategic Response in order to accomplish the goals to win the war, then not being a military person, but being engaged over the years as a member of the United States congress, it comes to me that you change leadership, you change strategy, and you seek to win the war. We have a war on a system that is broken. If anything proves that, it is the mounting numbers of those who may have lost their lives, in addition to the 40 in phoenix and this very strange number of 1700 veterans on a mysterious, nonexisting list thinking they were going to get service, needing the care, and not getting it. I have been for stan to my Veterans Hospital and i was a firsthand to my Veterans Hospital and i was there one week ago friday. I will be going back. I believe it is important for members to be in veterans , aretals and understanding any veterans needing care in this area not getting it . Is added to the list of those calling for Eric Shinseki to step down. Is it a problem with the secretary . It is a leadership problem in the white house . Is it a culture problem in the department . The Inspector General proceeds, we are seeing this report. It is a systemic, systemwide problem. As i indicated, it is regrettable that i believe it is important that we have new leadership at the top. President 008, the promised to create a 21stcentury department of Veterans Affairs. 5. 5 year later is, what fell short . When the president decided to do that, he picked an excellent leader. Followed a leader to through on his promise and commitment. I have no doubt that the president has not stepped away from that commitment. He put in place in Leadership Team that should have immediately begun to look at the ailments, the fractures in the system and begin using technology there is no divide , the budget has increased come of the desire to help has increased. The question has to be, what ,appens within the leadership not only just the secretary, but in the immediate surrounding leadership on attacking that problem . Let me be clear that i have talked to veterans. We were around a lot of veterans on memorial day. Services. M using the meeting them in the airports, talking about the service. They love the Veterans Hospital and the Veterans Affairs, in terms of it being there department. They love that idea and they love the service, the doctors and providers. I do want to make mention of those dedicated professionals. ,he president chose a leader the leader came to that cap deposition understandings there were Serious Problems cabinet position understanding there were Serious Problems. I dont think they can stop at the president s doorstep. He has stood up and said he is angry, he is outraged, he wants to fix it immediately. He has also been responsible with his own leadership. He wants to hear all of the facts to see if there is an opportunity for that leader to go forward. He has not made any statement asking general shinseki to resign. I think that is an appropriate head of state that wants to make sure that he has given his selected person every opportunity. Us inst of those of congress believes that the president did what he should have done. In the initial appointment of general shinseki, a very responsible american and someone who has served his nation and battle, i dont think the president made a mistake when he selected him. I do think now, regrettably, we need another taskmaster. In the hearing, i asked the witnesses come aware of the swat teams . Orre of the swat teams targeted to go out with and hit everylls problem to find the issues and begin to fix it . Host let me follow up on one point. Is the system to generous . Are we providing too much care for veterans who are aging that might have served in world war ii or in south korea or in vietnam and now are getting care 4050 years later because of normal ailments, not as a direct result of military service . Guest absolutely not. Waning years the of world war ii veterans, korean war veterans. We made a promise to them. Now, we can be efficient in our service. Underpinnings of the Affordable Care act is to be efficient in service, whether it is geriatric care or returning who have different conditions, ptsd, loss of limbs. I dont think so. I think we can be efficient. That is part of fixing the system. Being efficient, but never breaking the promise to our veterans. They have put on the uniform. Without question, without asking, and they are willing to risk their lives for the freedom of this nation. Fix it. Make it more efficient. Never and the promise we made to our veterans. The promise we made to our veterans. Our conversation with representative Sheila Jacksonlee, democrat from houston. To be here. Grateful hello to houston and hello to the best country in the world. Us fromhn is joining port charlotte, florida. Independent line. Caller good morning. Disagree respectfully about the comment. It is to generous. My brotherinlaw served 40 years ago on a navy ship. , he got disability on hearing loss. He worked at a bar with loud music. He worked construction. Now he has full disability benefits and icy veterans down e veterans down here and i think that system is to generous. That is one way we can fix the problem. I dont think were too generous in continuing to provide the care for veterans who have served in wars of years gone. In i think we can be efficient in the way we provide. The question of the caller there is a way of providing those services with greater efficiency and less cost. That is the responsible of the Veterans Administration. Look at the health care. Make sure you give the veterans the health care that he or she needs. The best care. That is the responsibility of technology. The responsibility of analyzing the economics of medicine and care. I dont think that is a difficult issue to do. You need to focus in. You need to bring expertise in to do so. I dont think the right approach too use the term generous. Not the be too often, right program, not the right care profit and program. Our veterans deserve the care. We have made a promise to them. William is next. A veteran himself. Caller good morning. I want to say congratulations. I think general shinseki has done a wonderful job. He has improved the system. Yes, there are errors within the system. But he is greatly improved it. The districts need to be going through the va hospitals. They need to see what is going to it being ased congressman from georgia as people in washington receiving health care. Focus on your district and your personnel and that will help general shinseki. Thank you for your time. Guest thank you very much. For yourank you service. All of the veterans and those now serving in faraway lands. I truly appreciate your comment. This has been difficult for all of us. Me. Nt know if you heard i have been in my Veterans Hospitals quite frequently. I was just there last friday. I do interact with our veterans and i have a Great Respect for the general. You have made a valid point. He has respected his work. He has shown himself committed to the veterans. The president has the last word on this. The president is listening too many people. I believe it is not a personal comment about general shinseki when many of us have said maybe it is time to step aside. I would hope he would do it on his terms. The real issue is that the system is broken and there has not been a crisis focus on getting fixed. To answer difficult why there was a mysterious list of 1700 veterans and no one has any answer. Just imagine those veterans sitting on a 1700 mysterious list where you are going nowhere. Those kinds of questions loom whether ore wonder not their academic across the system. The Inspector Generals reports say they did. Unless there are answers quickly , then we have not done what we need to do for veterans and those who are coming back from iraq and afghanistan. Host kevin has this to eat. This tweet. Im not going to run away from any failure that may have occurred in the leadership in the United States congress. Certainly, we are facing sequester. Processbudgeting included the veterans excluded the Veterans Administration because commitment. Hadainly the war in iraq different perspectives. As it went on and on and on. But now as they are coming home, we hope to provide for them. I introduced legislation to equate the work of veterans done in service to the work done in civilian settings and for employers to give them the equal pay that would equal the amount of expertise that they have based on the work in the United States military. We try to make sure we are responsive. When congress does not meet its task, i can assure the caller that we work in a bipartisan manner to ensure that we try to fix that and overcome it. ,ever perfect, but we own it and we try with legislative for theve to provide g. I. Bill that came out. I have seen it work. Backe seen veterans coming and finishing their education, families finishing education, engaging in job training. Do better. Ys we may not be able to do more, but we can always do better. We can always be more efficient. Robustt facebook. Com, a conversation is now underway. Jimmy says to privatize the entire system. , give themike veterans a health card that can be used at any clinic or hospital, public or v. A. Duke is joining us from summerville, South Carolina. A veteran himself. Welcome to the program. Caller good morning. Thank for cspan. All right. I am a vietnam era veteran. I feel them now at this point in time the truth is coming out is what i think is happening right now. I think that both sides, the house and the senate at this present time, is kind of procrastinating, pontificating, manipulating the agency of the Veterans Affairs, as well as the nation a large. It must stop. We must come to terms with our commonsense and try to move forward. There are many veterans suffering at this present time. We give billions of dollars away to the u. N. To send around the world. Ownannot take care of our responsibilities. We must not look at it as democrats and republicans. We need to look at it as a Unification Party at this point and get this great empire back on track again. Host the issue of foreign aid. Your response. Foreign aid is less than one percent of the nations budget. Foreign aid complements the idea of peace. I think it is extremely important for the United States be engaged in the world. The Public Servants engaged in the Foreign Service are dedicated and committed to making Great Strides on behalf of the American People. Think that foreign aid undermines our commitment to the United States military. I can assure him we are on one page when it comes to fixing the system. Let me thank him for his service and his analysis. Unity is important. We are hearing more unified voices. It is very important to empathize. Shinseki is an enormous, important american. His service is without question. His love of veterans is without question. I really hope it would be his decision. Hopefully, the president and the general can come to some resolution. We need a targeted response to this crisis. The Inspector General has emphasized a systemic problem that it is important that we look at leadership. A look at the 38 year iseer of general shinseki available in the wall street journal. There is this from bill, who says i have no idea why you dont mention putting era vets into managed care like medicare to reduce the v. A. Workload. Republican leaders are trying to turn nation seki problem into an obama problem. Leaders have made the calculation that feeding any Public Perception that Eric Shinseki is to blame is ill advised and shortsighted. The publicans want to but the onus on the president. They will have a more potent political perspective by keeping the v. A. Scandal at the four. Fore. Guest there has been a lot of talk about the private system and combining the tricare system, the activeduty system. I think we are looking at a variety of options. The private system should be a temporary tried. Immediatelynt to adopt the private system as a permanent fix for the Veterans Affairs system. I do believe during this period of time, rather than traveling 100 miles in being on a waiting ist, the private system ready to take care of them. I think we need to look at all of those options. In this stinks. It frankly stinks. To think that you can make this a longterm issue for president does a terrible disservice to the terrible to the men and women who put on the uniform. I think it is important to call that what it is. The president is outraged. The president has relied upon a great leader. None of us are commenting on the enormous service that the general has given. The system is broken and we need to find someone who can fix it. That is the bottom line. Any republican and democrat , if youave no quarter will, and conversations about politics. I would caution any of my colleagues, whether they be democrats or republicans, to make this a political football. I caution my republican friends. All the consultants come all the talking heads that may think this is something they can put at the feet of president obama he has shown himself to be a commanderinchief with a great leadership and affection for the military. He recognizes those on the frontlines. He recognizes those who have served and are now home. His record of initiating and working with congress on major legislation for veterans evidence that this will be a very core story. Who would be an appropriate candidate to replace Eric Shinseki . Do you have somebody in mind . Guest i like general honore. The leader who provided relief in hurricane katrina. Admiral mullen has been mentioned. Others. E probably many if it comes to be i started out by saying that this is the president s choice as to what know, a for all we rebirth of solutions can come up and he remains. It will be the president s choice. All i am asking for is that we move into a crisis mode. I think that needs to go as quickly as possible. Host representative Sheila Jacksonlee. Congresswoman from texas. General shinseki is about to deliver remarks at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. You can watch his speech live on cspan 2. We will take a short break. When we come back, america by the numbers. Today we focus on the fiveyear. Griculture census report washington journal continues. We are back in a moment t. My son paul was in the hospital at childrens national. To have hising openheart surgery and he had been diagnosed with congenital heart defects. He had to have the surgery, otherwise he would die. Part of waiting for the surgery surgeon to come back from theseas was waiting in hospital and realizing these other families are there. You were kind of in the trenches with them. Maggies family, maggie had been through nine surgeries in nine months to rid as daunting as our situation was, we were really feeling with them. We would walk past her family on the way to pauls bassinet. The day of maggies pauls surgery, we walked past and maggies family was not there. She had passed away the night before. It was really hard to imagine that the family had spent so much time and she did not make it. So we went into surgery that day. Eight hour surgery. His first openheart surgery of three. As we are sitting in the cardiac intensive care unit watching through a clear plastic bandage, my sons heart beating, which was a moment in and of itself, the nurse comes over and says you have a phone call. The probably the phone. It was maggies mom. Checking on pauls surgery. Andstrength and the grace the fortitude it took for her mother who had lost her child the night before to call and chuck on our child check on our child was a moment that i will always remember. Bair on his book special heart. Sunday night at 8 00 on q a. At eight includes journalist and applebaum on the follow the soviet union. It contained the seeds of its own distraction. Many of the problems we saw at the end began at the beginning. About the attempt to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. One of the problems is that when you do that, when you try to do opposition ande potential dissidents everywhere. If you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one artist says they do not want to paint that way, you have just made him into a political dissident, and someone who have might otherwise been a political. Nowou tell boy scout troops they have to be young pioneers, which is what happened in a number of countries, and one group decides they do not like that and they form a secret underground boy scout troop, which absolutely happened underground scoop scouts were important in poland you have just created another group of political opponents from a political teenagers. Read more of our conversations and featured interviews in sundays at eight. Now available for a fathers day gift edgar favorite oak seller at your favorite bookseller. Washington journal continues. Our we want to turn attention to americas farming industry. Joining me as hubert hamer, with the u. S. Department of agriculture. Gentlemen, thank you for being with us. Lets look at the chart. The expenses and sales have reached record highs in 2012. Theout of five farmers in u. S. Operated a farm for less than 10 years. Farms are producing much more on farm renewable energy. Doubling in the last decade. Guest we have had an outstanding production year in 2012. There is a backdrop to this year. We also had a drought during 2012. That had some adverse effects on yields and the like. We saw a number of commodities. That is the driver of the total value of sales. We have this map on our facebook page. It is interesting because it points out just how much farmland we still have in this country. 40 . Is an interesting thing. This snapshot of american agriculture. This map of the country with the percentage of farmland by county is fascinating to look at. The impact of agriculture, the number of farmers has shrunk, the percentage of the economy has shrunk over the years, but the impact in terms of the landscape is huge. The darkest colors, 90 of the land in those counties is devoted to agriculture in some form. Much of the country, a majority of the countryside is that cropland or rangeland. And yet small farms are disappearing or evolving. Why and how . Compare 2007 and 2012, overall we are down 4 in the number of farms. Of the economic classes, a little bit of a heavier loss of farms. Looking at the backdrop, this was a drought year. Smallve a number of producers who can get in and out of agriculture. Where the bulkt , theat farmland is breadbasket of the United States, that is where we have most of the corn, soybeans production in the United States, that area was affected by drought during 2012 as well. We also had very significant out in the Western Areas of california. The northwest. Florida,ke a look at the major citrus producing area. You dont see it up the northeast corridor, but there is a lot of valuable productive Agricultural Land in those areas , just not to the extreme intensity of the midWestern Areas. This next graph has a lot of important numbers. The overall number of farms has to climbed by about 20,000. , the female principle operators has increased over the last decade, so has the number of asian, black, and africanamerican operators. The number of hawaiian operators has increased. Guest if you take a look at this and remember you are looking at a 10 year span, you have seen just a slight decline in the number of farms, roughly down 1 . We are seeing a real diverse snapshot right now. All of the ethnic and racial groups, the number of farms in those areas have increased. The other point i would like to make is that we are seeing a very stable situation with farmland across the United States. Agriculture is in a very strong position, being able to stabilize the number of acres and production agriculture. We will see changes as we go through the structure of agriculture. Host how many numbers are individual farm owners and how much is the corporate agribusiness we have been seeing over the last 1020 years . These are principle operators of farms. There is one thing that really jumps out at you. 2 million farmers. But if you look at them more closely, the majority report that they are unless than 25 of their Family Income actually farming. The majority say farming is not the principal occupation. If you look at that number, you have to treat it with a little bit of skepticism. Dont think of this necessarily as the farmer who is out there spending all of his or her time on a tractor or raising cattle. Is actuallyfarmer earning most of his or her income off the farm. You have to keep that in mind when you look at the statistics. All than 80 of Agricultural Production in this country comes from just 200,000 farms. The majority of production comes farms. ,000 farmsactually the large the number of really large farms is increasing. They are becoming more significant in the Agricultural Landscape. Host we welcome our listeners on cspan radio. America by the numbers. Our phone lines are open. We have a line set aside for those who are farm households. 202 5853882. This chart surprised me. Maybe you can explain what we are looking at. When you take a look at this span, you are talking about a 53 year period. We are showing a slight downward trend in the farmland. 2007,ou compare back to we are only down 0. 8 between the two sentences censuses. We have lost 2 million acres in 57 years. This graph says that farmland and agriculture is very stable. The farmland actually is. But there has been a transformation going back even much further. 100200 years. A complete transformation in the overall sort of structure of the farming economy. The average farmer these days is a parttime farmer is a legacy of an earlier era, when 30 50 of the labor force was in farming. That is not the case anymore. But an awful lot of people keep a foot in agriculture. Siderun some cattle on the while they held her job at the factory or in town somewhere. The rise of the enterprise. That is a trend that has really taken hold. Four 202 5853880 eastern and central time zones. For mountain1 and pacific time zones. For farm3882 households. When you look at the top five commodities. What are they . Numbercattle, that is one. Number two. Poultry and eggs. Soybeans and dairy. Sales isll value of 395 billion. Crops makes up 54 . Livestock makes up 46 . This is the first time that crops sales have exceeded livestock sales. Snapshot on the Arab Cultural industry. How do we fit in compared to the rest of the world . The United States is an agricultural superpower. We export huge amounts of soybeans. Animal feed to a lot of countries. Increasingly to china. There is increasing demand in various parts of the world for more animal products. You also see a rise in trade period. In thelook at statistics fruit and fetch trouble area, this is not part of the senses, but you see a dramatic rise in imports of fruits and vegetables from other parts of the world. Exports froml of american Agricultural Enterprises last year. Globalization. More trade. Is done every five years. Explain. Guest the benchmark for the senses are years that end in 2 and 7. There can be significant changes in agriculture in a fiveyear window. This does a good job of keeping a benchmark where we are at rid host another graph. This is the percent of total farms and sales in 2012. Guest this graph is pretty interesting. We can take a look at the trends in agriculture. Basically what it says. The top half of this graph, a had a huged farms percent of the value of sales total for the United States. If you take a split at the 2. 5 ,illion and above, that group that 1. 1 of farms represents 44. 1 of sales for the United States. Very significant. If you take a look at the bottom of this graph, it highlights that we have a lot of the very small farms in the United States. Lessf the farms produced than 50,000 in agricultural sales. Of the farmland is federal grazing land . Cliven bundydy comes to mind. Guest 40 of the 2. 3 billion acres. That includes some of the grazing land and the like. Legacy farmersow that carry on the tradition of parents and grandparents versus new farmers who are getting into the industry today . Guest i would love to know the number. I dont know the number. Guest when we talk about number of farms, 2. 1 million farms. We have about 3. 3 million farm operators involved in the number of operations. Ofhin the census agriculture, we collect information on three operators. We have the principal, the primary the senior operator. Then we are collecting information on two additional members of the operation enterprise. So that we will have some information on the characteristics of others involved in that gives you a chance to look for a secession planning and the like. Did a story recently about this category of parttime farmers. Farmers that are doing a little bit of farming. My question was, are most of these trying to get into agriculture or are they on their way out . As in, my family was in farming, but i am leaving it. I found some of both. My impression was that many more were on their way out of agriculture. Their grandparents were fulltime farmers. They are doing it a little bit on the side. Our guests are dan charles from npr, he can be heard online at npr. Org. And hubert hamer, the director of the statistics decision for the u. S. Department of agriculture. Thank you both for being with us. We will go to mckenzie, tennessee. Good morning. Caller hi there. I found some of the statistics very interesting. My wife and i recently retired and bought a small twoacre farm in mackenzie. Host what are you growing . Caller that is my question or whatever. Whattrying to figure out would be the most cost efficient top or livestock source actually do something significant. The thing that has amazed me on a twoacre farm are the initial costs involved in trying to do anything. Seed, if itractor, is not cleared properly for crop or the livestock you want to raise, clearing land is prohibitively expensive i have reached out to the county resource offices and the and rcs nrcs. Very few programs out there to assist small timers like me. One thing that is precluding people who want to farm is that the costs are prohibitive to rid like you were saying, a 2 million farm produces 30 of the sales. What is a little garlic me going to do . I cannot even begin to recoup my costs. Do . Uy like me going to i cannot even begin to recoup my costs. Guest that is a real issue. We hear this again and again. The biggest obstacles are access , thend, cost of land upfront financial cost. It is also an issue with families trying to pass on farms to children. With the cost of land and the cost of the operation these days , it becomes a very complicated transaction to try to manage that. Land is expensive and farming is big business. That is one of the reasons why you see this trend. It is difficult to get into farming. And the number of farms the specialization of farms, soybeans, wheat, corn, beef, cattle, dairy products. Guest when you look at agriculture, the numbers are down. These numbers talk about the number of farmers who are planting these commodities. If you take a look at soybeans, wheat, corn, and vegetables. These are showing an upward trend. ,ivestock farms are mostly down except for sheep, goat, and horse farms. Just a distribution to show what commodities are being grown. Showsthis the next chart that the land in the farms has not changed that significantly. 2002 tocomparison of 2012. Guest this 10 year span. Average land in farms is pretty stable. 187,000 sales that has nearly doubled. That is price driven. Government payments have been very stable. The average age of producers, the principal operators, that tends to increase about 5 for the 10 year window up to 58. 3 years of age. We will look at the access to the internet for rural farmers. Walter is joining us from north carolina. What you grow or produce . Caller i grow sweetcorn, snap peas, blueberries, tomatoes. I am doing everything on less than five acres. The reason i do it and by the way, i think you very much for your presentation. It is very informative and helpful. I was a fulltime farmer years ago in florida. I grew up in the citrus business around orlando back in the 1950s. The reason i do it is to keep my hands in the soil. It is to help subsidize my Retirement Income. It covers my land taxes, my income taxes, my insurance , andnts and what have you for the last two or three years because of some of the terrible weather, it has not been as good. I had my first loss last year, but that is basically why i do it. I am 70 years old and i will keep doing it until i drop. Host can you share some numbers with us . I am curious as to where you sell your products and how much income you generate every year. Caller local farmers markets. There is one in georgia and in murphys, north carolina. There is one in burbage, georgia. I go to various markets and then i have a lot of regular customers. They buy my beans and they buy can,eetcorn to process and etc. I already have customers calling me now wanting to know when the beans are going to be ready. Troublead a little getting the beans planted because of the heavy rains we have been having lately. The corn is planting. The tomatoes are in good shape. I should be harvesting tomatoes within 45 days or less. Anyway, this is why i do it. I guess you could call me a hobby farmer. , i had about 3500. The lowest was last year. Right around 1500. Like i say, this money goes to pay for my taxes, my insurance, what have you. Can hold on to i my Retirement Income to hold onto a paycheck. Host thank you. We appreciate your perspective. We will come down for some of that sweet corn and tomatoes. To ask hims going about his labor situation. It sounds like it is small enough that maybe you can do most of it. But for people in that end of the business, labor is a real issue. Farmerswhy the bigtime and vegetables have been screaming about Immigration Reform and such things. Go back to this chart, Internet Access in 2012. What did you learn . Guest when we looked at the percentage of farms with Internet Access in 2012 70 . That is up eight teen percent 2007. Om dsl service is the leading provider. Followed by satellite service. Service is about 10 . Still having to access their dialup service. Host is that surprising . Guest these figures did surprise me. We had a conversation as to whether that 30 of people who did not report having Internet Access are they genuinely without Internet Access . Seemfarmers that i visit to have Internet Access. Just not visiting this subset of farmers. 30 evidently do not have access to the internet. Host lets go to drakes borough, kentucky. Good morning. Quick question. Caller not really a question. I just wanted to make a statement. Over the last several years, i have been noticing that the family farm label has been pretty much deceiving the public. Industry in with their raising of the chickens and still labeling those as family farmers, when they are strictly corporate. The chickensng from the corporation, whichever one it is, they are raising those chickens, and they are selling them back to those corporations. Host dan charles, do you follow this issue . Guest the chicken and pork industry is a system called contract farming. The caller is correct. The Big Companies are in control of the situation, but the contract with family farmers. Big operator, sometimes relatively small operators. They do the work. , the freshlym hatched chicks, they raised them, they sell them back, and they get paid for their time. The practice is somewhat controversial. It is the way that segment of agriculture is running. Organic agriculture. What do the numbers tell you . Guest organic production resulted in about 3. 1 billion dollars in sales in 2012. You have 5700 farms that represent 97 of the sales. Organic agriculture has grown a lot since 2007, up 82 . 3. 1 billion a great equates to 0. 8 of all agriculture sales. We are seeing a bigger trend toward moving directly to the consumers. More than 144,000 farmers are participating in that activity. That is up 5. 6 . Direct to consumer sales is at 1. 3 billion, up 8. 3 from 2007. Farmers are going directly to retailers. 49,000 producers are going directly to retailers. Farmersen it comes to producing their own energy sources, how are we doing . Guest there seems to be a big increase. Lots more farms putting up solar panels. It stands to reason. They have the land and the rooms roofs. Some are putting in anaerobic digesters. You have a lot of manure to get rid of. Ridroduces energy and gets of waste. Still a small number, but it produces energy. Dan charles and hubert hamer. John neumann, thank you for being with us. Getting word that Eric Shinseki will be at the white house at 10 15 this morning to be meeting with the president. He delivered remarks earlier before a group of homeless veterans. His speech is Available Online at cspan. Org. We will take you live for the floor of the house of representatives. Thanks for joining us. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] chaplain, father conroy. Chaplain conroy let us pray. God of the universe, thank you for giving us another day. Quicken our spirits so that we will know the blessings of living together in unity and peace. We have our personal aspirations and ideas of what is best. Grant that we might know the satisfaction from sharing our Common Concerns and experiencing the joy of mutual accomplishment. Bless the members of the peoples house with success in bringing fruition to all efforts, to work toward Common Solutions to the issues facing our nation. Solutions which seem so distant in these days. During the days of the coming week, may the American People be able to communicate their hopes for the efforts of their congress men and women. May they understand as well that a unified nation is equally the work of each of us where we live. May we be men and women who live without excuse. And may all that is done this day be for your greater honor and glory. Amen. The speaker the chair has examined the journal of the last days proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. Pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina rise . Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule 1, i demand a vote on agreeing to the speakers approval of the journal. The speaker the question is on agreeing to the speakers approval of the journal. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The journal stands approved. The gentleman from South Carolina. Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, i object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. The speaker pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. The pledge of allegiance today will be led by the gentleman from washington state, mr. Kilmer. Mr. Kilmer i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united and to the rica republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The speaker the chair will entertain up to five requests for oneminute speeches on each side of the aisle. For what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise . I ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. He speaker without objection. Mr. Speaker, on june 4 we mark the 25th anniversary of the massacre of peaceful protestors in Tiananmen Square in the peoples republic of china. Mr. Rothfus to the kick tatorship of the communist party, an end, and an end to the corruption. They have tried to remove Tiananmen Square by censoring social media and arresting those who would raise questions, pick qurls and provoke trouble. We will always remember. We will remember the art students who sculpt thed the goddess of democracy, inspired by the statue of liberty. We will remember the tank man who single handedly stopped tanks chinese tanks in their tracks. We will remember the hundreds, perhaps thousands, theres never been an official counting, of those who died that day. The spirit of the protestors live on in these stories of heroism. It lives on for all those who love freedom and human rights. To the Chinese People who yearn for freedom, do not give up hope. One day, you, too, will be free. Thank you. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. For what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition . Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman from washington is recognized for one minute. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise today to honor the life of an historic lead for the tribe in the state of washington and for our nation, the longtime chairman Herman Dillon passed away last week at the age of 82. Mr. Kilmer he led a life dedicated to ensuring that the tribe and our region will continue to thrive for generations to come. Chairman dillon began a long career of service, first by joining the u. S. Naval reserve and during the korean war he was drafted by the army and spent two years honorably serving our country in korea. Elected to the Tribal Council in 1971, chairman dillon played an instrumental role in seeing through a number of historic achievements. Including the indian lands claim settlement, the washington gaming impact and key economic decisions that led to the tribe becoming the Third Largest employer in pierce county, washington. Mr. Speaker, chairman dillon and his wife, darlene, also served their community as foster parents, hoping their hearts and homes to serve many children in need. The tribe and our entire region are stronger and more prosperous as a result of his vision and unwavering efforts to build a brighter future. He will be southerly missed by the he will be sorely missed by the tribe, by the region and by me. Thank you, mr. Speaker and i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back his time. For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina seek recognition . Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, the president s failure to provide lifesaving services to our veterans is a tragedy. Complaints of delays, preventable illnesses and deaths have plagued the Veterans Administration for years. The president promised corrections while campaigning for the white house in 2008. Yet, the failures have accelerated with more scandal, neglect and incompetence. It is shameful that the president finally discussed this issue after claiming to recently hear about it in the news. This week i joined others asking for the president to remove v. A. Secretary Eric Shinseki and appoint a new secretary who can get the job done and give our veterans the health care theyve earned and deserve for ensuring our freedoms. I appreciate kevin cohen, the point talk show host, for promoting veterans. American legion commander Dan Dillinger said this isnt personal. The v. A. Needs a fundamental shift in leadership if they need to improve accountability. I cannot agree more. The best way is to change ourse to restore our faith for American Veterans and their family. In conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the war on terrorism. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. For what purpose does the gentleman rise . I ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for one minute. Mr. Holt thank you. Yesterday, Speaker Boehner said he was not qualified to debate the science of Climate Change, but he was confident that all plans to deal with Climate Change would hurt jobs and our economy. Mr. Speaker, im a scientists but that doesnt uniquely qualify me to debate Climate Change. As members of congress, we rely on the expertise of others to inform our decisionmaking. And i agree with the overwhelming consensus among scientists, the climate is changing largely the result of human activities and we can and must act now. Not because i am myself a scientists but because of Peer Reviewed reports like the ipcc and the National Climate assessment. Less than a year ago in a speech announcing his Climate Action plan, president obama said wee direct the e. P. A. To put an end to the limitless dumping of Carbon Pollution. This coming monday, the president will make good on his promise when the e. P. A. Proposes the firstever limits on climate on Carbon Pollution from existing power plants, which are responsible for about 40 of u. S. Carbon pollution. We as a country have already been forced to endure the costs of unlimited Carbon Pollution as more frequent and intense extremes cost us in lives and dollars. Inaction will be expensive. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. For what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition . Mr. Thompson mr. Speaker, request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized for one minute. Mr. Thompson mr. Speaker, the disclosures of abuse and neglect at our v. A. Hospitals have been absolutely intolerable. This weeks release of the interim report from the v. A. Inspector general highlights the urgency in identifying the full scope of these tragic and potentially deliberate abuses and the need to hold officials to all accounts from these failures. Since elected i have remained in close contact with the v. A. Hospital serving the Fifth District of pennsylvania. And i want to thank them for providing the best possibly care for the veterans in this region of the country. Last week the house with bipartisan support passed h. R. 4031, the v. A. Management accountability act and i am a proud cosponsor of that bill. While im glad the house came together to pass this important reform and i encourage the senate to do the same, so much more must be done to correct the specific abuses and impose accountability and trust across the v. A. System moving forward. Mr. Speaker, the brave men and women who serve our country in uniform deserve nothing less. And i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. For what purpose does the gentlelady from california seek recognition . I ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady from california is recognized. Ms. Lee thank you, mr. Speaker. Its a sense of sadness yet gratitude that i rise to honor the life and memory of a great phenomenal warrior woman, dr. Maya angelou. My deepest condolences to her friends and family, including her son, guy johnson, who is both a friend and constituent, as they celebrate and mourn her spiritfilled life. I will forever cherish the private moments i had the privilege to spend with maya, one i recall was years ago when she invited me to her beautiful home where we talked in her living room as sisters about our lives, our struggles, our passion for improving the human condition. I confided in her about the many challenges i faced after voting against the authorization to use military force. She encouraged me and the affirmation she gave to me during those trying times will always be with me. I tell you, dr. Angelou lived life to its fullest and she shared with the world the essence of a purposeful life. I will hold her words, be certain that you do not die without having done Something Wonderful for humanity, close to my heart knowing she was one of humanitys greatest gifts. While the world grieves in dr. Maya angelous passing, we can take comfort in the fact that her words and her legacy live in generations of people who have been touched, challenged and inspired by her work. We will miss her tremendously but dr. Maya angelous legacy and her spirit will live forever. The speaker pro tempore the gentleladys time has expired. For what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition . Request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise today to extend my sincere condolences to the people of serbia, bosnia and croatia affected by severe flooding in recent weeks. Mr. Perry its the worst the region has seen in 120 years. Making matters worse, there are reports that land mines from the most recent balkan wars are being shifted due to the landslides. Only adding to the dangers of people and rescuers in the affected areas. Having experienced flooding that displaces families myself and more importantly having served in the region during my military career, the people of the balkans hold a special place in my heart. My thoughts and prayers are with them and i wish them god speed. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back his time. For what purpose does the gentlelady from New Hampshire eek recognition . The gentlelady from New Hampshire is recognized. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Ms. Kuster we celebrate dday and the brave men who served our country with great courage and patriotism. Today i stand before you to honor their heroic sacrifice. As a Fighter Pilot in world war ii, my father flew 63 missions in a p47 thunderbolt. He provided air cover while my fatherinlaw stormed the beaches of normanandy on dday. During a dogfight my father was shot down by the germans. Spent the next six months in a german p. O. W. Camp behind enemy liberated by ng troops on v. E. Day. I came to understand the courage, resilience of veterans and military families all across our great nation. And this is the reason that i am deeply committed to easing the transition for veterans back to civilian life, expanding their job opportunities, strengthening their Health Care Benefits and improving Mental Health services for the dedicated men and women who have worn the uniform of the United States. Dday is a reminder of the great sacrifice borne before our service men and women and their families. Thank you, mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore the gentleladys time has expired. For what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition . Mr. Crowley i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from new york is recognized for one minute. Mr. Crowley mr. Speaker, i rise to honor a real american hero. Queens own gene manford. His openly gay son, mortgagey, was beaten during a gay rights protest. That year gene marched with mortgagey in new yorks earliest tried parade. She carries a now famous sign that says parents unite in gay support of our children. The phrase sparked jean to find the organization, parents, families and friends of lesbian and gays, known as p flag. Our queens chapter was cofounded by jean and councilman dany drum who founded the queens pride parade. Today i introduce a resolution honoring jean, and this sunday i will march in the queens pride parade, remembering that my neighbor, jean, opened doors that led to the progress weve seen in the last few decades. Ill march with the pride knowing i live in a nation where history moves us toward accepting all people, regardless of race, religion, Sexual Orientation or gender identity. Thank you and i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The chair lays before the house the following enrolled bill. The clerk h. R. 3658, an act to grant the congressional cold gedal collectively to the Monuments Men in recognition of their heroic role in the preservation, protection, and restitution of monuments, works of art, and artifacts of cultural importance during and ollowing world war ii. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from utah seek recognition . Mr. Beneficiary yp mr. Speaker, by direction of the committee on rules i call up House Resolution 604 and ask for its immediate consideration. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the resolution. The clerk house calendar number 110, House Resolution 604. Resolved, that at any time after adoption of this resolution the speaker may, pursuant to clause 2b of rule 18, declare the house resolved into the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of the bill h. R. 4745, making appropriations for the departments of transportation and housing and urban development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2015, and for other purposes. The First Reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on appropriations. After general debate, the bill shall be considered for amendment under the fiveminute rule. Points of order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply with clause 2 of rule 21 are waived. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the chair of the committee of the whole may accord priority in recognition on the basis of whether the member offering an amendment has caused it to be printed in the portion of the congressional record designated for that purpose in clause 8 of rule 18. Amendments so printed shall be considered as read. When the committee rises and reports the bill back to the house with a recommendation that the bill do pass, the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Section 2, a, at any time after adoption of this resolution the speaker may, pursuant to clause 2b of rule 18, declare the house resolved into the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of the bill h. R. 4681, to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 for intelligence and intelligence related activities of the United States government, the Community Management account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and disability system and for other purposes. The First Reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and amendments specified in this resolution and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Permanent Select Committee on intelligence. After general debate, the you will bill shall be considered for amendment under the fiveminute rule. B, in lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Permanent Select Committee on intelligence now printed in the bill, it shall be in order to consider as an original bill for the purpose of amendment under the fiveminute rule an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of rules Committee Print 11345. That amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be considered as read. All points of order against that amendment in the nature of a substitute are waived. C, no amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute made in order as original text shall be in order except those printed in the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution and amendments en bloc described in subsection f. D, each amendment printed in the report of the committee on rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the house or in the committee of the whole. E, all points of order against amendments printed in the report of the committee on rules or amendments en bloc described in subsection f are waived. F, it should be in order at any time for the chair of the Permanent Select Committee on intelligence or his designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in the report of the committee on rules not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this subsection shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Permanent Select Committee on intelligence or their designees, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the house or in the committee of the whole. G, at the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment, the Committee Shall rise and report the bill to the house with such amendments as may have been adopted. Any member may demand a separate vote in the house on any amendment adopted in the committee of the whole to the bill or to the amendment in the nature of a substitute made in order as original text. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Section 3, on any legislative day during the period from june 2, 2014 through june 6, 2014, a, the journal of the proceedings of the previous day shall be considered as approved. And b, the chair may at any time declare the house adjourned to meet at a date and time within the limits of clause 4, section 5, article 1 of the constitution to be announced by the chair in declaring the adjournment. Section 4, the speaker may appoint members to perform the duties of the chair for the duration of the period addressed by section 3 of this resolution as though under clause 8a of rule 1. Section 5, the committee on appropriations may at any time before 5 00 p. M. On wednesday, june 4, 2014, file privileged reports to accompany measures making appropriations for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2015. Section 6, House Resolution 564 is amended by adding the following. Section 7, travel. Clauses 8a, b, and c of rule 10 of the rules of the house of representatives shall apply to the select committee. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from utah is recognized for one hour. Mr. Bishop thank you, mr. Speaker. For purposes of debate only, i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. Mcgovern, pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. During consideration of this resolution all time yielded is for purpose of debate only, and i ask that all members may have five legislative days to revise. D extend their remarks the speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. Mr. Bishop thank you, mr. Speaker. Im happy to be here with you today. It seems like only a few hours ago we were all here together. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Bishop because it was only a few hours ago. This resolution before us today provides a structured rule for consideration of h. R. 4681, the intelligence authorization act for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. And it makes in order a number of amendments for consideration. In addition, this combined resolution provides for an open rule for the consideration of h. R. 4745, the transportation, housing, and urban development and related agencies appropriations act of 2015. This resolution provides for one hour of general debate on each of these bills equally divided and controlled between the chairman and ranking minority member of the prope committees of jurisdiction of the the intention of the rules committee was to provide ample opportunity to debate issues related to our Intelligence Committee. Community. The Intelligence Community has done a very good bipartisan work on this bill which is being brought forward under regular order, and while the committee was able to work some members to modify their amendments so they would comply with house rules to be made in order, some amendments were still subject to a point of order or were already debated and voted last week during debate of the usa freedom act. Some amendments were simply not possible to debate on the floor in open session due to the National Security implications. That result is that this rule makes in order a total of 11 amendment to the intelligence bill, four republican, six democrat, one bipartisan amendment. So the process is inclusive. The rule is fair. And will provide a wide ranging debate on a topic of interest to all americans. I reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. The gentleman from massachusetts. Mr. Mcgotsche thank you, mr. Speaker. I want mr. Mcgovern thank you, mr. Speaker. I want to thank the gentleman from utah for giving me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Mcgovern mr. Speaker, once again we are considering a rule that combines two bills together under one single rule that. Rule provides an open rule for the transportation, housing and urban Development Appropriations bill or thud, and a strktured rule for the fiscal year 2014 and 2015 intelligence authorization act. Thud is an appropriate acronym, mr. Speaker, because thats how we can describe this houses action on the bill last year. The Appropriations Committee tried to come up with a bill that funds our transportation, housing, and urban development programs, but it was so woefully inadequate it never made it to the house floor. Although the thud bill may be 1. 2 billion above last years enacted level, due to a reduction in offsets caused by decline in federal Housing Administration receipts, the Program Level in the bill is actually 1. 8 billion below last years level. On the transportation side this bill provides no funding for highspeed rail. It cuts 200 billion from amtraks capital funding. And if that werent bad enough i want to highlight one particularly egregious rider in the thud bill. A rider that would exempt wisconsin, mississippi, and idaho from federal truck weight limits on their interstates. Mr. Speaker, there have been no reviews by Highway Safety experts or cost benefit analysis on the effect of increased size and weight limits on these roads and bridges. Yet the majority decided to go forward with these extraneous writers anyway. I would riders anyway. I would remind my colleagues in the last surface transportation reauthorization bill, congressman barletta offered an amendment that required d. O. T. To conduct a comprehensive study on the impact of increasing truck size and weight on road safety and infrastructure costs. It passed with strong bipartisan support, and the department of transportation is currently in the process of completing the study, which should be finished by the fall of this year. Mr. Barletta sent a letter to the rules committee before last nights meeting requesting that a point of order against this rider be made available. I support mr. Barletsa and i wish the rules committee would not have protected this provifplgts we should not be raising truck size and weights in a state buy state patchwork approach before d. O. T. Even has a chance to finish the study, wheps the Highway Trust Fund is expected to run out of money this summer and our roads and bridges are already in horrible disrepair. I ask unanimous consent to insert letters from triplea, the Owner Operator independent drivers association, Law Enforcement officers, and First Responders and road safety groups all opposing this rider. The speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. Mr. Mcgovern this rule as i noted earlier also covers debate on h. R. 4681, the fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2015 intelligence authorization act. The intelligence authorization bill is one of the many important pieces of legislation that comes before the house every year. Or nearly every year. Last year for fiscal 2014 the bill was marked up in committee but the majority never seemed to be able to find the time to bring it to the house floor, which is why today we are dealing with a twoyear authorization for both the current fiscal year, f. Y. 2014, and the coming fiscal year, f. Y. 2015. A great deal has happened since the fiscal year 2013 intelligence bill was approved in december of 2012. Everything from Edward Snowden to the see quers, extreme weather events, to drone strikes that also killed innocent civilians, new technologies and cybersabotage, to protecting our human assets on the ground in dangerous regions. While the underlying bill attempts to deal with these own other issues in a bipartisan manner, some of the choices it makes weaken rather than strengthen our ability to accurately assess potential and real threats to our security. One particularly troubling example is the bills failure to strike on the Intelligence Communitys ability strengthen the Intelligence Communitys ability to assess how Climate Change affects our National Security. Over a decade ago the National Intelligence estimate or n. I. E. , noted with grave concern how extreme weather and environmental changes were adversely affecting global Food Security as well as increased refugee and i. D. P. Populations due to droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. The n. I. E. Described how such events distribute or even can drive social and political instability which might threaten our own National Security interests. Given the acceleration of extreme weather and Climate Change over the past decade or so, i would think that we would want to encourage our intelligence agencies to analyze the National Security implications of Climate Change. Whether thats how storm surges and rising sea levels and temperatures might affect our navy, or how competition over resources might affect the opening of the arctic or water wars in the middle east and in northern africa, but, no, instead this bill continue the republican foolishness of pretending that Climate Change doesnt exist. Some of my republican colleagues would rather stick their heads in the sand. Thats not a way to run a government, mr. Speaker. Over 30 amendments were submitted to the rules committee and i wish all of them were made in order under this rule. It doesnt take long to debate 30something amendments. After all, we should be pretty rested after a 5 1 2daybreak at the beginning of this break and a nineday recess starting tomorrow. Surely we could use the 2 1 2 days when were in washington to actually debate the intelligence bill. Several of these amendments dealt with highly controversial aspects of drone strikes, many of which have killed or wounded innocent civilians. I was glad to see that the u. S. Did not carry out any drone strikes for the past month in pakistan where the use of drone has made tensions between our two nations. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky submitted an amendment to ban socalled strikes against unknown targets. Her amendment modestly calls for the u. S. Government to know with near certainty that at least one individual who is a known target will be present before the strike is launched. I am outraged that her amendment was not made in order under this rule. Other amendments, including bipartisan amendments, dealt with increasing the transparency of decisionmaking and reporting about drone strikes. Others would have simply ban their use. Used. Has increasingly drone strikes. As we wind down the war in afghanistan, we need to take a hard look at how we should pursue the socalled global war on terror, especially the use of drone strikes in operations outside the boundaries of international Law Enforcement. I regret that all of the amendments brought before the rules committee dealing with drone strikes were not made in order as each dealt with a different facet of the policy and each deserve to be debated by this house. Id also like to say a word about the mccollum amendment which was also denied by the rules committee which the house will debate later today. Our intelligence agencies should never, ever, ever use humanitarian work or workers as a cover for covert operations or a means to gather intelligence. Whether were talking about a Vaccination Campaign to protect children were polio or the delivery of food to desperate refugees, leave such plots and machinations to the movies, but keep them out of u. S. Policy and covert operations. They endanger all humanitarian workers and place obstacles in the way of carrying out urgent and essential Global Health and humanitarian work in places many dangers already exist. Mr. Speaker, before i yield back before i reserve my time, i also want to point out that this rule contains a provision which makes a change in the procedures for the special select committee on benghazi which was established by the house just a few weeks ago. The new provision allows the chairman of the new select committee to authorize foreign travel as part of the investigation. Mr. Speaker, the congress has already conducted seven investigations of the benghazi matter. Seven. Many of us have argued an additional eighth inquiry is not necessary. But since the house insists on proceeding, wed like to make sure that some of the partisan abuses that mark the previous inquiries will not be repeated by the new select committee, particularly with regard to foreign travel. Mr. Cummings has often protested the partisan abuses of foreign travel at the oversight and government reform committee. Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent to insert in the record a letter from mr. Cummings to mr. Issa asking him to delay a republicanonly delegation to libya so that democrats could join the delegation as well. The speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. Mr. Mcgovern in october of 2012, Oversight Committee republicans went on a delegation to libya, but they did not inform democratic members until 24 hours after they departed. In september, 2013, Oversight Committee republicans planned a second delegation to libya without contacting democratic members at all. Ranking member cummings requested that the trip be postponed to allow democrats to join, but his request was denied. This is no way to conduct a serious investigation, and this is one of the reasons why so many people on our side of the cried cried f foul. So before the house grants any new authorities to the select committee, ill be grateful for any assurance from my chairman that this authority will not be misused in the highly partisan manner demonstrated by chairman issa at the Oversight Committee. And i yield to the gentleman from texas, the chair of the rules committee, for his response. Mr. Sessions i appreciate the gentleman, mr. Mcgovern, for bringing this issue up as he did in the rules committee at the time of the hearing. I want to assure the gentleman and each of the members of this body that the gentleman who will be the new chairman of the committee, the gentleman, mr. Gowdy, has every intent to make ure that his work, the assignments that will be given as they move forward, including travel, will be done on a fair basis. Mr. Gowdy is aware of and knows the sensitive nature of not only the investigation but also how this will be handled. And mr. Gowdy, i will assure you, is very prepared to match and to meet the members that the that ms. Pelosi has put on the committee, and i think that you will see that the people that serve as a result of the speaker appointing them will serve with honor and distinction and will work well and fairly together. I thank the gentleman for asking. Mr. Mcgovern and i thank the gentleman for his answer and for his reassurances and well certainly be watching. In our opinion fairness means consultation with the democrats and not leaving us out of the loop. Again, id point out to my colleagues that the inquiries into the benghazi situation thus far has been highly partisan, and the Oversight Committee, in particular, has been run i think in a very in an inappropriate manner. So i appreciate the gentlemans assurances, and we will watch and hope that what the gentleman just said would occur. With that i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. The gentleman from utah is recognized. Mr. Bishop reserve. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from utah reserves. The gentleman from massachusetts. Mr. Mcgovern mr. Speaker, id like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from mississippi, the distinguished Ranking Member of the committee on Homeland Security, mr. Thompson. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from mississippi is recognized for three minutes. Mr. Thompson thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, i rise in opposition to this rule that allows for consideration of h. R. 4681, the intelligence authorization act for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. Im troubled that this that 11 amendments were allowed under the rule and many solid amendments that would enhance oversight and transparency were blocked, particularly an amendment by representative gabbard to expand the authority and oversight of the Intelligence Community by the privacy and Civil Liberties oversight board. With respect to the underlying bill, id like to discuss a number of provisions that deserve to be highlighted. The bill sets the stage for potentially significant reforms to government and contract employees abilities to access class employees abilities to access classified information that warrants further clarification. Specifically h. R. 4681 directs the director of National Intelligence to ensure that elements of the Intelligence Community engage in continued evaluation of its employees to detect behaviors that may result in unauthorized disclosure. The bill also directs the costbenefit analysis for placing the standard periodic reinvestigation process with automated continuous Evaluation Programs. While i agree that there are weaknesses in the current security clearance process that warrant reform, it is important that for wholesale changes are made, congress expresses its expectations about the scope of such program, establish metrics for evaluating their effort is i effortcy re that and we need to make sure that the 2. 5 million americans who maintain their security clearances to ensure that agencies that establish these programs do so in a manner that guards against abuses, including targeting and retaliation by supervisors as well as improper or excessive invasions of privacy. To urge and adopt continuous evaluation in response to highprofile incidents involving incident individuals with access to classified information who violated the terms of their oath is understandable. However, the adoption of continuous evaluation does not help the protections of its classified holdings. Regrettably, mr. Speaker, h. R. 4681 may send the wrong message to agencies as it does not include language to direct agencies to raise the bar on access controls, thereby giving the impression that our concerns is principally about employees actions and behaviors employees actions and behaviors. I am also concerned about the bills mr. Mcgovern i yield the gentleman two minutes. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from mississippi is recognized for two minutes. Mr. Thompson thank you. I appreciate the yielding. I also have concerns, mr. Speaker, about the bills view of the future of security clearance investigations and adjudications and the degree to which it set stages for computers and algorithms to replace humans in the process. Specifically, it directs the d. N. I. To conduct a costbenefit analysis on reducing or eliminating the manual process for security clearance investigations and adjudications. The guiding principle in adjudication process is the concept of the whole person, where information is brought to bear to give a picture of an individual, the prospect that we would empower a computer to render judgment on a persons integrity, character and loyalty to our nation is troubling. In the coming weeks, ill be introducing a comprehensive security clearance reform legislation bill that among other things addresses known weaknesses in the current system, establish expectations and continuous Evaluation Programs and demand proper performance from Investigative Service providers. It also will greatly expand the resources and responsibilities of the Public Interest declassification board. A wellresourced and robust board is essential to increasing accountability of the Intelligence Community. Im pleased that the underlying bill will renew the authorization of the board. Before i yield back, mr. Speaker, i note that while i am pleased that the bill authorizes intelligence operations within d. H. S. , im disturbed in advance of todays vote, members of the Homeland Security staff were not granted access to the classified annex of this legislation as it is relevant to the committees oversight jurisdiction. I would hope that this bill moves through the legislative process, the stovepipes that exist within this chamber that hinder critical information sharing and oversight can be overcome from the benefit of the American People. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. Mr. Thompson with that, mr. Speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. The gentleman from massachusetts reserves, and the gentleman from utah is recognized. Mr. Bishop and i reserve. The speaker pro tempore and continues to reserve. The gentleman from massachusetts. Mr. Mcgovern may i inquire of the gentleman if he has any additional speakers . Mr. Bishop to the gentleman from massachusetts, im ready to close whenever you are. Mr. Mcgovern mr. Speaker, i yield myself the remaining time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Mcgovern mr. Speaker, i urge my colleagues to oppose this rule for all the reasons i stated earlier but, mr. Speaker, i want to close with one final thought. This intelligence bill includes several provisions regarding the use of contractors, security clearance reform, strengthening investigations by the Inspector General and so on. We need to recognize that these reforms were not initiated by us. They are a result of the massive release of leaked information that brought very serious matters about actual and potential abuses by our intelligence agencies on how they monitor and maintain data on ordinary lawabiding citizens. This leaked information caused alarm throughout our society, by our constituents, by our press and by members of congress and rightfully so. It caused alarm among some of our closest International Allies and rightfully so. So while we may hold different views about the individual who confiscated and leaked the information, let us all recognize that none of the n. S. A. And fisa reforms recently passed by this house and none of the reforms included in this bill would have happened if that information had not been leaked, because we would not have known about the abuses being carried out in our name by various intelligence agencies. Mr. Speaker, i respect those men and women who serve our nation in our intelligence agencies. But i dont respect a culture that intentionally keeps the American People and the congress in the dark about the extent and nature of our intelligence operations. More reforms are still needed, more transparency is still needed. I believe that we can be safe and protect the american and i believe we can be safe and protect the American People without sacrificing the liberties that we all treasure. And with that i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from massachusetts yields back his time. The gentleman from utah is recognized. Mr. Bishop im pleased to stand before the house today . Support of this rule and underlying pieces of legislation. 4745, the thud bill. From the testimony that we received in the rules committee on these measures, it appears the bulk both these measures have enjoyed bipartisan cooperation in the formation and from their Respective Committee processes. One of the toughest responsibilities of the member of the congress is help prioritize the federal expenditures of resources that we take from the American People. Sometimes worthy projects and programs have to be trimmed to beat budget requirements and prioritization. While there are spending choices which i disagree contained in 4745, overall it is still a balanced measure which will provide for american infrastructure, so essential for he Economic Growth and jobs. Maintains discipline by adhering to the top line funding levels arrived at by that twoyear budget agreement passed by congress. 52 billion for transportation provided in agencies is 7. 8 billion below the president s request and still 1. 8 billion less than 2014 enacted level. But members have a chance under the open rule of this resolution provided to argue for changes in the prioritization. I am pleased that one of the things that this bill recognizes is that states are different. Those who want to live in the wide open west have been able to use transportation to help the desert blossom. Yet we should not try to restrict every state to the same standards with a onesizefitsall approach. The committee was very wise in what they actually did. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman will suspend. The gentleman will suspend. The guests in the gallery will come to order. The guests in the gallery will come to order. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Bishop thank you, mr. Speaker. Switching gears to the intelligence reauthorization measure, every member of the house takes seriously our responsibility to preserve individual liberty and freedoms under the constitution. We also have a constitutional obligation providing for the common sense because without a Strong National defense, which includes the indispensable work of the Defense Intelligence agencies, the question is achieving and maintaining a balance deciding how to have our rights against technologist weather inadvertent or real. Technology gives us wonderful tools but it can also be a Fertile Ground for abusive privacy. We have a responsibility as members of the congress to conduct oversight of u. S. Intelligence agencies and this can be difficult since much cannot be debate the in open forums with any degree of spess physicality without dealing great harm to the National Security. That is why we have the expertise of the standing committees. Not donal they understand these issues, by allocating proper amount of time to discussion of these issues in advance, and the testimony received in the rules committee, do i believe chairman rogers and Ranking Member ruppersberger have demonstrate add strong bipartisan commitment on this issue. Provisions of this bill are aimed at bolstering personal and individual privacy. Passage of the 4681 when you combine it with the passage last week of the u. S. Freedom act is a good step towards enhancing our u. S. Intelligence capability, as well as congressional oversight on these issues. Its a good bill. Its a fair rule. I urge its duping. With that i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from utah yields back. Mr. Bishop before i yield back. In closing i move the previous question on the resolution. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. Without objection, the previous question ised odd. The question son is on duping of the resolution. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. The resolution is agreed to. And without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition . Mr. Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill h. R. 4681. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Pursuant to House Resolution 604 and rule 18, the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole on the state of the union for the consideration of h. R. 4681. The chair appoints the gentleman from texas, mr. Poe, po preside over the committee of the whole. To preside over the committee f the whole. The chair the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of h. R. 4681 which the clerk will report by the title. The clerk a bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 for intelligence and intelligence related activities of the United States government, the Community Management account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and disability system, and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as read the first time. The gentleman from michigan, mr. Rogers, and the gentleman from maryland, mr. Ruppersberger, each will control 30 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. Mr. Rogers mr. Chairman, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The chair the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he wishes to use. Mr. Rogers the intelligence authorization act is the annual blueprint for the work of the Intelligence Community and americans military and intelligence efforts. The bill sets the priorities for our critical intelligence efforts and the Legal Framework of guidance and oversight for those efforts. Since the Ranking Member and i have assumed the leadership of this committee, we passed three intelligence authorization bills in a bipartisan fashion and hope to continue the tradition and trend with h. R. 4681. Passing a yearly intelligence authorization bill is the primary method by which congress exerts its budgetary and Oversight Authority over the Intelligence Community. As most of the intelligence budget involves highly classified programs, the bulk of the committees each year are found in the classified annex to the bill which have been available for members to review. Among other initiatives, the bill increases funding to address Insider Threats and improve personal security programs. Pen nell security programs. At its unclassified level i can report that the annex for fiscal year 2014 authorizes funding that is slightly below the president s budget request level. Its funding levels are in line with the levels appropriated by the enacted appropriations act for the National Intelligence program and with the National Defense authorization act for the military intelligence program. For fiscal year 2015, the bill increases the president s budget request by less than 1 and stays within the bipartisan budget act funding caps. The modest increase reflects the committees concern that the president s request does not properly fund a number of important initiatives and leaves several unacceptable shortfalls. The legislative provisions that the committee and congress consider each year are comprised of changes to statutes that better enable the community to conduct its Important Mission and strengthen oversight mechanisms where needed. Mr. Chairman, we find ourselves in a very interesting time in history. Al qaeda has metastasized into dangerous affiliates, safe havens have emerged in syria, parts of libya, yemen, somalia, and tribal areas of pakistan. Al qaeda is also regaining a foothold in northeast afghanistan. Just as the president announced a complete withdrawal of u. S. Military forces and the counterterrorism capability that comes with it by the end of 2016. Uneven leadership in recent years has emboldened adversaries like russia and china who are increasing their military and intelligence spending and working to change the International Order as we speak to the detriment of u. S. Interests. Russia occupies 20 of the nation of georgia, invaded and occupied crimea, and threatens invasion of eastern ukraine. China is bullying its neighbors and expanding claims in the south and east chinaa seas through which 40 of world trade travels. At the same time, north korea continues its belligerent behavior and iran is maneuvering to preserve its capability to develop a nuclear weapon. A nuclear iran would threaten israel with annihilation and send the middle east into a Dangerous Nuclear arms race. We are rightly demanding that our intelligence agencies provide policymakers with the best and most timely information possible on all these and other threats. We ask them to track frisses wherever they train terrorists wherever they train, plan, fundraiser. We ask them to stop cyberattacks stealing american prosperity and american jobs. We can them to track nuclear and missile threats. And we demand that they get it right every time. Now we are asking them to do it with fewer resources. And with what can be described as confusing direction from our commander in chief. The dedication of the men and women of the Intelligence Community who volunteer to serve in some of the most difficult places onert are some of the finest patriots i have ever had the privilege to meet. Within Budget Constraints and un clear policy guidance from the white house, this bill ensures they have resources and authorities necessary to keep our nation and our people safe and accomplish their mission. As this is the last authorization act i will advance as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, i want to publicly thank my Ranking Member, my friend, deutch dutch ruppersberger. I cant tell you what a pleasure its been to have a partner like dutch and working through difficult issues at a very difficult time in our nations history. National Security Policy should not be partisan. We have done everything in our power to ensure that this committee, at least takes as a nonpartisan view of National Security as is humanly possible. It is an honor to work with someone who is also interested in governing and in making progress on an issue so important to our nations future. Id like to thank the chair and urge members support of h. R. 4681. I reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentleman from michigan reserves his time. The chair recognizes the gentleman from maryland. Mr. Ruppersberger thank you, mr. Chair. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The chair the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. Mr. Ruppersberger chairman rogers, i thank you for your comments but i also have the same comments for you. When we took the leadership of this committee we knew that the stakes were so high and that we had to Work Together on behalf of the members of the United States on behalf of the people of United States of america. We came together with republicans, democrats, liberals, conservatives, moderates all realizing we had to come together. Because of your leadership, because of your focus we have been able to pass fisa and hopefully well pass these bills today. Well miss you, but youll always be there as my friend and ill always respect you as a Great American who cares about the United States. Thank you. Now, we need to pass this intelligence authorization act for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 to ensure rigorous oversight and accountability over all u. S. Intelligence agencies and all u. S. Intelligence activities. This is so important. We cannot go back to the days when we give the intelligence agencies a blank check to spend as they see fit. We must have oversight. Remember, congress specifically amended the National Security act of 1947 to replace blanket intelligence appropriations with specific authorization. Why did we do this . To ensure that our intelligence agencies spend money only on programs of which congress is informed and approved. So today we need to make sure we maintain this means of critical oversight by passing the bill. The intelligence authorization act for 2014 and 2015 is in four parts. The unclassified legislative text. The unclassified report. The classified annex which explains our intent for the classified aspects of the bill. And the classified schedule of authorizations for both fiscal years. We have been encouraging all members to review all parts of the bill and im pleased to say that they have come to the Intelligence Committees classified spaces to do so. The budget for fiscal year 2014 is slightly below the president s request. While the budget for fiscal year 2015 is less than 1 above the president s budget request. For both we made cuts to certain areas and added money in other areas in a responsible, well thought out way and fiscally prudent way. Since chairman rogers and i assumed leadership of the committee, we reduced the Intelligence Committees budget by 20 , but this years bill acknowledges the need to right the ship after the storm of sequestration. The bill sets the priorities of our intelligence professionals and their agencies. And it allocates resources to critical National Security programs, including those that detect, prevent, and disrupt potential terrorist attacks. Let me also mention some specifics. Continue to emphasize the value of our lights. Scales back the Intelligence Communitys use of contractors. Pushes for further improvements in the continuous evaluation of Insider Threats. Provides critical forward funding for navy board and Intelligence Surveillance reconnaissance to maintain military intelligence capabilities during the transition to newer, more capable aircraft. And invest in both recruitment and retention of the best and brightest for our cyberwork force, particularly within the f. B. I. Our Younger Generation we must educate them and have them work in this area