This last week, the Chairmans Office denied a request for me and commissioner oreilly, to release the rate of return plan rate of return reform plan before we vote. Even though the commissioner helped write it and even though advocates have told us that it is, quote, essential to see the written words on the page to understand the effectual nest of the effectual nest effeectualness of reforms. The fcc has had success having headlines, but its follow there has been abysmal. Since 2011, the fcc has proposed over 374 million in fines, but it has collected only 7. 8 million. That is a meager 2 recovery rate. Only with additional transparency can the public and the subcommittee hold the fcc accountable for this failure. None of this half to be this way. I testified a year ago and there is widespread agreement that the process was broken. The chairman acknowledged that issues had been raised and he announced a task force. I took this project seriously and i suggested reforms. Among other thi
They act as Emergency Responders with us. The southern ute have been an incredible and incredibly diligent and being embedded in our command center, working on this. The professionalism has been wonderful, so we will make sure they are properly reimbursed for expenses. The 2nd process is the claims process, what damages have it occurred, and we use the federal claims tort act in order to process those claims. How does the federal tort claims act help the navajo . They lost a huge amount of irrigating water which can have longterm devastating effects of drought continues and they do not have the water now or in the future . How can they be made whole . Two things that are happening here as well. We are talking to the navajo about how they get reimbursed. We need to work with the president as well as the Navajo Nation epa to reimbursed for their expenses. The 2nd issue is the claim process. I want to make sure that we are all aware that the reimbursement process is quite different. While
Letter to you on august 15 signed by 29 other members listing out specific questions regarding the spell. When can we expect an answer . You have yet to respond. I will im sorry, when did you say you sent that . August 15. Okay, i will double check and well get you a tentative date no, that will be great. Mr. Westerman, mr. Pearce, youre saying youre going to get back to people, thats the frustration of the committee. We hear well get back to you. Sir, i havent seen it and i dont want to give you a date that i have to explain away. Well, terrific if you can get back to us on that we would appreciate it. In regards to transparency you said that epa was examining different sites that could suffer an epa meltdown as we saw at the gold keaton mine. Youd identified ten different mines now but that did not come forward until such time as there was an a. P. Report. How is that feeding in with transparnsy . Im sorry, i dont exactly know the context in which youre referring. The context of the
We do that through our rfp process. How would we know what that experience and process is if we potentially dont have the experience in our own staff to be able to hire that type of contractor to understand what you need in that process . Im not assuming that we dont have expertise to understand. I would like that answer to that question. Through this process, when a mine is open and it has gone on for at least in the state of nevada for 60, 70, 80 years. You have to provide documentation and environmental process. What happens to those records that are provided by those mine folks. What happens to that information . They have to provide to the epa. Any information that is provided. Do you believe that would be appropriate to the investigation of this mine to handle the situation before we hire a contractor to go do something . Whatever appropriate steps we should take should be documented. I think those questions should all be asked before you start that process. I believe there has b
After the divisive speaker election. The last point, it is personal. I cannot and will not give up family time. I may not be on the road as often as previous speakers, but i try to make up for it with more time medicating our vision, armitage our message. I said if you can agree to these requests and be a unifying figure, i will gladly serve. Unifying, that will be fine as well. I will be happy to stay where i am at the ways and means committee. Heres how i see it. Thes our duty to serve people the way they deserve to be served. To make the tough decisions this country needs to get the nation back on track. The challenges we face today are too difficult and demanding to turn our backs and walk away. Global terror. War on multiple fronts, a government grown out of touch. Persistent poverty. A scout sluggish economy. Flat wages. A skyrocketing debt. We cannot take on these challenges alone. Now more than ever we must work together. All of us are representatives of the people, all people.