Make is that also critical to dealing with these set of enduring challenges is the continued economic and technological leadership of the United States, which as former secretary gates and others have said, is National Security imperative for us. Now i would like to talk a little bit about the relationship between intelligence and National Security. We always say its the first line of defense. This time going forward, we really do mean it. The benefits that it gives us is it informs our National Security policy. If youre the president and top advisers and trying to make sense of this wide array of challenges, intelligence is the first thing you need to have to understand the world in which youre dealing with. Then for our operators and war fighters, our intelligence capabilities enable what we call Intelligence Driven precision operation. When directed by the president , the Intelligence Community provides additional options in between diplomacy and the overt use of military force. The
Minutes. I call this into order. Welcome back to the committee. Today, we continue our regular oversight. Since it opened its doors, it impact on nearly every forct of the Consumer Credit cards and Mortgage Financial education. The bureau has conducted extensive outreach to both industry and consumers and has proven itself to be a regular regulator. Today, has obtained nearly 900 million of refunds and over 375,000 Consumer Complaints. Many of the cfpbs most significant actions relate to mortgage lending. For example, the about our recently finalized its mortgage disclosure to improve closing and provide key long terms to cost and consumer and clear understandable. While the Consumer Experience at the mortgage table is an important aspect of mortgage lending, the ability of consumers to access affordable mortgage credit is critical. Include went into effect this past january. I look forward to hearing how these rules will impact mortgage , particularly for smaller lenders in rural area
Attended of any subcommittee in the Natural Resources committee that wasnt a loaded partisan title full of loaded partisan content with a loaded partisan agenda. This is an important subject. We can all be interested and gauged and might get something done together that can help the country. We need more hearings like this. And as much as anything, i wanted to be here to express that and thank you for it. With that, ill yield the balance of my time to Ranking Member holt. I thank representative huffman. Let me make two general comments. First, following on the line of our Ranking Members comments. The mentality here in washington is a very pessimistic mentality, and mr. Defazio points up one aspect that have. Here in the richest country in the world, by far, undenially, doesnt act as if we have a future. What invests, one builds infrastructure, one sponsors research. When we believe we have a future. Instead we talk about cut, cut, cut here. It is a fundamental problem. The chairman sa
One of the things i would like to leave you with is the tremendous change thats taken place in our intelligence capabilities over the past decade, and even greater change that we foresee looking forward. One of the aspects of this is the revolutionary impact Precision Targeting has had across our intelligence enterprise, whether its in Counterterrorism Operations, whether its in cyber operations, or classic human intelligence and espionage. To illustrate this, i would like to tell a joke that my former boss, secretary bob gates used to love to tell about the old way we did business. Many, many years ago, supposedly, an Intelligence Officer was working in a foreign capital at a diplomatic cocktail party, trolling the Diplomatic Service as we often do, looking for hard targets and unfortunately this officer had a little too much to drink. So his mission attention wandered a little bit towards more amorous pursuits. Across the room, he spotted what he saw was a vision of loveliness in a f
Another five minutes of questioning. Mr. Huffman of california. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I wanted to be at the hearing because i represent earthquake country, tsunami country. I think its an important subject with some helpful testimony. I want to thank the witnesses for their contributions. Mr. Chairman, i also wanted to be here to thank you. As a new member of congress, thing is the first hearing ive attended of any subcommittee in the Natural Resources committee that wasnt a loaded partisan title full of loaded partisan content with a loaded partisan agenda. This is an important subject. We can all be interested and gauged and might get something done together that can help the country. We need more hearings like this. And as much as anything, i wanted to be here to express that and thank you for it. With that, ill yield the balance of my time to Ranking Member holt. I thank representative huffman. Let me make two general comments. First, following on the line of our Ranking Members