this is true devolution, making sure every head teacher is in charge of that irschool providing a great education for our children. >> finally, pauline latham. >> thank you, mr. speaker. my constituent jackie has been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. she has shown courage in her fight against the disease but unfortunately jackie did not get the support or compassion of her employer who wanted to dismiss her through capability procedures. >> shocking. >> now her former partner, andy bradley is trying to get the house they own together repossessed leaving her homeless while dying. would the prime minister agree with me that we require better protection for working people who are diagnosed with a terminal illness? will he join with me and jackie in supporting the changes as outlined in the dying to work campaign? >> i think the point my right honourable friend makes are absolutely right. i will look very carefully at the case she raises. the truth in all of these things, as well as having clear rules you also need organizations, whether it is employers, whether it's housing associations or landlords or indeed trade unions to act with genuine compassion. to act with compassion and think of the person, the human being at the other end of the telephone. >> order. [shouting] >> here on c-span2 we'll leave the british house of commons and members move on to conduct other business. you've been watching prime minister questions time normally airses live 7:00 a.m. eastern. but for the immediate future you will see the program at 8:00 a.m. eastern time due to daylight savings time. see later at sunday 9:00 p.m. pacific on c-span or watch it anytime on c-span.org. >> this weekend the c-span cities tour hosted by charredder communications cable partners takes you to montgomery, alabama to explore the city's history and literary culture on booktv. >> we show you a house that was the turning point for scott and zelda. when they moved here, the idea was to regroup. this house was a landing pad. it was a regrouping, as i've said stage. and it wasn't the sort of place where you're going to find scott and zelda engaging in domestic activities if you will. it was the sort of place where they would be planning their next move. >> on american history tv -- >> so what happens in the 1958 campaign is, you know, wallace really does try to reach this racial moderate and really tries to campaign for the poor and working class alabamaians to campaign for progressive improvement. he gets the support of the naacp in the initial campaign. unfortunately he loses by a pretty significant margin to john patterson. and he completely is devastated by this loss. wallace, you know, all he wants to be is governor. he is really upset by this loss and he considers it, a failing. and so, you know, when people ask him what the takeaway from the 1958 campaign is, he says you know, i tried to talk about progressive improvements. i tried to talk about good roads and good schools. and no one would listen. but when i started talking about segregation, everybody stopped and started listening to me. >> watch the c-span cities tour, saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv. sunday afternoon at 2:00 on c-span3. c-span cities tour, working with our cable affiliates and working with cities across the country. >> earlier this week house republicans released their 2017 budget resolution. the 155-page budget promises to cut $7 trillion from the federal deficit for 10 years. it is opposed by the house freedom caucus. members of the house budget committee meet for a markup expected to last most of the day. we'll bring you gavel to gavel coverage starting at 10:00 eastern live on c-span3. yesterday the senate began debate on a bill about genetically modified food. one of the senators speaking was california senator barbara boxer who talked about the importance of clearly identifying gmo foods. here's a look. >> mr. president, i rise to speak about a very important issue for the american people. what they see their families -- feed their families. here is a photo of a dad, pretto typical photo of a dad taking his two kids shopping. you can see he has got one toddler there. he has got one infant in the cart. how well i remember doing this with my own kids. then watching my kids with their kids. it is kind of a tradition. so we have a couple of questions we have to ask ourselves when we look at a photo like this. if this dad wants to know what ingredients are in the food thag he gives his kids, he should have a right to know that. that is my deep belief. he has a right to know that just, as they do in so many countries all over the world. and the bill that's going to come before us called the safe and accurate food labeling act is anything but that. i would call it the non-label act. it is a non-label. there is no label required. it is a totally voluntary system. it's a no label label. t even if somebody in three years did what senator roberts explains you still would not have a true label. i think it's an embarassment, is think it's an insult to consumers and it's a sham. the goal of the bill, and i hope we vote it down, is to hide the information from consumers. it is going to make it harder not easier, for consumers to know if they're feeding their families jenettely-modified organisms, gmos. here again is our typical dadeye and he has got his kids in the cart. they're shopping. they have had their outing and he picks up a product. he wants to see the ingredients, including whether it has been w? genetically modified, and guess what? there is no gmo label. so what are his options? well, in three years maybe el have an option and the option is going to make it literally impossible for him to know what's in his food because it will be either a barcode, so he will have to have a smartphone. even when he puts the smartphone up against the code, they don't really have to tell you easily whether it is gmo. it will have a whole bunch of other information. or he is going to have to call a 1-800 number. can you believe this? a man going through the grocery store. he has 50 products in his cart, going, wait a minute, kids. just a minute. i have, have many so chips and he calls 1-800 and tries to find out and he gets probably some person answering him in india, which is usually what you get. you go round the mulberry bush. how embarrassing is this? if he is lucky he gets some products from companies that really are being fair about this like campbell soup. they're doing a very smart, voluntary label. it says partially produced with genetic engineering. for information visit and they have a dot-com site. so campbell's, if he is lucky, if he has enough products iner there that has, that has a label, he may find out more information but it's totally voluntary. t it's totally voluntary. but i want to say thank you to campbell's for being up fronthe and putting the information right on the label. look, as a mom, as a grandmom, i want to know what's in the food and because of work we've done before you do have to list how w much sugar which is so critical as we come boot diabetes andsomi everything.ha sometimes you read that you sugar content you think, oh, my god, i want to get something else. and you can see how many carbs, how much fat. why can't you find out if the product is genetically-modified? i think it is fair. i call the roberts proposal the non-label label because it makes you believe you will have a label but there is no label, the groups, the consumer groups call it the dark act, the dark act.s because the label is voluntary.y there will not be one for three years and they will figure out a way to put it off indefinitely. so information even if we move out three years and they decide they have to make something mandatory, information will be hidden by websites, or phone numbers, or these qr codes that are so problematic. this busy dad will have to stop shopping for every item on his list. he would have to pull out his phone. he will have to make a call or go to a website or scan appen. barcode. you don't have to live too long to know that will not happen. k, this dad is so not going to do that. he has two kids and by now they're screaming get me out of here and where's mommy? all this notion that this dad is now going to deal with all of this, i don't care how much of a super dad you are, you will not make 50 phone calls to 1-800 numbers. you will not press and look at 50 bar codes to find out whether the product has gmo. you're just not going to do it. it is not going to happen.n if the kids are going to be melting down. even if he doesn't have kids with him, he has got other things to do, by the way, like live his life outside of a supermarket.ar he will want to get back home. he will want to get back to work. it makes no sense at all. and by the way, this dad, and i would ask senator reed to take a look at this, if this doesn't remind him of one of his kids, take him his grandkids, this dad is going to be expected, senator, to, if he has 50 products and he wants to finds out, he either has to have a smartphone, put it up against the barcode, and then find a whole bunch of information. >> i could call a 1-800 number. >> or he can call a 1-800 number. we know what happens then. k he will be transferred around the world. so americans should not have too run through hoops. life is difficult enough already not to have to do -- so this thing is a sham. it is an insult. it's a joke. and why are they doing it on the other side of the aisle? because they're beholdened to special interests who don't want to label gmos. who are afraid if people know that the food is genetically modified they won't buy it even though there is no proof of that at all. 64 countries require labels. do you have the list? 64 countries today require simple labels and many of our products are sold in those 64 countries. let me tell you some of these countries. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to place in the recordm. the 64 countries that require gmo labeling.o >> without objection. the >> and i'm going to name some of these countries that require the labels, so in other words, our companies have got to put the label on if they want to sell, letting people know if their food is genetically modified. australia. austria. b belgium, bolivia, brazil, cypres bulgaria, china, croatia, cyprus, denmark, el salavador, estonia, finland, france, germany, greece, hungary, iceland, india, ireland, italy,, japan, jordan, kenya, latvia, s mali, malta, netherlands, new zealand, norway, peru, poland, portugal, romania, russia, saudi arabia, senegal, slovakia, south africa, south korea, spain, sri lanka, switzerland, taiwan, thailand, turkey, ukraine, united kingdom, vietnam. i left some out but they will be in the record if anyone wants to see them. why is it that consumers in russia have more information than our consumers, the greatest country in the world?ld this makes no sense at all. and why is it that our companies are up in arms as they have to put the label on in these other countries, they can put the label on here? thinks, w now, if we care at all about what the public thinks we should vote no on the roberts bill. 90% of americans want to know if the food they buy has been genetically engineered. 90%. that's a majority of republicans. that's a majority of democrats. that's a majority of the independents. i think other 10% are working for the big food companies who don't seem to want to share this. millions of americans have filew comments with the fda, urging the agency to label genetically engineered foods so they can have this information at their fingerprints. -- fingertips. the bill also preempts any state, any state in the union from doing a label. now i don't like the notion of every state doing a label. has that's why i support my bill which has about, i forget how many sponsors do we have? 14 sponsors, that simply says to the fda, write a label, and make this the law, or the merkley bill that comes up with four labels. senator merkley will talk about this.t and we say that would in fact be enough so that states wouldn't be able to act this says no state action and we're going to keep the status quo for at least three years, no labeling.oing t even after that three years there is no labeling at all. there will be bar codes which is confusing. 1-800 probably take to you india, trying to figure your way threw it all. i have long believed in the power to give consumers information. i think you're all familiar with the dolphin safe tuna labeling law. i'm proud to say that i wrote that law. and that law has been in effect since the '90s and people liketh it because guess what? they see a smiling dolphin on the tuna can, they know that doe tuna was caught in a way that does not harm the dolphin many because when we found out so many years ago that the tuna schools swim under the dolphins and the tuna companies were per seeing on dolphins, pullingi nets on dolphins, pulling them away, catching the tuna and the dolphins would die by tens of thousands. so the schoolkids in those years said, at that time, i was a house member, congresswoman boxer, we don't want to have tuna that resulted in the death of all these dolphins. so we created the label. the tuna companies were very helpful just like campbell's soup has been very helpful in labeling their can with ge. when you have the companies come forward it's very helpful. and so we passed the bill. everybody said, oh, is it going to be terrible? no one will buy tuna. actually people started buying the tuna because they changed the way they fished for the tuna. the dolphin weren't harmed.ar we have saved literally hundreds of thousands of dolphins over the period of time that that label has been in effect. now, this label, all we're saying is, let us know. let us know. what we do know is that many of these genetically engineered products as they're growing in the ground they have to, they require huge amount of talked about that.na that that's one issue is that has grown in importance to parents because they don't want to give their kids food covered in pesticides if they have an option, if they have an option. so the power that we give the consumers is critical the power to know, simply know the truth. to me power is knowledge.e to me it is respect. you tell people the truth. you don't give them a sham bill and say, well, we don't do anything for three years but then we'll have a barcode. then we'll have a one 800 number. no, pretty simple. require a label. require a label. a label is simple. a label works. and, senator merkley, i see you're on the floor and i'm finishing up. we have various ways we can do the label. one way to give it to fda. tell them to come up with it. senator merkley has proceeded, in a way to attract more support. he is given four options all of which are very good. and all of which we immediately give you the information that you need. now, in 2,000, when i introduced the first senate labeling of ge foods my legislation had one supporter, and it was me. i had no other supporters back then. it was so long ago. 2000. now 14 senators are cosponsoring the bill. and i am so proud to cosponsor senator merkley's bill, biotechnology food labeling and uniformity act, which again wili put forward four options for companies. so there are reasons that people want this information. and not one of us here could decry or should decry what our people want. either they want to know if the foods contained gmos because ofo prevalence of herbicide resistant crops? we know from the usgs that of growers sprayed 200 million pounds of roundup. a pound of herbicide for every person in the country. that is what they spray on foods that contain gmos. whatever the reason americans deserve to know what is in the food they're eating.me some want to know it just to have the information. just to have the information. now, some in the food and chemical industry say adding this very small piece of information was would confuse or alarm consumers.me this is an old and familiar argument raised by virtually every industry when they want to avoid giving consumers basic facts. in fact in 2014 study from the journal of food policy shows there is little evidence that mandatory labeling of ge foods signaled consumers to avoid the products. there is no proof of that. the fda requires labeling of more than 3,000 ingredients. additives and processes.mu orange juice from concentrate must be labeled. consumers should be able to choose the product they prefer. if they like it from concentrate, fine. if they prefer it in a different fashion, fine. there's no reason they can't also require, they can't also have the knowledge that the food they're buying is ge, genetically engineered. the world certainly moved ahead of us. the roberts bill would take us way back into the dark. that is why consumer groups call it the dark act. >> this weekend the c-span cities tour hosted by our charter communications cable partners takes you to month comery, alabama, to explore the city's history and literary culture on booktv. >> we show you a house that was the turning point for scott and zelda. when they moved here, the idea was to regroup. what this house was a landing pad. it was regrouping as i have said stage. and it was the sort of place where you're going to find scott and zelda engaging in domestic activities, if you will. it was sort of place where they would be planning their next move. >> on american history tv -- >> so what happens in the 1958 campaign is that you know, wallace really does try to reach this racial moderate and really tries to campaign for the poor and working class alabamaians, campaign for progressive improvement. and gets the support of the naacp in his initial campaign. but unfortunately he loses by a pretty significant margin to john patterson and he completely is devastated by this loss. wallace, you know, all he wants to be is governor and he is really upset by this loss. he considers it a failing. and so, you know, when people ask him what the takeaway from the 1958 campaign is, he says, you know, i tried to talk about progressive improvements. i tried to talk about good roads and good schools. and no one would listen. but when i started talking about segregation, everybody stopped and started listening to me. >> watch the c-span cities tour saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv. and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span3. the c-span cities tour, working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. >> secret service director joseph clancy says his agents number one priority is the candidate and not protesters at campaign events. his comments come as lawmakers ask him about some of the contentious rallies held by donald trump at a house appropriations subcommittee hearing on the agency's budget. this is about an hour 20 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everybody. noisy. let me start off by saying i am cursed by a bunch of allergy attack right now and i may sound like i'm either dying or escaped from a tuberculosis isolation but i am not contagious. i'm just congested, okay? and please forgive me for that. when i get my my allergies they settle in my bronchial tubes and i sound like heck. anyway, live as long as i have, you get certain problems that stay with you for a while. this hearing is called to order. i want to thank all of you for being here. today we welcome joe clancy, the director of the united states secret service. his second appearance before the subcommittee. director clancy, welcome, we appreciate you being here. thank you for your service to dhs and our nation. we appreciate you. before i begin, or we begin i want to take a moment to remember former congressman mart sin szabo who passed away this weekend in state of minnesota. congressman szabo served 2years in congress and served as ranking member of had subcommittee. remember his pham and friends in your prayers. i want to commend you and seacrest service successfully and most importantly safely completing multiple national security events last, september. you remember the, that september. especially since the events overlapped as the pope visited washington, new york and philadelphia. at same time the united nations, general assembly, hosted 162 heads of state in new york. it was truly a whole government response. thank you and everyone in the service for a job very well done and i know you took responsibility very seriously and we're very proud of you. we like to always have the secret service. fiscal year 2017 budget for secret service is $1.9 billion. decrease of 42.4 million below fiscal year 2016, which is largely due to the close of 2016 presidential campaign or cycle. i'm pleased to see continued investment in communications, with inclusion of 27 million to complete a long-needed reinvestment in radios and significant increases to explosives detection systems, chemical, biological and radiological detection systems and upgrades to the white house physical protective structure. director, while you have tackled many challenges over the last year i remain concerned about the rate of hiring and associated attrition. which is unfortunately unsustainable over time. on this note a few weeks ago you and i discussed a new agent career track path you instituted last summer to improve morale. however your budget underfunds the program latest initiatives by $29 million or 130%. look forward to hearing from you what you are doing to address this, these continuing challenges. before i turn you over to make your opening statement, i would like to recognize police allard, our distinguished ranking member for remarks she would like to make. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i too would like to take a moment to send my condolences to former representative martin szabo's family. he was tireless advocate for the people of minnesota and our country and we have lost a truly remarkable person and i am saddened by his passing. i hope his family and the people of min society will find comfort in the legacy he built and in the foundation he built for members of the subcommittee and for his state. . . while also preparing for the beginning of the presidential nomination and transition process. by all accounts, the secret service performed admirably, and i congratulate you, your senior staff, and all the men and women of the secret service on a job well done. i understand a number of psa in ice person also pitched in to support the efforts so this was truly a dh as unity of effort and initiative. other tests will be the nuclear summit coming up at the end of march, the ongoing presidential nomination contest in the presidential transition next january. earlier this year you began providing protection for three presidential candidates. in addition to protection already provided to hillary clinton as a former first lady. i this summer you be protecting the nominated candidates and shortly after that setting up president obama's post-presidency protective detail. since the protective mission panel issued its report, the secret service has made a number of productive changes, including improvements to the hiring process for both officers and agents. but as we discussed, officer attrition continues to be a real problem. thank you for joining us this morning. i look forward to hearing from you about the progress you see at the agency, areas you hope to address during the last year of the administration, now the fy '17 budget request will help the secret service continue moving in the right direction. i yield back. >> mr. chairman, before we turn to our director at icy just a word about our colleague, martin said the state was certainly. >> i remember martin very fondly as just a wonderful man, wonderful colleague, devoted member of this institution. he first entered public life at the ripe age of 22 i believe when he was elected to the minnesota house. he later served as speaker of the minnesota house and then succeeded donald fraser, an esteemed member of this institution in the u.s. house of representatives. martin was a well-established accomplish number by the time i got here in the late '80s. he served as chairman of the house budget committee, and then was the inaugural ranking member of the subcommittee when he offered leadership on appropriations the number of pairs most notably transportation. but when the subcommittee was first formed, martin took on the leading democratic role on the subcommittee. and that's where i served most closely with them and learned a great deal from them as we figured out what the homeland security subcommittee was all about and what this new department was all about, as we undertook that post-9/11 reorganization here in the house. so it's with real sadness and very fond memories that we received news of martin's death. and since this is the first subcommittee hearing since that has occurred, i think it's appropriate that all of us pause to remember him and his service to our country. i thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. anyone else want to comment? all right. director clancy, we have your written submission, but we are ready to you from you, and we will yield the floor to you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning chairman carter, ranking member roybal-allard, interesting which members of the committee. i'm honored to join you to discuss the president's fiscal year 2017 budget request for the secret service. this budget builds on the investments made over the past two years, moves or agency forward and strengthens our capability to carry out our priority mission of protecting the president and the white house. the fiscal year 2017 budget will continue to advance initiatives centered on increased staffing and training as well as enhancements to technologies and infrastructure that directly support our front-line personnel. these investments are important contributors to our operational success. ultimately it is the dedication and the professionalism of our people that ensures our success as an agency. i am proud of them, what we are accomplishing together every day. fiscal year 2017 budget for the secret service totals $1.9 billion. this amount is roughly 42 million below this years enacted level. largely due to the drawdown of the presidential campaign operations. program increases proposed in the budget will allow us to complete a two-year effort to upgrade the radios and associated infrastructure at the white house complex. other enhancements at the white house complex include ongoing work to replace aging officer boots and the security gates and message investment class my protective countermeasures to address known and emerging threats. in addition to these increases the budget provides funding for the final months of the presidential campaign activities and to sustain the cost associate with the establishment of the former presidential protective division for president obama to ensure a smooth transition on january 20, 2017. the secret service is focused on our human capital needs across the organization. obtaining a program staffing levels of these overtime depends on individual employers and for the increased training opportunities. in fiscal year 2015 the agency hired 500 new employees. in fiscal year 2016 we are building on this momentum as we work to meet our goals of hiring 860 new employees. in fiscal year 2017 we will continue to maximize our hiring efforts as we work to keep pace with our five year human capital plan to fulfill the recommendations made by the protective mission panel. as we work to meet our hiring goals it is critical we recruit the highest quality candidates. in 2015 more than 2100 recruits representing 96 organizations attended the federal law enforcement training center. only eight received the prestigious honor graduate award. i'm proud to say for of osha's appearance were secret service recruits. as impressive as this achievement is i'm especially proud that one of our special agent trainees from the distinguished title of 2015 fletc honor graduate of the year. i can graduate these individuals for their achievements and could not be more optimistic about our future when i see the people of this caliber joining our ranks. while the secret service has made significant progress in meeting our hiring goals, we've yet to see the desired impact on the overall staffing levels due to increased attrition. in order to maximize our hiring again we have turned our can attention to the existing workforce. we have begun retention initiatives available to us within our existing authorities and are pursuing several options for more comprehensive retention initiatives which will be inclusive of all members of our workforce. every presidential campaign increases the operational tempo of the secret service. this year a number of national special security events as well as overseas protective travel have increased the tempo even further. this increased operational tempo highlights two important points. number one, the success of these trips and events is dependent on more than just those agents and officers assigned to particular detail. the majority of the staffing and advance planning that is required to fulfill the mission is the result of special agents and support staff working in field offices around the world. number two, our hiring and retention initiatives are especially critical this year for our employees across the agency can begin to see the benefits of increased staffing levels. with respect to the presidential campaign, candidate protection details are currently in place for secretary clinton, donald trump and senator bernie sanders. work has been underway for most established the security plans for the nominating conventions which will take place later this summer. in fiscal year 27 in the budget provides $72 million for presidential campaign activities. this includes protection costs for the nominees and their families through the general election. funding for the protection of the president-elect and vice president-elect and their families during the transition. and funding to secure the 50th presidential inauguration associated events. as we move further into the 26 in presidential campaign i recognize the next year will remain challenging. as our personal continues to meet the conservative end of the mission might leadership team will support them are building on last years of staffing and retention initiatives. we will continue to advanced training as essential component of our success and aggressively pursue the equipment and technologies that are reflective of any organization and ensure our employees have the tools necessary to provide them every advantage. through the dedication and sacrifice of our employees around the world the secret service is built momentum at a time when the demands of the nation are at its highest. i asked for the committee's support for this budget, which will continue this momentum at a critical time in our agencies history. to close, i would like to take a moment to extend our condolences to the reagan family on the passing of former first lady nancy reagan. protecting the president and for sale is an order unique to the secret service. over the course of 35 years, many fine people surf president and mrs. reagan with honor and distinction. i salute them all, past and present, for the service and thank the reagan family for this privilege. chairman carter, ranking member roybal-allard, thank you once again for the opportunity to be a to represent the men and women of the secret service. i'll be happy to answer any questions you can the members of the committee may have. >> thank you, director. we will try to stay five minutes but we will have a little flexibility. right to something you mentioned in your conversation we started, given the amount of overtime be worked by agents on the president's detail, on campaigns ever than uniform division it's obvious the service needs additional agents and officers. in fact, our own human capital plan states you wanted 7600 people by the end of fy '19, an increase of 1300 above your current of 6287. however, your fy '17 budget only requests 6772 positions. congress funded 6714 positions in fy '16 to the secret service. is that number of tangible in light of the fact that serve it is losing more agents than they have brought on board bikes in the last four months you've lost 19 positions. can you truly bring on 427 people by the end of september? how does the service changing the recruitment and hiring process to ensure both quality and quantity officers are required? lastly 7600 personnel truly the requirement of the secret service? if so, your future budget continues to build on this number, is that correct? i note that fy '17 budget on increases by 58 fte over fy '16, and none of those are special agents in uniform division, but standard support staff. could you go into some detail on that? >> yes. thank you, mr. chairman. when i first came in just over a year ago i had three priorities. staffing, training and morale. you've hit on the number one priority is staffing. we have basically retooled the way they go about hiring people. trying to convince a time without lowering the course of candidates that we get to bring in more people, new employees. we've had to retool the way we do business doubt in human resources but we've made significant progress. as you see we hired in fiscal year '15 approximately 200 agents. we hired approximately 150 uniformed division officers at approximately 140 professional staff people. in our first you we've done significant hiring and we will continue to build on that momentum. we are very confident that this year, fiscal year '16, that we will reach our goals of hiring 312 pages, 312 officers and over 260 professional staff. we think we have this hiring process fixed, i would say. but the big issue for us here, and you hit it here, mr. chairman, is retention the we are losing a lot of folks. our attrition rates for uniform division, it's approximately 8%. for our agent population is about 7% and for our professional staff it's about 8%. so we are losing some very good people. when you think of the amount of time we invest in training these people, the amount of time we take to give them the experience they need and then to lose those come with it find ways to keep them. we've done one initial retention initiative that we've done which we thought was within our authority working with the department of homeland security was to provide a bonus for uniformed division officers but it's a two-year plan. it hopefully and sizes our uniformed division officers tuesday throughout this critical time in our agencies where we have this campaign going on. over 1000 of our uniformed division officers signed up for the. but we've got more initiatives that we have on the table that we're looking at within our authority. just as an example we are hoping to push this month tuition reimbursement initiative. also a tuition assistance initiative. that's within our authority, things that we can do to try to entice our people to stay with us rather than move on to other agencies were other opportunities. there may be additional initiatives we may look at further. of course we would work with your staff and the department of homeland security and omb if we go in that direction. >> is your chief financial officer looking at this and telling us what it's going to cost to do those things? we've got great ideas to retain people. i can understand that, but in terms, we've got to always put it in what you are requesting for soweto have these shortfalls. we've got some shortfalls have to deal with right now. >> yes. the chief financial officer, effective the chief financial officer with me today. she was newly appointed within the past year, and she is, in the past and i make it into this later with the structure of the secret service, but in the past we've had agents in a lot of these positions. now we are moving into running this agency as a business. we have brought in the chief financial officer who that is her expertise. >> that's a good idea. we are joined a gym of the whole committee and even though we are into questioning ongoing to yield to chairman rogers to make an opening statement, any comments you may make. thank you, mr. chairman to apologize for being late and have to leave because the three simultaneous hearings that i have to be at but i wanted to be your with the director. and you. i want to echo the sentiments exercised by the chairman and ranking member and others regarding our former colleague and committee member, martin sabo. marty dedicated over 47 years of his life to public service, 28 of which was in this house including two years as the first ranking member of this subcommittee. david, i am correct on that, aren't i? when we started this subcommittee on homeland security in '03, marty was ranking member, i was the first chairman. we worked together beautifully, and i think effectively. for those years. he was a true patriot. he was a great legislator, former speaker of his home state house, and many other things. and my condolences go out to his family, sylvia, his wife and loved ones, let them know that he will be sorely missed here in his nation's capital. mr. director thank you for being here. i want to share my gratitude first half of the men and women after agency to serve our great country, many of them put their lives on the line on a daily basis, put their families who in harm's way themselves. your fiscal '17 request includes 1.189 billion, a 42 million-dollar decrease from current levels, largely due to the wind out of the presidential campaign i understand. the request includes 108 million to enhance security at the white house, 27 for national capital region rating system upgrades, 72 million to continue the security work of presidential candidates throughout the inauguration. i'm disappointed though to see that the request does not include funding for the national center for missing and exploited children, which has been a bipartisan priority for years. the secret service fulfills a very critical mission of course of protection and investigation. your agency is charged with protecting the commander-in-chief, the vice president of residential candidates, visiting foreign heads of state, among many others. this past year, you were tasked with protecting the pope on his visit throughout the u.s., as well as over 160 visiting heads of state and their spouses for the u.n. general assembly in new york. these were no small tasks and i want to commend you and all the men and women at your agency for the tremendous job they did. the world was watching, and the secret service did an exemplary job. although there is much to praise your agency about, there have also been some major missteps in recent years. there seems to be an overarching theme within the secret service since well before your tenure as director began just a short time ago. a number of high-profile incidents in the recent past have called many to question the integrity, culture and effectiveness of the agency. from a series of unacceptable misconduct by some of your agents, to major security lapses, changes need to be made in order for the secret service to regain the trust of the american people. while i have to commend you and your agency for being relatively scandal-free since the last time you came before this subcommittee, the bar needs to be set much higher. leadership starts at the top, and i trust that you are leveraging your career's worth of experience to right the ship at the secret service. i look forward to hearing from you today on what measures you have put in place over the last year to address these problems at your agency. one particular thing comes to mind. i was recently in south america, and, in the route is i think the cattle feeding capital of the world. is that correct? >> right now the significant amount of counterfeit coming out of peru, yes spent you could get a harvard diploma or a $1000 bill for whatever you wanted. it seemed at will. what are you doing? >> we have a an agent down there as i do our peru office who's making tremendous strides and we've gotten good positive feedback from the ambassador down there. to our overthink $10 million was seized last you alone, and the and simple offset printing printing presses that have been closed down. they are making a significant effect on counterfeiting out of peru and getting great support from the ambassador's office at the embassy. >> well, that's not quite the report i got. i mean, i talked to the ambassador and head of the agency and so on. they are working hard. i give them that, but the problem is so broad, why. it's an absolute trade for fake dollars, fake money. and everything else. i don't think would put in enough effort there. to try to stop a real sore on the american dollar. you've got a lot of critical important missions to safeguard the nation's financial infrastructure. you played a vital and protecting the economy from cybercrime and the counterfeiting. in fiscal '15 alone, you made nearly 800 arrests and seized almost 60 million in currency before it entered into circulation. you also trained 24 members of the peruvian counterfeiting forced to help them combat this problem. but i really think we are not doing nearly enough their, and i sometimes wonder whether peruvians are not too unhappy. there's a lot of money that's being circulated in their country before it is caught on to the counterfeiting elsewhere. but could you give us the report in due course of time here on how we might be able to beef up our efforts there speak was yes, sir. my staff will get with yours to keep a more detailed briefing to i will say that those recruits, approving recruits, did come up to our current facility in washington and i met with their command structure there as well. we will take a good look at that and our staffs what you get a better briefing. >> i'm not interested in a briefing. i'm interested in action to get something done. i know what's going on. we just got back. met with all the players there, and they are all hard-working and they are innocent and they are above board and trying their best but it's not enough. thank you, mr. director. >> ms. roybal-allard? >> you talked about some of your efforts when it came to hiring and retention, but the protective division in 2014 report also what beyond the hiring process. candy elaborate on the status of fulfilling the other recommendations of the protective nation panel? and is the budget request sufficient to allow you to make progress or to complete all of those recommendations? >> yes, thank you. there were 19 recommendations for the blue ribbon panel. we took them all very sure sleep and we concur with most of these recommendations and we're making a lot of progress. i'm very proud that we've made a lot of progress in addressing these recommendations. in fact, recently about a month or so ago i brought back to most of the blue ribbon panel to ensure they were taking serious every pore, every well written report. it started with the structure. they talked about an outside perspective with the secret service and the culture of, starving for management the starving for leadership. so what we did was restructured the way we do business. now we are looking running this more like a business. with our chief operating officer we brought in from outside from the department of defense comes this gem is with me here today. and the chief operating officer is now overseeing the business aspect of the secret service. we've elevated to chief financial officer an we spoke at today. in the past our finances were overseen by an agent of we've brought in a subject matter expert to oversee our finances. we created a new directorate, the office of charge of planning, to look at our 30, 60, 90 day plans as well as our five year plan. with that we have hired or elevate a subject matter expert, an attorney, not an agent. we wanted to get outside perspective into the cio just recently hired a chief information officer whose a 34 year marine corps brigadier general. he was a cio in the marine corps. we were thrilled to be able to get this gentleman in a very short matter of a few months. he's made great strides in assessing where we park. we've strengthened that position, the cio position so that we can do a much better job in our i.t. functions. and then we've done some other things structurally. based again on a blue ribbon panel and the recommendations. training, they said more training and we agreed is not what should've been. we've applied more focus to our training. we split the director. our human resources and training previously was one directorate we've split up to give both the focus they need. our training has increased over the past, last year fiscal year '15 come increased 44%. certainly living up to this campaign we've made a commitment to ensure that our details that are protecting these candidates that are out there are well-trained. we trained over 940 agents prior to this campaign to ensure that they are set. so the blue ribbon panel structure of we've made significant changes. it's a much different agency am a management standpoint than it was years ago. thanks to funding that you have provided to our radios and infrastructure is also going to be improve. some of our facilities at our training facility will also be improve. so we are moving forward with a blue ribbon panel recommendations and i think making a lot of progress. >> the secret service has had a difficult couple of years with several incidents of misconduct by personnel suggesting strongly that the culture within the agency had drifted and needed to be changed. the issue has not only been about misconduct. it's also about whether personnel took over in coming forward when they become aware of misconduct. for example, do they not a registered their concerns of misconduct? do they feel confident that their careers will not suffer as the result of speaking out? can you elaborate on how, in your opening, how things are improving and what the progress that you can point in areas you think more progress still needs to be made in this particular area? >> primarily through communication initially, tried to get to our workforce to tell them we can't fix what we don't know. you've got to come forward and tell us what issues are out there. we've given them several avenues to do this, whether it's through the ombudsman, whether through her office of professional responsibility, through our inspection division or go to the office of inspector general. any of those avenues, or company directly. i have an open door policy. come to me directly and we will look into the misconduct that may or may not be out there and we will act upon it. we've also gone out to field offices and we've addressed think i've addressed them personally and i've gotten every protective detail we have and addressed to them and reiterated the fact that if the issues out there we need to know about them so we can fix them. i think we're making progress. we've heard several responses from our workforce where we have taken initiative and got out to field offices to investigate the reported. >> just very quickly, and that same area. one of the recommendations was to element the disciplinary system in a consistent manner that demonstrates zero-tolerance for failures incompatible with zero failure mission to is that something you also is working on? >> it is. the office of professional responsibility. we've just elevated our integrity officer to highlight the importance of integrity within the agency could we've also through the table penalties, we've strengthened some of these penalties so that if you're a supervisor if you don't report things up, you are subject to discipline, more severe discipline. so we've gone back and look at that. the whole entire table of penalties is under review to see if we are where we should be with the discipline process. we are benchmarked against other federal agencies. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and welcome director clancy. i recently cofounded a bipartisan caucus on congressional task force to combat identity theft and fraud. you know the strictest of all this built into public and private sector experience. it can happen on the individual skill, a larger scale, affecting corporations, businesses, individuals, public sector. it's something we need to take quite seriously and i know you know that. how will the proposed budget assist the secret service? i look particularly at your testimony here about the electronic crimes special agent program, and how will the budget assist the secret service to prevent and investigate cyber crimes and data breaches? and is in the primarily staff, or is it new technologies, that kind of thing that you need? >> thank you for the question. it starts with a staffing our field offices are down considerably at this point because we've had to move a number of our field office agent to our protective mission, but what we do that in the field is we have 37 electronic crimes task forces throughout our country and we have two overseas in london and in rome. so we take this very seriously. obviously, the cyber crimes that are out there, the identity theft is out there but we are also partnering with local and state law enforcement officials to the point where we also have a national computer forensics institute down in alabama that we trained a lot of those law enforcement officials as well as judges as well so that they can back into their community and use this expertise they flirt and take the equipment that we provide for them to work these types of cases in their communities. >> in your testimony you state the secret service is working with state and local partners on this. can you elaborate on this and how does the secret service work with other agencies to protect private citizens? you do reviews and follow ups other investigations, and from there you find out maybe shortcomings and maybe successes and needs with the real analytics on this? and then from there, how can we help you in terms of maybe even authorizing legislation? although we are the appropriations committee. >> right now i can do the electronic crimes task force that's will report with our law enforcement, with our community, state and local authorities. during this campaign you a lot of folks think our investigations may get pushed to the wayside, but the beauty of these electronic crimes task forces we have a local stage working with us as those private sector that ever agency pulled up into a protective assignment, those cases continue. they are not dormant. they are not being put aside. we continue to work those and we do look at the metrics. ouour staff can get what our stf can give with your think you get the idea of what those metrics are in terms of the number of cases closed in your community, the amount of arrests made in your community spirit with the new technologies and the new scams and hucksters out there trying to steal identity and commit these fraud, you are saying is growing? what are your roots in this immediate? >> you are exactly right. these cyber criminals run it like a business. they don't just take their spoils from their crime and spend it to be reinvested in their criminal enterprise. we have to evolve and improve our techniques as well. that's where this continuing education for our investigators and the work with the private sector in trying to keep up with the new technology. we have a representative out at carnegie mellon to study the news technologies out there. we are out at tulsa university studying wireless mobile new technology that's out there. we are trying to continue to educate our folks as we move forward. >> thank you for coming here today. i'm sure we'll take you up on your offer for briefings and sharing information on how we can work together to do this. ideals back, mr. chairman. >> mr. price. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and welcome, director. we are happy to have you before the subcommittee. i know you have a lot on your plate this year with the election warming up and the election proven to be very contentious. and that really defines what i want to ask you to address today, that contentiousness. we had a regrettable example in my congressional district last week, fayetteville, north carolina, a recent incident at a donald trump rally. in this instance it was reported that without any physical propagation a trump support allegedly sucker punched, as they say, a man who leadership and go to come the next time we see him we might have to kill him. and referencing mr. jones. now, there's a lot of inflammatory rhetoric being used on a campaign trip to i would imagine that's making your job and that other agents were difficult at a minimum, and perhaps more dangerous. so that's what want to ask you to help us understand here today. to the extent you can in an unclassified setting. can you speak to these challenges faced by your agents come and as more and more violent and provocative rhetoric is being used out on the campaign trail, are you seeing an increased number of incidents that you, of course, need to protect against but also need to investigate, compared to the 2012 election cycle or any modern election cycle for that matter? and then this vitriol on the campaign trail, has led to an increased number of threats against the president or first family? again to the extent you can comment in deciding. >> thank you, congressman, for the question but in general i will say that every day is a challenge for us. we talked about this within the right. every minute of everyday is the challenge for for us, whether any of our protectees at a large rally where there's a lot of passion and intensity, or whether a protectee is going into a coffee shop. every minute of every day we have to be on our game. to the question the king earlier, even off duty as well and that's something we're stressing. in regards to the campaign it all starts with events. one of the things we talk about aof the events is we are there o protect our protectee. if there are protesters, if there are people that are disrupting the event, that is not our primary responsibility. if it's an nsse come we are more involved that way but typical campaign events can we sit down with the host committee for the event organizer and we tell them that if there' there is someonet you feel that disrupting the event or protesting, it is incumbent upon you to make that decision and then work with your private security that you may have or your university security of the local enforcement to remove the protesters rethink that's warranted. our concern is over ask for threats to our protectee. if someone comes into the buffer zone or secure zone, we're going to respond to that as a sock 'em dayton, ohio, just this past weekend. we've also added other rallies were indivisible crossed over the bike racks but we will remove those individuals but we do not interfere with people's first amendment rights. people have the right to voice their opinions. it's for the host committee to decide whether or not that's disruptive to that event. >> surely the environment matters of though, and the cooperation with, i understand you're saying the cooperation with local law enforcement involves differing to them mainly in handling protests, and presumably counter protests. the atmosphere surrounding this though surely has some influence on how you process your nation and the kind of complications you might face and executing. what i'm asking him why did you a lesser give instance of asking you about the environment surrounding this campaign and what it is supposed those kinds of challenges and if so, what have you undertaken to deal with this? this is not politics as usual, at least in my experience. >> each site again we are flexible with our security plan and look at all the factors of every event, and we are flexible with our assets. we may bring in additional assets if we feel there is more intensity, for example, a rally. we want to make sure, we have certain requirements that we want to make sure we have available. i don't want to get into too much detail but we want to make sure we have a good clean route in as well as a as well as a good cleanup out. if we don't feel we can have some of these basic requirements of a good security plan, then they may require us to bring in more assets or have more discussions with the staff or local law enforcement. there's a lot of give-and-take with all these events, and there's no question some of these events create even more challenges for us. but it's our job to be flexible and resilient and make sure we have a good security plan. >> your response to be two provide local enforcement what you are picking up in the precautions and the safeguards they need to put in place, and you might even advise that a rally be canceled or postponed? >> we work very closely with local law enforcement. one of the beauties of our field offices is with great relationships with the local police departments to our investigative mission. and infect for a lot of these rallies and events our field offices are the ones doing the initial advance work so those relationships have already been formed and there's a lot of give-and-take from an intelligence standpoint, from what assets are available, what requirements are needed. it truly is a unit of efforts, a team effort. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. stewart. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. clancy can i want you to know that many of us support you and we understand that just culturally as a military officer i have supported the law enforcement or recognize a difficult job, that many times you or your agents or others involved with law enforcement have to make split second decisions that they're going to get criticized on after the fact in many cases. there are many times it's under very stressful situations including life-and-death situations. again i think the great majority of americans support you and others working with you and want to support you, but that only works i think if we recognize that the trust is based on behaviors and holding people accountable in some cases to earn that trust. that's a bit of concern of mine which i would like to elaborate on if they could. going back to quote a government oversight and reform report from 2015, and i'm going to come into u.s. as "the daily show"'s route the on because many employees do not have confidence in agency leadership. some told the committee they believe this is due to culture leaders are not have the caliber i know that was previous to get on or about the same time you came on and that's not a critique of your leadership, this quote i just gave. but i'd like an example of a candidate and ask you respond if you would get on using this example because he's a friend of mine or because he's a member of congress. jason gibbs that i'm using it i would feel the same about any u.s. citizen. that was where there was a breach of some 60 of his personal data, 60 different items -- jason chaffetz. including from the "washington post" some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out is what the assistant director edward lowry wrote to another director. and want to support you but also recognizing that trust and that accountability is so important, could you tell the committee what disciplinary actions have been involved with those who were responsible for leaking this data of a private citizen? a special regards to director lowery? >> congressman, there have been 42 secret service employees who were issued discipline with regard to that case you refer to. many of those are in the appeal process and come to the end of that appeal process. i can't speak specifically about what because of privacy issues, what each individual received as a result of those actions, but it is something the agency is embarrassed by, and we said that publicly. in terms of are really people accountable under people willing to come forward? in the year that i've been here we are now putting out, showing the discipline across the board, supervisors as well as non-supervisors, to be transparent to our agency to show that what discipline, we are not many people in this report but we put up are we put up or add whatever agency d.c., that type of events, misconduct that occurs and then what type of discipline is put into effect as the result of that. >> i guess this is just a contrast with what i experienced, again using my military experience. when we have a concern, whatever it might be, whether we crashed in a plan or some type of security breach, we immediately what the outcome would be, and the discipline was very public and it took place in a matter of days, maybe weeks. but here we are a long time later and we don't know those who have been disciplined. we don't know the outcome of the discipline and they're already on appeal. just watching this i can understand why some members of the organization would look at this and say, we do have a hard time holding people accountable. and the system protects them, it seems. let's use director lowery as an example. would be jewish to know what his position is. this is fairly egregious to me. some information he might find embarrassing needs to get up at this is what he wrote about a public official. and get again can you tell me any discipline has been affected upon this individual was director speak with congressman, i'm so i cannot speak to that currently until this appeal process goes through. we are committed to title v with us due process but i realize the frustration that takes a long time to go through this process but that's where we are today. >> i appreciate that. i expected that would probably be a response. but again a long time has passed and difficult hold people accountable it can be accountable five years down the road. in wiping it's got to be something more immediate than that. once again we appreciate what you're doing to i think you're trying to do the right thing under they be confined, restrictions that are imposed upon you. but my heavens, i can't imagine these individuals would have this type of attitude, tablet attitude, regarding their elected representatives and wouldn't be held accountable. thank you if you want to respond? >> no, sir. >> mr. chairman, thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also want to echo what chairman rogers said, mr. director, on the issue with peru. it is an issue and even the peruvians say that outside of washington they are the biggest printing press in the whole world. why peru? we don't know, but i think is jt having one secret service, and he's doing a great job either way under the circumstances. i would echo chairman rogers, y'all put our resources on that because even though i think you said you got $10 million, that's probably just a drop in the bucket as to what they are doing. i would ask you, following chairman rogers can ask you to follow up on that and keep our office posted on that. second of all, director, what are y'all doing to combat transnational organized crime that targets citizens and financial institutions in the u.s.? i do have a press release which was in san antonio. i think it was in january when he did his san antonio electronic crime task force, and you brought people together. i want to thank you. this is very, very good. i would encourage you to set up something if you could talk to you folks can do something on the border. also i'd be happy to bring you down to laredo and work with your folks, and to be happy to put folks from the border law enforcement state, local folks, where ever you are, the private sector, to sit down. so i would ask you if you do this on the border everybody talks about the border. but when the dividends they usually do them 150 miles away. i do represent san antonio. i love san antonio but if we're going to talk about the border i would ask you to have your folks come down to the border. we would be happy to set up for you. the other question i have the, whatever happened to, we talked about this a lot, why does mocked up. was a, $15 million? how is that coming along? >> we are committed to this white house mockup building defense but we are in the process now of working out a master plan for our artistic a rally training center in maryland. we have to submit to this master plan to the commission to get approval for what we want to do. we are committed to this mock white house. we had an initial design thinking back to us that we're going back to reevaluate that design to see where we are with that, but we have full intention of influencing that. >> what is your, i think last year we talked about 15 million if i'm going by memory. what is your, i hope it hasn't gone up because as chairman carter said, we've got to work with a tight budget. might experience dealing with federal government is, we start out with a number and then before you know it, it explodes. has not gone up? and somewhat amount to what amount speak with i'm not prepared to say what the amount will be but i know the initial design came back which was a little bit more elaborate than what we'd really expected, and the cost was going to be higher. so we've gone back to the drawing board in that regard. >> will you keep chairman carter at the members of the committee, the ranking member also and myself, what the cost is? because we want to be supportive of but again my experience has been, you start off with an initial number, and i assume the number they give you went up and not down. >> yes. >> so i would ask you to keep us informed. i originally got the original amount was a lot. but he didn't understand the purpose and the rationale. i'm interested in you keeping the cost as close as possible to the amount. >> yes, congressman. >> thank you so much. and again the culture issues that were brought up last time you were here. i know there's still some into this but i just to say you are doing a good job and i appreciate your good service. >> thank you, sir. >> very quickly on the white house mockup. last year to answer $1,808,000,000. we gave you $1 million. acca what was said, that we be sure and stay with us on this. don't take it out on a limb and break out on extra expensive okay? >> which is exactly why we were back to get another design. we want to be good citizens here with the budget, but it is a critical element as you all have address. this will really help our training to move into the 21st century with allowing our people to train on real-life scenarios with the exact grounds that we have at the white house, rather than on a hard tarmac surface. so it is critical but we have to be very careful with the way we move forward. >> just echoing what mr. cuellar said. the secret service is responsible for securing both 2016 republican and democrat national convention. what is the state of planning for securing this year's political conventions in cleveland, philadelphia, in back-to-back weeks in july? do you have any credible threat information regarding the events to be held at these venues? are you satisfied after fiscal year 2016 funding oblong with separate of corporations made available to home states will be sufficient to cover all foreseeable security costs of the conventions? >> first i want to thank the committee for fully funding the campaign which includes these conventions. the conventions itself, there is a fixed cost of i think $19 million for just the rnc and dnc, and then another 21st so said costs with those conventions. as it is now we've had individuals out there specifically assigned to the conventions in cleveland and in philadelphia. they have been working with local law enforcement for several months to work on everything from outer perimeter to credentials, and we are well on our way to providing a very good security plan for these events. as you stated, trying to they are early edition than the tip we are in a campaign year so that does cause for some additional reduction dollars coming out of the convention. in the past, conventions were late august or maybe early september. now coming out of the conventions in july will have additional protective. will have the president-elect. i'm sorry, the candidate elected and the vice president elect for both parties, and i will add some additional request. it's in the budget but the costs go up as we move forward. >> you're in charge of the overall security for both conventions. but sanders campaign has brought a lot of new voters into the mix. the trump campaign on the republican side has brought millions of new voters into the mix. in addition we've already experienced violent outbreaks with protesters coming into disrupt the campaign side of this stuff. those of us who can remember back in 1968 remember what happened in chicago, and we don't, nobody on either party wants to the convention that ends up like chicago. back in -- >> 1968. >> sixty-eight were tear ga gass fired from weapons fire, a lot of really bad things happened. i believe national guard even called out for the democratic convention. so whatever, you know, whenever you see disrupters start to come in in campaigns complete guide to say how big a project is this going to be? i hope you are doing, like i said, threat analysis and intel to see if there's any rumors of a bear or organizations to come in to disrupt either convention. we don't need that. we've got enough problems without that. >> i would just say they are tested as national special street events. as noted we are in charge of the overall security plan. we have 24 subcommittees for each of these conventions. each of those committees has a unique responsibility, whether it's intelligence as you rightly mentioned, went to work with all the federal, state and local authorities to gather all the intelligence. we've already started that. them in the committee on transportation just to make sure people can get to and from the site. with someone who works with the public affairs. this would forgive the subcommittee's working on each individual component to make sure that these conventions are safe and that they are a positive event for all that want to attend. >> well, i can say that i've been, i've attended some of the convention and i've been very pleased with overall both the local and the secret service's participation in keeping people safe. when you're in big crowds and big areas in a strange city, yeah, a lot of things could happen to you and what if you're not careful, so thank you for that. ms. roybal-allard. >> director clancy, the budget request includes 2,720,000,000 in additional funding to upgrade the secret service national capital area radio system. this request follows 16.8 million provided for phase one of the upgrade in fy '16 bill. can you elaborate on how the face to funding will be used and what additional capabilities the new system would provide and how it would improve the reliability as compared to the current system? >> yes, thank you for this question. this comes out of the blue ribbon panel as well as we talked earlier. they noted our communications need to be enhanced and replaced, and additionally i have to credit the office of inspector general the dead as dead as well. although they saw 97% of our radios were welcome to the white house to the white house complicated by the stated weekend of any failure at all and have to credit again mr. roth and his team for the review that they did. this funding will allow us to first of all join our operations and most of that equipment hasn't been replaced in seven years. it's getting old, it's breaking down, can't even find some part in some cases. we are looking come in this joint operations in is where all of our large coming from all over the defeats coming. we will be able to replace that and also to allow more interoperability with our local partners, metropolitan police and capitol police and taking some of their feeds as well. the joint operations cente cents going to be enhanced considerably. additionally we will continue what we've already started fiscal you're 16, giving radio out, hand-held readers to our individual employers which will be state of the art with a lot of new features. the coverage will be better using these radios. but maybe more importantly we did a survey from the national capital region where typically the president has defense visits or motorcade routes and where are those dead spots? with help of our washington field office we identified these locations and we're going to add additional 56 repeaters and transmitters throughout the national capital region. that has an impact on how these hand-held radios work. so that's a big plus for us as well. >> could you talk a little bit about what the status of radios and read assistance or for the field offices? >> that will also be included in this funding. for example, i went out to chicago to talk to the field office and around the field