called to order. pursuant to notice on june 30, 2017 the committee needs to consider the nominations of clarion grady to be undersecretary of management at the department of homeland security and hammy carter to be special counsel office. just a brief opening remark, i think as the hearing indicated a couple weeks ago, to highly qualified candidates, simply couldn't be more impressed with the people selected to fill those incredibly important positions. in terms of the folks we are going to be voting on, we will talk about the nominees but i am pleased that we are voting on two qualified candidates and i certainly intend to support their nominations and with that i will yield my ranking member, senator mccaskill. >> i will say for the record a brief opening statement that i had for this markup. i'm pleased to support both of these nominees. >> if there is no further debate, i ask unanimous consent that we consider supporting the nominations on block. the question is on recording that you nominations the floor, all in favor say aye . the aye's have it, the nominees are reported to the full senate. the business meeting is adjourned. we will begin our hearing to consider nominations once the witnesses are seated. >> that was quick. this nomination hearing is called order. we are meeting today for a nomination hearing to consider david j glawe to be undersecretary for intelligence analysis for the us department of homeland security and admiral david pekoske to be assistant secretary of transportation, administration, tsa department of homeland security. these are two incredibly important positions, particularly at this point in time with all the threats we face to our transportation sector as well as across the globe and the rest to our homeland. don't be undersecretary for intelligence analysis at the department of homeland security is responsible to lead the department of homeland security's intelligence and analysis answer the departments intelligence officer. in these roles the undersecretary is responsible for fusing streams of intelligence and analysis to develop operational understanding of breast to the homeland, ensuring relatively information between state, local and private sector partners. as the department's chief intelligence officer the undersecretary is responsible for overseeing intelligence across the hs and collaborating with partners. multiple reviews of office of intelligence analysis by this committee watched our organization and others have raised concerns about the quality and value of its intelligence, the lack of coordination between intelligence activities and around and human resources challenges facing the office. the next undersecretary had the opportunity to strengthen the department and help secretary kelly secure the nation. the dhs assistant secretary also known as the transportation security administrator is responsible for the safety and security of the country's transportation systems ensuring the free flow of people and commerce. the administrator's job is to assess the nation's transportation sector and direct approximately 53,000 transportation security employees and protecting hundreds of millions of travelers each and every year. tsa was created after the september 11 attacks to disrupt terrorist plots and safeguard the nation's transportation system. the agency oversees aviation security as well as rail, highway, mass transit and pipeline security with a budget of over $7 million. aviation remains a target for foreign and domestic terrorists. to achieve its mission, the tsa needs to improve it capabilities and adapt to the terrorist threats of the future. the next demonstrator had the opportunity to increase tsa's screening capabilities, improve workforce out and deliver efficient security to the traveling public. with that i will turn it over to ranking member mccaskill. >> i appreciate you holding this hearing and want to thank the two nominees for their willingness to serve. i'm pleased to be here today, given the strong qualifications and distinguished careers of the nominees that are in front of us today. you both had exemplary public service careers and we need individuals like you, we need our homeland security and intelligence agencies. you will have difficult jobs, the offices you seek to lead our essential ones for the protection of our homeland. tsa has the role of protecting air travel as well as us well-known job of securing ground, rail and maritime security and the office of intelligence and analysis is a component of the intelligence community that informs the work of all dhs agencies and is charged with sharing intelligence with local government. in addition to the challenges you will face in executing the missions of these organizations you will face a serious challenge given the current more out of the workforce in these offices. both tsa and ina are seen by their employees as being the worst places to work in the federal government. according to a survey of federal agencies, ina is 304 305 enteral agencies and their employee morale. tsa is only slightly better, right 303 out of 305. strong leadership will be necessary to strengthen the workforce at these offices and ensure that these components are recruiting and retaining the most qualified talent. the culture and sentiment in an office and honestly contribute to hiring and keeping the best personnel who in turn are working hard to keep us safe.mister pekoske, with threats to our transportation system tsa as an essential role in protecting our homeland. i've made clear several times my concerns about the presence proposed cuts to the budget particularly when it comes to funds for counterterrorism programs. once you are confirmed i expect you to make clear to the administration what you need to do your job and you should not back down until the administration proposes a budget that works for you. mister glawe, i expect you to ensure that the work of your office remains apolitical and informed decisions at the highest level of the department and intelligence community. this administration can make policy decisions based on intelligence and facts and it is your office that has the data and analytic tools to make sure the policy decisions are sound. i look forward to our conversation and working with you in the future. mister mr. pekoske, i understand you told the committee staff you would sit down with them what you been down on the job for several months. i appreciate the offer and expect my staff to take you up on it. i hope both of you will remain accessible to this committee once you are confirmed, thank you mister chairman. >> thank you, the committee wants to welcome the witnesses, your families, i want to thank you for your past service and your willingness to serve again. i want to thank your families for their sacrifice because these are important jobs and you are going to be busy and away from home will be a sacrifice as well. i know you will introduce your family members and friends and supporters during your comments. it is the tradition of this committee to swear in the witnesses you will rise and raise your right hand. >> use where the testimony you give will be the truth, hold ruben nothing but the truth so help you god? you may be seated. our first nominee is mister david glawe. he has extensive experience in national security and law enforcement and serves as a special assistant to the president until recently served as the assistant commissioner and chief intelligence officer in the customs and border protection component at the dhs. mr. glawe served as an fbi agent, federal agent with the us postal inspection service and started his career in public service as a houston police officer area mr. glawe have the certificate from the john f. kennedy school of government and ambassador of arts degree from the university of northern iowa. mr. glawe, your extensive background in law enforcement across the spectrum both state and federal will serve you well. so again, we appreciate your willingness to serve and look forward to your testimony. >> chairman johnson, ranking member mccaskill, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be before you today at the president's nominee to the dhs. i'm honored to have been nominated by president trump and i'm hopeful to receive the support of the secretary kelly, and director of national intelligence coats. before i begin i'd like to take a moment to recognize my family. i'm grateful for their sacrifices to allow me this opportunity.with us today is my 20 year partner and husband terry gores, supervisor and special agent at the washington field office. almost in our mind are our two wonderful children alexis and wyatt and i want to thank the rest of my coworkers who supported me through my life. i would not have this opportunity without them. the mission statement of dhs is clear and direct. we will safeguard the american people, holy land and our values. dhs seeks the complex and evolving threat environment and must work in concert with our state and local territorial and private sector partners. as the only member of us intelligence community with statutorily sharing intelligence andinformation with our state, local , tribal and private sector partners, ina enables tsa to complete this mission.he expects ina to provide relevant information to the dhs enterprise and intelligence community and our state and local partners. i have 24 years of experience and if confirmed i will work to apply that knowledge i acquired and lessons learned to make the premier intelligence organization that drives operations, information sharing and delivery of unique analysis to operate decision-makers and enable them to identify reports and ultimately mitigate threats. ina has the broadest base of the intelligence community and meeting many demands of those customers is a challenge. i intend to focus ina's capacity on areas where they have position to add value, areas like trade, travel, cider, borders and aviation security rather than duplicating work done elsewhere. ina if confirmed it will be my honor to meet the homeland security at ina and implement secretary kelly's vision by meeting the needs of the primary customers, integrating intelligence operations and making ina a mission focused environment for the workforce. in closing i'd like to take a moment to recognize the important role of congress plays in the success of ina. i pledge to fulfill that role by keeping you informed on ina activities and developments. i'm committed to transparency and look forward to moving the organization forward and protect the homeland. i will submit the remainder of my comments for the record. i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you mr. glawe. our next nominee is vice admiral pekoske, chief operating officer of the us coast guard when he retired in 2010. after 32 years of service and we thank you for that service. prior to becoming vice admiral he was commander for the fence forces protecting 73 million square miles of territory through the pacific region. after retiring from the coast guard, admiral pekoske was in the security group at amt solutions and vice president for national programs at specific architecture and engineering. is it careers in the homeland security from his time in the coast guard covering crisis management, strategic operations, financial risk management and counterterrorism. vice admiral pekoske received his bachelors degree from the us coast guard academy and two masters degrees, one from columbia university in economics and one from massachusetts institute of technology in business management and vice admiral, i have a brief opening statement which you will be presenting your experience. i can't think of somebody more qualified at this point in time. with that i look forward to your testimony. >> mister chairman, good morning chairman johnson and ranking member mccaskill and members of this committee. it's a privilege to appear before you as the president's nominee. i am honored to have been nominated by president trump for this important position and if confirmed, i look forward to the opportunity to work with secretary kelly, deputy secretary duke and the entire team at the department of homeland security. i've always been a strong supporter of my family and am honored to introduce my wife michelle. who joined me at the hearing today. together we raised four terrific children, all very successful in their own rights. many members of our family are watching from locations around the country.i thank them for their love and support and am glad they are able to be with us today and virtually for this important event in my professional life. let me begin by recognizing the men and women of the tsa. each and every one contributes to the security of our nation's transportation system and works tirelessly to earn the respect of the american people. work is radical to our transportation systems and they have in my opinion an outstanding job in protecting us from ever present and dynamic threats. it would be my privilege to join them as their administrator and bring my leadership skills and experience directly to the effort of securing our homeland. tsa could not accomplish its mission were it not for the partnerships and have with other federal partners, state and local law enforcement agencies, airline industry, public services industry, airport and surface transportation system owners and operators and international partners. throughout my professional career i've seen firsthand the enormous value of strong partnerships and professional relationships. this is the extended tsa team and it would be my privilege to join them as well in our collective goal of ensuring security for the united states and i had a high honor of serving this country in the coast guard for most of my life and i'm grateful to my coast guard colleagues for their investment in my leadership and professional development.my career provided me with background and experience that are relevant to the position of tsa administrator, i performed in top leadership positions on a large operating agency with the security and law enforcement division in the department of homeland security. i have experience in operational risk management and risk mitigation and have experienced working withother federal, state and law enforcement agencies , industry and interest groups and international partners and international standards bodies. on my service i joined the successful market company and government services industry, my experience was valuable and i learned how government can be better consumers of private sector expertise and support. today as you know we face a multitude of threats in the persistent and ever evolving. we know certain terrorist organizations running focused on aviation and disrupting the freedoms we enjoy as an open society. paying a heavy stretch and ensuring appropriate measures are in place to ensure security effectiveness will continue to be yesterday's most significant challenge. if confirmed it would be my honor to serve in what i consider one of the most challenging jobs in government. my overarching goal would be to lead department of homeland security to an ever stronger position as an effective provider of security for our transportation systems, especially aviation with a strong and growing level of public confidence in the agency's mission performance. i will articulate a clear vision for tsa to ensure all our efforts to contribute. >> my full intention is to serve as tsa administrator if confirmed for as long as the president and secretary wish me to remain in thisposition. i think leadership continuity is important . if confirmed, i would be the 13th administrator in 16 years when you include those in capacity. >> i've always reminded of a quote of alexander hamilton and he is our first secretary of the treasury issued instructions for the commanding officers of the revenue cutter service which is the predecessor of the coast guard. alexander hamilton issued these instructions in 1791, 226 years ago today. he said in part i will always keep in mind that our country and as such are inpatients of everything that bears the least mark of our dominating spirit. i will therefore refrain with the most guarded inspection on whatever as the semblance of prudence or consult. i think this stage of guidance from one of our country's founding fathers applies to all local officials involved in law enforcement and security operations. it is something that will guide me if i'm fortunate enough to have the opportunity to lead tsa. it is the face of the federal government and billions of air travelers every day. these travelers expect effective and efficient screening with eight minimum away by governor officials who briefed them with respect. >> i will work diligently with the entire tsa workforce to ensure tsa continues to meet this standard. we must balance the demands of security with the inheritance in our constitution. in closing i think president trump and secretary kelly for the confidence in my ability to lead, chairman johnson, ranking member mccaskill and distinguish members, i thank you for your courtesies during this process and for the opportunity to appear before you. i look forward to answering your question. x thank you. there are three questions the the media asks for the nominee and i will ask questions and you can ask. first, is there anything you are aware of in your background that might present a conflict of interest to the duties of the officeto which you have been nominated, mister mr. glawe ?do you know of anything personal or otherwise that would in any way prevent you from honorably dischargingthe responsibilities of the office you been nominated, mister mr. glawe ? do you agree without reservation to comply with any request or for summons to appear before any duly positive committee of congress, mr. glawe. >>yes . >> again, i want to thank the committee members for showing up in attendance and out of respect for your time what i'll do is i will lock my questions and turn it over to senator mccaskill. >> i will do the same and defer to their questions. >> and questions at the end like you. >> that it will be senator portman. >> thank you, i think the chair and ranking member for allowing us to go because we all have schedules, i appreciate the way they conduct the business of this committee. thank you for everyone who served, i appreciate the fact that you both have extensive experience on the intelligence side and in your case admiral, that you had extensive experience on the security side. i was taught by one thing you said, and that is that there have been 13 people in your position of supervising the tsa operations in 16 years and you said you hope to be able to stick around. this is one of my concerns that dhs honestly and we had the oversight responsibility for this gargantuan agency that i think was necessary, in other words we need to have a better response after 9/11 and bring together 23 departments and agencies that we move people around a lot in that agency and i'm concerned about the impact that has on morality, on readiness in terms of your responsibilities. here in the confirmation process you're not going to be able to say as much as you can tell us once you are confirmed but could you for a second talk about that. are you concerned about the amount of changes in positioning's and i know sometimes within the federal government system advantageous for an individual to change a position in order to increase compensation and what can we do to address that? if you could talk about that for a second as it relates to tsa. >> when secretary kelly asked me to consider the tsa position, one of the things that was important to me is whatever i agreed to do in future that i did not just for a very short period of time and i've committed to him and committed today at this hearing that i will serve as long as i'm able to serve in that position. i think leadership continuity in an agency is critically important , sensor mentioned the more our issues with the workforce and i think that's one of my key focuses should i be confirmed is to place a lot of position on that issue. see if we can't raise job inspection across the employee workforce and also reduce attrition and both will improve security effectiveness and efficiency so i'm committed to doing that and spending a lot of time with the workforce. additionally i think it's important not just as a top meter in the position for a duration of time that the leaders that support that leadership also have some level of continuity and if confirmed, i will pay attention to that carefully. and the assignment of senior executive service members inside tsa. >> i think i'd like to follow up with that once you are confirmed to a critical management challenge at dhs. mr. glawe, your background is impressive and also working your way up to the ranks of intelligence gathering and one of my big concerns about your department and how it operates is how the distribution centers are getting information. some centers work well, others not so well and constant concern i've your home in ohio is the fact that sometimes information is not disseminated in an appropriate way and not quickly enough or not at the level of detail where it is effective and helpful and we put a lot of focus and resources into centers not just that the federal government level but state and local levels and particularly law enforcement spent a lot of time and effort on that. can you talk about that challenge and how you hope to deal with that? you've already been in an acting capacity but one, are they working and how can we better disseminate information? >> thank you for the question and confirmed i look forward to working on the enterprise of senators and i start off with the question and answer, i was fortunate to be on the joint task force with the fbi when virginia started its first distribution center so i was in the year with the relations with law enforcement and some of the challenges that occurred then. watching it progress over essentially the next 13, 15 years or so and the relationship with state and local is coming from those organizations and working with them through my career is critical. i know with the chief and sheriffs association, and i hear a recurring theme. there they are absolutely necessary to having a business enterprise approach on how they the intelligence on both disseminating intelligence and also receiving it from them is critical. he challenges, there's a lot of sheriffs and she's out there and it operates independently. when i did get it confirmed to work with them in an integrated approach to come up with an enterprise that is some consistency in how we are sharing intelligence, recognizing every center is different but from a federal side on how we disseminate intelligence, it's going to be critical how we have that enterprise approach area and i had a commitment to start working on that but i look forward to working on it. >> business enterprise approach in your mind the consistency.reliability, what does it mean in terms of the level of detail that you can provide area that's one of the complaints i hear is that our distribution centers are not able to get the information they find actionable and there sometimes told after the fact and we've been blessed not to have more chairs to tax but certainly could possibly be imported heavily had we had more information flow from the federal level or international level and state and local level so talk to us about that for a minute. how can the business enterprise approach advocate help with regard to getting information in the right hands? >> the tactical level, intelligence that needed by the fusion centers so expressed are fluid and dynamic in changing. to disseminate that intelligence and have enterprise dhs, ina and getting it out to the distribution centers so it's correct but also timely is a critical note and as we seen with the other intelligence organization, emerging of a hybrid of integrating intelligence and operation, setting it so it's appropriate and correct, getting out quickly so it's got to be tactical so they can adjust resources, readjust personnel, readjust their posture in the community. if terroristnetworks, cyber intrusions, transnational organizations, the opium epidemic , we have to reduce the level enterprise, timely intelligence downrange. and that's going to be a change of our business model. the ina employees are dedicated, they want to do this. it's going to be creating a process to do it accurately and timely. >> once you are confirmed i think both of you i look forward to working with you on that. this commission has strong interest as how distribution centers work and i'm not suggesting there's a cookie-cutter approach, that i do think more continuity to the fusion centers for the admirals comment about continuity would help to share information in a reliable way, consistent way. ensuring that we can work for these attacks on the homeland and thank you for your service. >> center. >> thank you mister chairman and i want to thank you and the ranking member for your courtesy. i very much appreciate that. after mccaskill, thanks for stopping in. yesterday we talked a little bit about partnerships. with the other law enforcement agencies, that we utilize. could you briefly talk about how important those partnerships are? >> you for your time, i greatly enjoyed the meeting. as i said yesterday, i think partnerships and my opening statement as well, partnerships are critical to the success of tsa security mission, there's no mistake or easier way to say it, they are critical and i appreciate the work that state and local law enforcement agencies, public resource agencies provided in partnering with tsa and i hope we been a good partner. one of the good things if i'm confirmed and i get the opportunity to travel to the workforce which i will make as the highest priority for me in the first couple months and throughout my tenure is to meet our state and local law enforcement partners and reinforce the appreciation we have for the service they provide and the criticality to the overall success. >> as the budget applies, the law enforcement officer reimbursement program was zeroed out in the president's budget. that money is used to basically help local law enforcement support your mission. do you know if there's any other grants out there that could replace the wheel grants or is that the only game in town when it comes to supporting local law enforcement? >> i don't know if that's the only game in town to support state and local law enforcement but it confirmed i will work closely to get back on your calendars. >> but you would agree that it's really important that those partnerships are there and i can tell you but global governments, even state to an extent doesn't have the resources to add value to your operation. >> the other partnerships are critically important. >> i want to talk about since it was brought up between senator portman's question, you said you wanted to increase job satisfaction, reduce attrition. how much, how much do you think that a for your frontline folks have to do with keeping them on the job. >> i think it's certainly a factor. to say otherwise would be silly. but i have not spent enough time with tsa workforce, my only time with the workforce is and a passenger going through a screening but i've read the results and i pledge it confirmed to spend a good amount of time early on to really understand what some of the issues are. me, just from what i've read, some of the issues are with leadership at all levels of the organization. and the enforcement of frontline individuals performance, recognizing good performance when good performance is performed, providing the workforce adequate training and for those that see a career in tsa, providing them counseling and support to pursue that career but make the expectations realistic. i would, let me say leadership is critical, and you know that coming from your previous job. i would also hope that as you look at the turnover, of your frontline folks, that you take a look at where they are moving to what that pay is that as a problem. >> you know, if we are in a mode of continually retraining folks on the front lines, it's not healthy for the organization.i don't think it's before security either, by the way. what's your perception on that? >> one of the things that concerns me in the inspection services is the attrition rate which is in my view a very high or the workforce and i have just a macro number as a nominee what i would like to do it confirmed just look at the attrition rates across each individual airport and get a handle on that. >> i think it's good and the reassignment of people, that is critically important. we're starting to see that in a lot of agencies as they come out of the decision that maybe the higher-ups don't like in thewhite house in particular, they get reassigned and i think that's , that will do more to ruin employee morale than anything. you want them to be able to make decisions and support them in that decision-making so thank you. mr. glawe, as far as cybercrime and cyber interference is concerned, which countries do you see as our biggest adversaries? >> senator, thank you for the question. clearly, the intelligence community assessment on the russian intrusion on the cyber elections, i agree with and that raises significant vulnerability points in our critical infrastructure. in an unclassified setting i would take for the record to have a list of the classified response on the list but what i would say in this setting is that did illuminate a vulnerability from active foreign intelligence organizations around the homeland and russia is not the only game in town is what i would say and we being the intelligence and law enforcement and privatesector , if confirmed i look forward to working on that. >> i appreciate that and i don't think anybody is saying that russia is the only game in town but i want to touch base and this is to put anybody in conflict with anybody. it's just, we've got to deal with these issues because they are real but the president tweeted out on sunday that he and president clinton discussed forming an impenetrable cyber security partnership so many other negative things will be guarded in state. i'm just, i'll give you my opinion, you want to talk about the enemy of the fox guarding the hen house. what do you see at the head of the dhs office when it relates to russia and cyber security? >> senator, if confirmed i look forward to aggressively working with our intelligence , law enforcement and private sector partners to glean the intelligence and our vulnerabilities on our critical infrastructure especially in the cyber arena. the electoral commission is one electoral system is one but there's others that are vulnerable as well, and my predecessor under secretary frank taylor, he vocalized his concerns about the private sector so i look at if confirmed to really focus on that and what our posture currently is and maybe where we have business process and tactical response processes to improve where we are currently posturing. >> thank you, you don't have to answer this but one of the questions that i also would like you to answer through rent or whatever is what you are each going to do to break down satellites between the partners between the state and local government because i think it's critical. you guys are not allowed to make a mistake, you just can't so i appreciate you guys. i fully intend to vote for your confirmation. i think you are to quality candidates, thank you very much. >> you mister chairman and thank you both for allowing us to move on the questions as well. i want to pick up where we left off on the silo issue, you bennett in law enforcement for a long time. you know full well there are clean lines between jurisdictions and responsibilities and there are times that there are eight people all show up and they have different jobsand they're all standing around waiting for your time . that is especially true when you deal with intelligence operations, most of our intelligence operations are orange and try to figure out what's happening coming out and you have a unique responsibility trying to see what our threats are coming at us and our closest areas. but there's also overlap, you mentioned in your written testimony that you intend to focus on analytical capabilities, on areas where we are positioned to add value or that are underserved to other parts of the community rather than duplicating work done elsewhere. i understand that effect, where you think you can add value first. and where do you think there might be duplication that we can help with? we want to help with both of those. >> thank you for the question and thank you for meeting with me. the dhs enterprise is very uniquely polled i think in the law enforcement intelligence states. in the marine, the trade, travel, border security environment and also with the private sector sharing information, there's no one else i would argue that has that type of infrastructure to collect intelligence, to identify threats from that arena that's where i see in conversations with numerous staff and committee members that that needs to be, that's such a unique posture that we could enhance. with the duplication of effort, i think there is some room for improvement. in the terrorism arena, there is a lot of organizations that report on international terrorism and the effects on the homeland including the fbi and dhs. if confirmed i look forward to working with my law enforcement intelligence community partners to streamline our processes to make sure there's not duplication and where there is maybe we will partner in move our resources a little bit to our other areas where there's not as much coverage so i look forward to looking at that approach it confirmed. >> we would help you with that as well. we have a lot of threats. we need to be able to focus our dollars on the areas where we need to be able to deal with those threats if we are duplicating dollars, that means we are not looking at something else and we are missing out so while i understand the jurisdictional issues and that their deal and we get we need help and ongoing conversation that to determine we have overlap here so we can deal with that overlap on the days ahead. you focus your testimony on criminal organizations, obviously there are multiple entities dealing with that part of it as well. state department, dea, all kind of different groups, where you see your unique section dealing with transnational criminal organizations? >> i'm very passionate about transnational organized crime as well as the secretary has spoken about it. the threats that are on the homeland from transnational criminal organizations by its naturewith a foreign state . the overwhelming amount of narcotics flowing into the united states from mexico and synthetic narcotics from china are devastating. we are definitely compiling, i view the dhs enterprise as the last line of defense at the borders, repelling these threats coming inbound but also to push the borders 1800 miles out as kelly has mentioned. would create the enterprise and partnership with foreign countries with the embassies on identifying those threats and empowering our law enforcement partners to mitigate those threats? despite the appearance they are infiltrating with narcotics in the united states, that's one organization, others are cyber as well. but we can begin and if confirmed it would be a great opportunity to work with the community and had a larger discussion and maybe the potential readjustments that could help us reach our consolidated national bowl. >> welcome to the conversation senator harris and i both served on on the intelligence immunity and so this is essential for us as we are working through this but we will see each other often but we also want to make sure we have facing the right agencies. senator pekoske, you have a tough job, folks scattered around the nation. they deal with angry travelers every day. they deal with folks that are sick of standing in line and you are handling is an excellent one but i've got to say they are all free people and they want to be respected. as your traveling after confirmation i fully expect to be able to confirm both of your confirmations in this but postconfirmation we would welcome you to oklahoma, there's a great team of folks that work with the tsa that treat people risk with respect and they are engaging with people in a friendly way, very respectful and have done it exceptionally professionally so we would welcome you to come to oklahoma and be able to meet the folks here. i see that in every airport, but i don't and in the airport we have the opportunity to travel and i will occasionally see folks in tsa with a whole organization, not interact with people, everything is running slow, a different attitude so as you are dealing with that you have unique responsibilities. i'm sure you'd see some of the red team testing as well people working with gsa to evaluate where we have weaknesses. that's something that we will continue to track and be able to help with. come of that boils down to not only training of people but acquisition, so my specificquestion for you is , how do we deal with the acquisition issues at tsa because we had times multibillion-dollar acquisitions and a few years later decided that was a bad idea and you're coming back to your committee to start again, what can we do to make sure the acquisition process works well while you are working on the morale issue? >> thank you for your comments on the workforce and for your invitation to travel to oklahoma. i appreciate doing that and if the priority is confirmed, with respect to acquisition that is one of my highest priorities and is also a highest priority and hopefully soon to be undersecretary for management for claire brady's higher priority. >> the three of us have worked together before and from my perspective, i would really like to see greater technology and assertion and what we do in tsa. again, technology and assertion to the workforce faster, that to for the workforce will help them do their jobs morale perspective, being able to use something that really is much more useful than perhaps what they are using today and seeing the agency responses to what they have articulated as a need and putting it out in the field and getting it in place. tsa hasn't novation tax force, i haven't been briefed on, i have a lot of experience and innovation, i led innovation for the coast guard when i was vice, not that will be a key priority. >> speed is exceptionally important, when we determine what the threat is we can't wait for years before we distribute to the locations so thank you. >> senator harris. >> thank you. >> mr. glawe, good to see you again. sorry i don't see your beautiful children here. they were in addition to you when you came before senator langston and myself, on the intelligence community. i appreciate your response to my questions for the record. and mister chairman, i would appreciate if we can get those answers to the written us bars in our records. i appreciate you asserting mr. glawe that it is never appropriate for this intelligence community with the specific intent of increasing policy i also appreciate your concerns when you wrote that you would resist any attempt by the white house or anyone else criticize dhs and intelligence analysis. on a different point, recently to supreme court partially lifted the stay on the implementation of muslim band. however the court said individuals with a bona fide connection to the united states could not be subject to the van and must go out to the united states in implementing this, dhs issued guidance defining which family relationships to qualify as family relationships. and excluded, or grandparents, aunt and uncles from that discussion of close family. my question for you is is there a rationale? between grandparents and aunts and uncles from the definition of close family relationships? >> senator, thank you for the kind words and thank you for the question. i am not aware of the rationale that went behind that but i have to take that back. >> for the record on that. so i'm not aware of the criteria that was used for that policy decision. >> i do, i appreciate you looking at it and i like to also just consider that even in our country, that the definition of what a family is has changed since you move around. as the nobles, many cultures including our own, grandparents are really considered almost equals to parents and in many cultures in fact pending on the birth order, siblings of your parents, you would refer to that as your older mother or younger father of that humble. so thank you, i appreciate that. but mister jeh johnson, is that correct?>> thank you. in march 14, tsa released a report in the aftermath of the shooting at lax area as you probably know, one tsa officer was killed. and three others were wounded and in fact i went there right after and it was a tragedy as you can imagine for all of us. the report was issued that recommended actions to enhance the presence of law enforcement and local law enforcement at checkpoints . then i tsa office and i appreciate the chance to bring us up tothis and local law enforcement. >> in regards to that , march 2014 report, in contrast the president's budget, proposes eliminating the law enforcement office to reimburse the grant program which helps local law enforcement airports safe. what is your perspective on that recommendation as it relates to the budget? >> i was not involved with the bill with the aching budget. confirmed i will get into the details right away. understand the rationale for certain things that are in the budget in addition to some that are subtractions. i would reiterate that i think partnership with state and the law enforcement is critical to tsa's mission and the incident in los angeles on march 14th illustrated the risks that tsa officers and state and local officers face every day so that would be a high priority for me and i will take a close look at that. >> i appreciate that and i would emphasize the point i think you know which also is the tragedy highlighted the courage that tsa officers display every day and their readiness to actually stand in the face of fire and protect the billions. another recommendation made in that 2014 report following the lax shooting was quote, extendedredeployment of the additional intermodal response teams . that had been temporarily redeployed in the aftermath of that tragic incident. however again in the budget, there's a recommendation that the number of fiber teams nationally be reduced from 31 to 8. are you familiar with that recommendation? >> yes i am. >> can you tell me whether you support that and if so, why? >> i can tell you i've worked with fiber teams in my path. i've found them to be effective as a deterrent and i'm a strong supporter of the viper team effort . >> so will you commit to this committee that it confirmed you will work to actually improve that recommendation and not reduce that number from 31 to 8? >> what i will commit is i will look look carefully at that rationale for the number and deployment of viper teams and further commit that i don't want the folks that operate on the viper teams to feel like they are under appreciated at all because they the work they perform is critical to our security and i will reinforce that within. >> and i'd like to now talk about tsa wait times which is i think something we've all appreciated that folks, it's frustrating for folks who are trying to travel for a variety of reasons, for business or family relationships. dhs recently announced new screening rules which require additional screenings or safety reasons. and there's no doubt that the security of all travelers is the highest priority. but we also expect that these new rules will have to wait times or not? >> senator, i would think they might slightly add to wait times but wait times are from what i understand being this carefully watched by tsa across the entire enterprise. tsa did a super job last summer in responding to the wait time issues by redeploying assets from one airport to the other based on the expected passenger throughput. the other thing i would mention is i think it's important to encourage more travelers to go into the trusted traveler programs because that should reduce their wait times and that also increases much in my opinion security effectiveness and efficiency so one of my prayers confirmed would be to see what we can do to encourage more participation and trusted traveler programs like global entry. >> that would be great, i have two of the largest airports in the country and lax and it continues to be a concern for travelers for those airports but senator lyford, i wasn't thinking of one of them when he was recalling the frustrations he had airports around the country but i appreciate that and earlier in your testimony you made an innovation and clearly have some innovative ideas, thank you. >> thank you mister chair and ranking member and good morning to you both, thank you for being here. >> i wanted to start the question for you mr. glawe, dhs was created in part to ensure that all homeland security related functions of the government warehouse under one roof and in doing so, congress and the bush administration endeavored to create the conditions by which homeland security related information and intelligence was more effectively shared between the two agencies. the dhs office of intelligence and analysis was empowered to help facilitate the sharing between dhs components. however, the undersecretary is come before you have encountered resistance from dhs components in achieving full information and intelligence sharing within the broader dhs. as the former head of cde's intelligence office you had a front row seat to this dynamic between components of the dhs office of intelligence and analysis. so what steps will you take to ensure that dhs components are sharing intelligence with the dhs office of intelligence and analysis? >> senator, thank you for the question and for meeting with me prior to my testimony. i am uniquely postured to answer that question because i did lead the largest component in dhs intelligence enterprises and a couple things that my predecessor is confirmed, would have was undersecretary taylor developed a mission manager approach and integration approach in bringing in the operational components, intelligence apparatus and under a collaboration type environment, a business enterprise. i anticipate to facilitate and move forward with that model even further. there is a tremendous opportunity within the components intelligence functions, their data collection, their human source networks, there are law enforcement collection on the air traffic, and marine environment and in the partnership of the intelligence community partners of the admiral prioritization of the coast guard. it's going to be a business model integration. when i was with customs and border protection, i did stand up on 50+ thousand organizations under intelligence organizations, which was similar to what i learned under the fbi and director of national intelligence jen clapper. it will be a similar type pols are not creating something new, i'm targeting was been out there. but it's going to be a big machine and a heavy lift and i look forward to partnering the committee is confirmed on helping through that as a partnership. >> thank you very much and i enjoyed the meeting with you in my office as well. >> and vice admiral, i wanted this to do a little bit on an issue that i know others have asked weston that already with respect to morale and both of the agencies are nominated to lead. but i wanted to follow up vice admiral because one of the questions of the tsa morale issue really begs is the way they are treated compared to other employees. so would you consider making tsa employees follow federal employees who enjoy all of the same benefits civil servants do? >> thank you for the question and it's good to see you again. i would like to get a feel myself for the issues that the workforce faces and as i said in the opening statement, i said to you in our office meeting several weeks ago that i intend to spend it confirmed a great deal of my time out in the field understanding this issue because i think it's critically important to address and then i open to looking at any option that would address it. i think fundamentally , the issue can be largely addressed through leadership at all levels of the organization and senator lyford mentioned some air forces have different levels of performance than others. that's something we measure and can look at and try to drill down and figure out why is that, is that a facility issue that might be hindering the job satisfaction of the employees, that constraints on the facility, technology or is it something else and that's something that i want to pay an awful lot of attention to get to the root of because being at the very bottom of the employee satisfaction is not where i want to be and from microstar experience, we are used being at the other end. >> thank you for that and when i ask you to talk about is the employees about as i have is the fact that they are uniquely position as non-civil servants and its result in high turnover, result in a lot of other issues that i think are fundamental to some of the morality issues so you just would talk with them about that and consider it, it would be very helpful. >> i would definitely talk with him about that, i want to understand the issue much better. >> and one last question for you, mr. glawe. as the office in charge of analyzing the threat to homelands from isys and al qaeda inspired terrorism, the dhs office of intelligence and analysis plays an important role in helping to understand the recruitment propaganda to leverage homegrown terrorist attacks within the united states. given your experience as a local law enforcement officer, in the counterterrorism agency and intelligence official, what's the best way for the us to go about preventing the recruitment of our young people by these groups? >> thank you for the question and i have thought about that for years and in discussion with partnerships in the intelligence community and law enforcement. it's a very tip of the answer would be an integrated approach with law enforcement, the private sector, the communities at the lowest common denominator, i was a community police officer in houston almost 25 years ago. it's integration with the community, conversation with the communities at risk and developing those partnerships and it's not going to be salt by the intelligence community or law enforcement, not going to be solved by the private sector, it's going to be a partnership and what i've seen the success is in identifying violent acts or violent activity in communities is a community-based approach. we have a challenge with the online component but that's a whole different set of challenges as well is how we create an infrastructure in protecting civil liberties but also in identifying those but it's a consolidated approach to communities to meet in partnership with local law enforcement and local leadership and we've seen successes in smaller communities in the us back in post 2010 so i look forward to working on that problem. >> thank you and i wanted to follow-up quickly, two weeks ago this committee heard testimony from the former director of the national counterterrorism center, mike later we spoke about the need for the us to embrace and i think you can describe an engagement strategy with communities across the country in order to prevent the possibility of homegrown terrorist attacks. i know i'm out of time but i'd like you to think about maybe you could follow-up what offices should be the tip of the spear for that particularactivity. >> . >> senator carver. >> gentlemen, thank you very much for your service. and you are your service more, mr. glawe, it's nice to see you. have you had the opportunity to talk with general taylor and started looking back at some of the niches that you've launched to complete successful and to completion in others that are maybe not complying and what are some things that you started on the watch that need to be improved on? >> thank you for the question. i have met with all the prior secretaries, charles taylor and bernie taylor, >> it's a lot of tailors. >> yes. [laughter] so secretary, undersecretary taylor, general taylor, he had a couple tremendous programs that i hope i can continue with. he had an integrated intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance program where he was looking at the enterprise of dhs to border protection, us coast guard assets, and specifically on the air and marine environment and how we can align our resources to getting efforts, we are lying and where were floating our flow times are appropriate and then also looking at our data acquisition, how law enforcement data is required and how on the dhs energized and also shared with our law enforcement intelligence community. >> general taylor did an outstanding job of pushing that and i hope you have confirmed to continue and also the mission manager approach where he had assigned a poncho mission manager to environments, trade and travel space, also technology improvements as far as looking at the mission managers involving that. general taylor, i think was absolutely heading in the right path and i look forward it confirmed to head down the path he started. >> thank you. admiral, nice to see you. i was delighted to get to know admiral eppinger. during his time as administrator at dsa. i was disappointed that he did not continue with this administration in a leadership role and my hope is someday he will have the opportunity to serve in his senior role. i suspect that you know him pretty well, and spending your time in the coast guard, we are overlapping probably for a long time and it was very impressed with the leadership, and i was very impressed with the leadership you provided at tsa. i was going to see the leadership is most important and the success of any organization i've overseen with inner partners, that includestsa. one of those people when i go through the report , i think the folks at tsa and the work that they do and would encourage others who might be wanting to do the same. i think they have a very good work that they do and they need our thanks especially when they do it well. >> i would like for you to do an answer as much as i asked david to answer, the question looking at admiral eppinger was doing. >> he and i talked extensively since i was nominated by the president to succeed and if i'm confirmed, and he shared with me as blueprint with tsa. i reviewed that and i can assure you that a think he said exactly the right foundation for tsa and give my job as built on a lot of things he had done. he place a lot of emphasis on the workforce, including establishing a tsa academy so that as new employees came into the workforce, that they had a week or two. in georgia where they could be into the organization and feel part -- >> i been there and seen the good work that is being done. >> i think that's been very successful. he instituted a trading for the workforce once they got back to the home airports. you start and innovation task force which i will continue and i will expand that task force is i think that's off on the right track. he made some organizational changes to tsa which are very important to reduce control and increase accountability. and also centralize the oversight of operations in the agency should not been done before. that allowed tsa to move its resources around to be able to respond to predict it wait time searches at airports around the country. all of those were very foundational and things i look to continue going forward. and rest assured that peter and i will have an ongoing dialogue over the course of time. we are very good friends and i have great respect for him. >> a couple weeks ago my wife and i flew in and out of o'hare. we will be back at their later this summer. i recall a bit more than year ago -- one of things that the admiral did was determine what caused that, should the scene this tidal wave of passengers coming come and the answer was yes. and what to do about it. he changed up the leadership and he didn't just take it out over occurred a couple of monster he changed it right away. i am very impressed at the time about how important leadership is. he provided great leadership and also make sure the folks at o'hare, he put the right leadership team there and did much like that. i want to ask you, talk to his little bit about the partnership between the federal government and the airlines with respect to the work that tsa does and pray much hand in glove operation. talk about technology and now we may be changing the way the experience we had when we go through security chickens at airports using technology to be able to get more input any more secure way. >> yes, sir. our partnership is critical and if confirmed, and they get out into the field, as i intend to do, i will make it a priority to visit the airline headquarters around the country. and we'll choose us airports initially so i get that opportunity. i think those partnerships are critical to their success entity is a success and to the passenger experience and passenger safety and security. the airlines have helped a lot with technology insertion in airports around the country. screening lines now where you can put down your checked baggage got to wait for the person cued up in front yupik sobesothe people can put it dowt the same time. that fixes a non-process problem in a security checkpoint. additionally, the alleged event very supportive of putting technology into checked baggage so that tso, transportation screwed officer who try to look at the screen and make sense of everything we put into our checked baggage into it with a little more confident and love it quicker answer those are things that would very much look forward to continuing and many of those were things that peter had started with his relationship with the airlines. i look for to a very robust relationship with them and a very strong partnership. >> good for you. thanks very much to both of you. >> senator paul. >> congratulations to both of you for your nominations. admiral pekoske, with regard to security in general and the closet security at our airports, for about a decade after 9/11 the bush administration opposed liquid traveler program and they said everybody will be treated the same no matter what immutable service. i thought that was mistaken you think you need to spend more time with u a small risk lsm wod less risk and you can possibly get the same level of scrutiny to all the pastors. i think we're doing better and i like your approach or talk about being in favor of the frequent-flier program. as a way to spend more time on those who you know less about and perhaps have more risk. as we discussed i think there's also a question of how much resources we spend on the random screening at the airport and how much we spent fondly at the risk of people before they get to the airport. and what's your opinion on whether we're spending enough before they get to the airport versus when you get to the airport and the next event and whether we need to make any changes? >> thanks for the question and your time yesterday. i think that makes what i understand as a passenger i've not been briefed by tsa in detail on this, the classified portions of those reviews by the something of pay a lot of attention to very early on if confirmed. as we discussed and i said earlier today putting more people into the trusted traveler program is really, really important. it improves the passenger experience and makes the screen a lot more effective. like you just said it allows the resources we have that are limited and airline travel is increasing at about 4% per year so when you given mindful of that, so do the extent we can become more efficient but not suffer any loss of effectiveness in secured as well. >> are you aware of the program that we have for veterans that are fets, what are screening procedure for them? >> not in detail. >> i'm a little bit aware of it and i think it will make special accommodations but i think it may require calling in advance which is always happening and we have a lot of veterans that are amputees. one of things like you to look look at if you would is specifically look at this program and i would think of the a pretty simple way, it's obvious if you're an npt and that he could present a military id that you don't have to take your prosthesis off. i have a friend who's a triple and picky and having and take all this prosthesis off. it's a labor for him and makes them less likely to want to live basically. >> i agree. i think it's not right so i will take a look at it. >> mr. glawe, one of the things that's really bother a lot if you care about privacy is the fact that now citizens are being detained at the border and not into back into the country lessee present a password to the folder i understand the need for information bu but i also am a believer that you do somebody at something, you get a warrant from a judge and there's a process. do you think our current policy is consistent with what citizens should expect as the due process clause of the constitution, demanding their password, did nine to entry into the country? >> senator, thank you for the question. and the policy decision on the border search has not followed under any of my position in my prior capacity. with that being said, i am in 24, 25 years in law enforcement, the constitution is the bedrock of everything a dent in my terrific the first amendment, the fourth amendment specifically. and people being secure in their privacy is of the utmost. and i will continue that in my career here as the intelligence come if confirmed as intelligence had for dhs. would adhere to any policies and procedures or precedent-setting cases regarding that matter. >> just be aware of the are at least significant portion of our country that is concerned about it. we had a bipartisan bill to say you get a warfare and not against you going after threats. i'm not against you asking to look for a poem by jeff to ask a judge first. people are alarmed at the back, people talk to but you can't take a phone abroad because he may not be allowed back in your country without searching your phone. your phone come what's wonderful, there is more extensive document on phone than anyone ever had in the papers in the house at the time of the revolution. i think we can't willy-nilly just sa a can't come back in yor country without looking at everything on your phone. but also not telling what they do with the phone, whether they're downloading all your contacts, all of your search history come all of your internet browsing. some of us are very, very concerned with this. i brought it up with a general kelly. i don't think you're significant concern for that into the policy will continue but i can just let you know there is a significant amount of public that is not happy about the idea that you could come back an any think there's a danger that you come back in, if you're not lily white and look like some sort of standard version of what you think is american that you have your phone searched. that's kind of what it's looking like now. but if you have a risk associate with it and ask a judge, by all means. i don't think we should be stopping people from coming back into the country and abetting to look at everything on the phone. thanks. >> senator mccaskill. >> thank you. i want to thank you, mr. pekoske come because you indicate in your question or that you would respond to any reasonable request from members of congress regardless of party. mr. glawe, you did not receive the question or sleep not had an opportunity to that question. would you also agree to commit to respond to any reasonable request from any member of congress whether in the majority or the minority? >> absolutely, senator. >> thank you. i want to talk about whistleblowers and retaliation, admiral pekoske, and i think that's part of the problem that you're going to have to confront. let me go at it this way. there was information sent to employees in the tsa is office of security capability. they were told recently that any and all documents related to it oig are gao request must be cleared by tsa leadership before they can be sent to investigators. i want to give credit to the acting administrator because the acting administrator, once he realized this had gone out, immediately corrected that, and sent out guidance that concurred with the ig recommendation that they should not in fact, do that and it was an all hands e-mail to employees. so someone at tsa thought it was appropriate to tell employees that any information given to the ig or gao had to be cleared. then once the acting person realized this they corrected it. but i want to get to that person who issued that guidance in the first place. and the reason that want to challenge you to find out who that was and to take action, is because of the issue i discovered on whistleblower retaliation. last you asked the former administrator how many senior executives at tsa had been found guilty of retaliation against whistleblowers by inspector generals, the osc or federal court. he responded come at a quarter come in the past five years neither osc or any federal court has made finding of whistleblower retaliation with respect to any senior executive at tsa. well, i was really surprised by that answer because i knew that osc had obtained corrective action for seven tsa employees who claimed retaliation in 2015 alone. and that there'd been 20 tsa whistleblower claims in the last five years. so it didn't match up what i ws being told by the administrator and what we need to be the reality in terms of whistleblower retaliation. and what we believe happen is that these cases got settled, and the managers who retaliating against their subordinates received no discipline. there was no action taken against them. there was no record that they had been discipline for whistleblower retaliation, even though these cases have been settled under that rubric. so i think that's part of the problem here. because what i think everybody who works there knows, they can retaliate against you for whistleblowing and nothing is going to happen to them. so i would like you to commit the day to looking at this issue. and i think the fact the summit at tsa sent out that email, that you can't do anything to the ig are gao without telling the boss is exhibit a, that that culture is one of the recent the people who work there have no confidence in leadership. >> senator, thank you and i will make that commitment to you. the whistleblower issue is one that concerns me greatly in tsa. it seems to me and i have not been briefed on this in detail by the agency as a nominee, but it just seems to me the whistleblower complaint are out of range and it requires a senior-level look at the entire issue. retaliating against was a loss against the it just can't be done, and anybody that does that needs to be held accountable for doing so. that creates an absolutely toxic environment in the workforce, and that's one of the things that i really think is a key role of the administrator coming in, is to try to fix that and try to get at it. so i will definitely do as you suggest. >> yeah, especially when no one is publicly disciplined. because of that since a really, know based on your background, if our military or the coast guard operated that way, you talk about morale issues. there is a sense that if you screw up, something is going to happen, and it doesn't appear to me that a tsa that has been the case. i really hope that you will follow up with you after you were confirmed to work on this specific issue because i think it's really important. >> what i will further commit to you is one of the first things i have is with osc and with the ig to understand from their perspective what the issues are. and a want of a very good relationship with them. they perform a very valuable function for the agency, and you know, i appreciate the third-party look at things set up and going on. >> the people come as a former auditor i will tell you, the people respond to an audit -- thank you, this is good, we can do better come into a much better place than those who circle the wagon and tell their employees not to tell anybody anything that's negative. it just doesn't work out. i was going to ask about the vipr programs to keep already addressed that. i do want to briefly, mr. glawe, ask you, you did mention the russian interference. based on what you know, do you have confidence the russians going to continue to try to interfere in our elections next year and in 2020? >> centecenter, thank you for te question. and the russian intelligence services are an aggressive intelligence service, and not going into a classified response, i would anticipate being an intelligence official for years, looking at the state sponsored or foreign intelligence services, that they're going to be active and aggressive intelligence service for some time. we need to be postured as an intelligence enterprise to address not just russia but other as senator tester brought up in an answer to his question was come there's many foreign intelligence organizations that are a risk to the united states and we need to be postured to address all of those and identified them before they become a substantial issue. >> i guess based on your experience in the intelligence community, would you be comfortable partnering with russian giving them access to any of our intelligence capabilities and any kind of task force? would you consider them a viable partner in terms of letting them into our systems to somehow work together in a test was against cybersecurity? would you consider that a valuable i get? >> center to come think you question my understanding that was recently discussed at a senior executive level. what i would say about partnership with intelligence organizations or foreign intelligence organizations would have to significant oversight and checks and balances to twitr agreements and partnerships we would have. maybe we have common goals with the terrorist organizations, things of that nature but it would have to be as strict and regimented type of infrastructure builder it in a partnership with an intelligence organization. >> that's a real head scratcher for me. we just voted 98-to two back to put more sanctions on russia did some of it might be a good idea for us to partner up? it was very confusing to me. finally let me just say this, and thank you, mr. chairman for your indulgence, i want to tell you, mr. pekoske, i, as someone who travels a lot, i call southwest my school bus, coming back and forth to washington every week, i'm in airports a lot and i got to tell you that i have seen a dramatic improvement in the tsa personnel and their professionalism and the processes. and i think i have a really difficult job. and it's always going to be easy to call out a bad situation, and there are bad situations that will happen everyday. we have a lot of people flying a people get frustrated and angry and nobody likes to wait in a line. and i just think overall it i compare and contrast what i was going through six, seven years ago versus now, there has been dramatic improvements. i don't think we pause often enough to thank the many women of tsa for the very difficult job they're doing under very difficult circumstances. and i just wanted to and my time at her confirmation hearing, you can carry that with you, that are people really appreciate the good work they are doing. i do think the precheck lines are getting too long because more and more people are precheck now and i now have to come at bca have to check because usually it's a lot quicker to go in life in the precheck line. i think that something to have to deal with. but all in all i think there is very few bad experiences and a whole lot of professionalism going on right now. >> ascended to come thank you very much for the comment. i will pass it along. it mirrors my experience. one of the port of things with respect to the workforce like is that there are good things that happen everyday. we don't hear about them. we need to pick leadership at those airport needs to highlight the good performance that people when they perform exceptionally well. so thank you very much for the comments. >> let me just pick up on that a little bit. i own background is in manufacturing, continuous operation. millions of pounds of plastic on but operator 24/7. can you really monotonous and yet it was material for medical devices. we couldn't have any defects in that. you have a similar process now with tsa, can be pretty monotonous. and i think a big difference, this is where i do appreciate the continuous improvement of administrator neffenger are also very impressed with the reaction last summer, that kind of flexible deployment. within the military and i stood in the military, the understanding of the finest among us about critical their mission is even though they may be deployed pretty monotonous task as well, they are sent what they're doing. that's something administrator neffenger, yourself can continue to bring to this organization that is sprayed a core, the culture, that describing to the midst of the tsa the matter what their position, they can save lives. it's just a mission is so critical and so i've not been down the tsa cowden. i would love to accompany done that or i think that's a good starting point but we just have to be looking at that continuous improvement to instill in every member of the tsa. if we could ship them more and more to an overall culture that will have instilled in the finest among us come in our military, i think of the really good step in right direction to talk to innovation. just like you talked a little, how to actually implement innovation? i'll make a suggestion from the standpoint of pilot programs. there are differences between airports. part of that might be differences in labor pool. obviously leadership makes a big difference but i think metrics, measuring, incentivizing, empowering management and then highlighting the best practices. can you speak to those concepts? >> first, thanks very, on the workforce that i greatly appreciative and i think it's similar, every person work en masse but a man on the moon. every tsa employee contributes a safe and secured at the american public. when a talking small number spear we're talking almost 800,000,000 people per year travel by air and that's not even mentioning the surface transportation security work that tsa does in partnership with the owners and operators of those systems. with respect to innovation, i look at innovation and sort of two ways. the first way is technological innovation and being able to insert technology rapidly. i 100% agree that it's very important to be able to do that. they key though is to make sure we have a successful, you could implement it. one of the things that i see with innovation programs is they start off very strong but if the workforce doesn't see what they contribute to actually finding its way into the field, then innovation broke intends to wait a little bit. so cycle time and being able to take a little bit of risk with respect to acquisition process i think is very important to be able to get that. >> but again that's technological innovation. i'm talking about workforce innovation, about how you schedule the ships, how you relate people, how often, how long are the on the screens? how do you need people around how are you flexible with your workforce? from my standpoint it is even more critical. >> that would be the second tranche is process innovation. when you're an individual works a process day in and day out five to seven days a week you know where it can be imperfect i think what tsa needs do is put a process in place with the workforce and with his recommendations of online pick in the coast guard we had a virtual innovation forum where if you had a good idea and these mostly came from or more junior members who like us that were doing the job day in and day out, you post it on a website, put your name to it and then others could make comments on it. we really crowdsourced those ideas and then we took the best of them, the ones that got a lot of very positive votes, if you will, implement them ended up rapidly. the cycle time is important from time it to somebody comes up wia good idea and sees its implement a picnic every two or three years. it's got to be quick but i agree 100%. >> as senator mccaskill is pointing out you can buy the military may not be zero-tolerance the people held accountable in the military. i think that is so important. i think it's one of the reasons you have the result in the military is, in civilian federal workforce there's not the level of accountability. it's shocking the level of retaliation even though they've been lost on the books for 100 years and we've got special counsel, inspector general and yet retaliation occurs unbelievably often. so i think that's got to be a top priority. i agree with senator mccaskill come we have to root it out. there can be no tolerance for it whatsoever. that alone will dramatically improve the morale because in organizations if you allow bad apples just continue to infect the organization, that's exactly in some happening. mr. glawe, we had a hearing about a month or two ago on transnational criminal organizations. we focus on ms-13. with your background and local law enforcement, the priorities on the homeland security side of this committee has been more security, protecting infrastructure, bad actors because become so apparent that i was a the primary root cause for unsecured borders is our insatiable demand for drugs and what that is led to the creation of the drug cartels, transnational criminal organization. as i travel around wisconsin i national security tour talking to local state and federal law enforcement, without exception it was drugs. the crime creates broken families. speak a little bit about that as your priority in terms of getting the intelligence and analyzing that so we can attack it effectively. >> chairman johnson come thank you for the question and thank you for meeting with me. i an extreme passion about it. i would argue that i'm sure our friends and family, everyone has been impacted by narcotics or substance abuse addiction. it is eroding our communities, epithets are emanating in foreign space. we have an issue with our demand that also has to have some tough policy decision on how that's going to be addressed. but empowering our state and local partners and using the fusion centers identify these threat vectors of how the cardinals are moving their supply chain narcotics into argument is, using the dark web, using encrypted communication, become sophisticate, they are worldwide nexus to move money from people and resources. to posh intelligence committee, the private sector, department of defense and law enforcement in a community approach will be critical. i look forward if confirmed working with committee if there are stovepipes or policy or legal impediments will have to drive to them because this has become just an epidemic problem in the united states. and thank you for raising it and of the 40 for the dialogue and conversation with the committee on how to address this. but it's going to be a partnership at the lowest common denominator, getting to and intelligence of the threat of private that's mitigating and changing and adaptable authentic of the cartels are brilliant sophisticated adversaries and is going to take a brilliant sophisticated network to defeat that adversary. >> when i first joined this committee one of the first phrase and was when you see one piece instead of using one fusion center. and so it does depend on personal, leadership. but and talk about what your mission is what we focus on, how can you bring different products to the table. i can't think of a better niche for you to operate in, religious transnational criminal organizations, the drug organizations, they gangs. just a scourge on our society. last one for you, vice admiral and i am a huge supporter of k-9 units at a think you'll find great deal of bipartisan support in congress for increasing the number of units we have. they don't come cheap but as we felt hearings on this, there is no technology that can beat the nose of a dog. and with the new emerging threats in terms of explosive and smaller devices i think is critical. i guess, i definitely want to work with you to do everything we can to find the resources and i just looking for a commitment to k-9 units. [inaudible] >> i'm also a huge fan of k-9 units. i have experience working with them in my coast guard background. i think they are super at detecting and also super at deterring behavior purposely of my commitment to to give her a close at the that's one of the ways we can really improve the effectiveness of security. >> i'll tell you one of the things i like about this committee is a members attend. the ask excellent question. i kind of like this technique and we let our call it asked question. i've run out of them, so let me just say that i mentioned the fifth, the fact we're committed to making sure the secretary, undersecretary come everybody in dysfunction of trying to keep our homeland safe and secure that you succeed in your mission. so we are dedicated doing that. let me just say let us, help us help you. you've got to communicate with us. we want to do everything we can to thwart he your mission becaue it's just so critical. so get i want to thank you for your past service, your willingness to serve again. thank your family members. you see them less because these are such important jobs, and we are just so appreciative you willing to serve their nation once again in these important capacities. vice admiral has made financial disclosure and divided responses to cut question without objection this would be made part of the record. the hearing record with a the financial data which are on file and available for public inspection in the committee offices. .. how -- [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> you can watch this hearing began online at our website c-span.org. mr. related to homeland security come "the new york times" reported yesterday that the trump administration said it would lay and eliminate down the line a federal role that would let foreign entrepreneurs come to the united states to begin company good ahead of the official announcement today, the move as quickly spammed by business leaders and organizations especially from a technology sector which has benefited heavily from startups founded by immigrants. today's announcement is extremely disappointing and represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the critical role immigrant entrepreneurs played during the next generation of american companies, unquote. national venture capital association said in a statement. the hill has this story. republican senate leaders moving toward this week on legislation to repeal and replace the major parts of obamacare despite positions within the conference. leaders will bring frank and other republican senators on revisions they have made to the legislation in an effort to bridge the gap between moderates and conservatives. they expect to make the revised bill public later in the week and get a score from the congressional budget office before bringing it to the floor for a vote. senate rub