[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMMITTEE FUNDING FOR THE 113TH CONGRESS (DAY 1)
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 5, 2013
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan, Chairman
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
PHIL GINGREY, M.D., Georgia Ranking Minority Member
AARON SCHOCK, Illinois ZOE LOFGREN, California
TODD ROKITA, Indiana JUAN VARGAS, California
RICHARD NUGENT, Florida
------
Professional Staff
Kelly Craven, Staff Director
Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director
COMMITTEE FUNDING FOR THE 113TH CONGRESS (DAY 1)
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TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on House Administration,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:44 a.m., in Room
1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Candice S. Miller
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Harper, Gingrey, Schock,
Nugent, Brady, and Vargas.
Staff Present: Kelley Craven, Staff Director; Phil Kiko,
General Counsel; Peter Schalestock, Deputy General Counsel;
Kimani Little, Parliamentarian; Joe Wallace, Legislative Clerk;
Yael Barash, Assistant Legislative Clerk; Salley Wood,
Communications Director; Bob Sensenbrenner, Elections Counsel;
George Hadjiski, Director of Member Services; Richard Cappetto,
Professional Staff; Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director; Matt
Pinkus, Senior Policy Analyst; Matt Defreitas, Minority
Professional Staff; Thomas Hicks, Minority Elections Counsel;
Greg Abbott, Minority Professional Staff and Eddie Flaherty,
Minority Professional Staff.
The Chairman. Good morning everyone, I will now call to
order the committee on House Administration for today's hearing
on the Committee Funding for 113th Congress. The hearing record
remained open for 5 legislative days so that members might
submit any materials that they wish to have included. And a
quorum is present so we can proceed.
I want to thank everyone for being here this morning, and
this process, while a bit lengthy--it is going to expand over 2
days as we hear from all the committee chairmen--is very
necessary, I think, to our deliberations on committee funding
levels. And certainly even more important as we think about
what is happening with the cuts with sequestration.
I think it is important as we listen to everybody's
testimony today, and certainly the committee understands the
importance of each of the committee's work, how incredibly
important they are, what a critical component they are really
of the vital responsibility that we have in the Congress to
oversee our Federal agencies, and of course, we have limited
resources to do that. So we have a task that demands efficiency
as well.
Of course, the legislative branch resources that we have
pales in comparison to the executive branch; we have about a
trillion dollars less. And yet our responsibility is to oversee
these agencies on behalf of the American taxpayers. Our job is
to ensure that the hard-earned money taxpayers provide for
government is spent effectively, efficiently and as
transparently as possible. I think that is what makes our
process that we undertake today and tomorrow--over the next 2
days, we are going to hear from every House committee about how
they plan to allocate and prioritize their resources and how
they are going to become even more efficient; ``doing more with
less'' is sort of the buzz phrase here.
As we all know, last Friday, OMB issued its sequestration
order detailing the automatic spending cuts, and although the
cuts are going to mean a little bit different to every branch,
every agency, every employee, it will mean something to every
one, including every Member of Congress. And certainly for this
committee, we all understand the reality of these reductions on
committee operations. Of course, as I mentioned, every Member
of Congress is also looking at an 8.2 percent cut to our own
MRAs, so we have to certainly lead by example and to control
our government spending.
In addition to hearing from every committee about how they
are going to implement these cuts, we certainly are looking
forward to hearing about how they plan to manage their
resources, adhering to the two-thirds/one-third allocation. As
some of you might recall, the one-third allocation was
championed by our ranking member at that time, House
Administration Ranking Member Bill Thomas, in the 103rd
Congress, when the Republicans were in the minority, so I think
this is an important--it has been a tradition for quite a few
Congresses.
And I am pleased to report that for the last 16 years, the
one-third rule has been supported by not just the majority but
the minority party, whether it was Republicans or Democrats,
and we will be looking forward to this bipartisan agreement, I
think, for many, many years to come. Again, I want to thank all
the members for being here and the ranking members and the
chairmen.
And we are going to begin with House Rules, and we
certainly welcome Chairman Pete Sessions and Louise Slaughter,
both of you do a great job, on Rules.
I ask the official reporter to enter a page into the
hearing record as we begin this section.
The Chairman. The Committee on Rules has a very long
history and the important job of presenting to the House the
pieces of legislation for its consideration, its priority in
the 113th Congress is to maintain its very high standard of
establishing the parameters of floor consideration for the
pieces of legislation we collectively consider and deliberate
upon.
So we welcome both the chairman and the ranking member, and
we would open the floor to Chairman Sessions for his testimony
to the committee, sir.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETE SESSIONS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. Sessions. Chairman Miller, thank you very much, both
Louise Slaughter, former chairman of the Rules Committee and I
wish to approach this committee very respectfully, not only to
you, Chairman Miller, but also former Chairman Brady who
allowed us to testify a few years ago about the needs of the
Rules Committee.
I might also with some great deal of respect acknowledge
the gentleman Mr. Nugent, who serves on the Rules Committee,
who and has a clear understanding of whatever we do. And I
would hope in this committee's deliberations and review of the
things which you are requesting would feel free to talk with
Congressman Nugent, not only about the diligence by which we go
about our work, but also I think the frugality that is involved
with us effectively using the resources which you so graciously
give to us.
You know, as I come before you it kind of reminds me of an
old saying, gosh, if I had known I was going to live that long,
I would have taken better care of myself. I might say to you
today that the Rules Committee I believe has done a very good
job of taking care of itself before today, but once again, we
show up with some needs that we have, not only to our mission
statement but also what lies ahead.
Certainly, the Rules Committee has been working with your
staff to try and give you a clear and better understanding and
us hearing from you about your ideas and needs about our
service and what we do. First of all, let me say this, the
things which we do are at the service for the entire House of
Representatives. We serve people 24 hours a day. We have not
only Web sites that need to be updated with legislation but
ideas. Perhaps, maybe over a weekend, someone will decide that
we are going to post a bill; we need to make sure that we are
available with Twitter; all Web sites, we need to make sure
that we are leading edge in what we do. We need to make sure
that we are available to print out thousands of copies at the
last minute. We need to make sure we are open and available as
a service product to the House of Representatives.
The down side to that is if we are not, it means it is not
only the prestige of the House of Representatives but also can
cost the entire body overtime, inefficiency and frustration. I
don't need to remind you that a few years ago, when the
official board, voting board went down, it caused great
frustration. While I had no real part of that, I remember it
well that the things which are inherent to the operation, the
successful operation, of the House of Representatives must be
done.
So, with that said, both Mrs. Slaughter and I approach you
respectfully today to help you understand several things. First
of all, we do not have a travel budget. We do not have
something that we can cut or manage on a moving-forward basis.
We have by and large taken ourselves down to the bare bones.
However, we have needs, needs that happen. Every couple of
years, we burn through computers. We have new technology that
we have to manage and make available. And we have needs of
printed copies, doing things to where we reproduce things for
the benefit of the majority and the minority on a timely manner
to make sure that they are all available to people. We do not
have at our pleasure four or five subcommittees, each with
printers. We have one upstairs that produces what we need. And
we need to be able to buy new equipment because we wear through
what we have.
What we do at the Rules Committee is a service to the House
of Representatives, and we believe that our efficiency comes
not just from our ability to get better every few years with
technology, but we also believe that the service we provide is
there on a 24-hour basis to make sure that the entire House of
Representatives works well.
Now the core functions of what we do are what we are
talking about doing; we are not talking about going out and
making any grand scheme or going out and creating something
that would necessarily help save us millions of dollars later.
What we are talking about is basic functions that need to be
covered. And so, as a result of that, I would submit to this
committee, we have already taken that cut, and that we believe
that any review and analysis of that would say that if we did
take a cut, we would be putting ourselves at risk for the
entire House of Representatives, for others to be prepared and
to move efficiently. And so we are asking, at least I am today,
and I believe Mrs. Slaughter would be asking the same, to
carefully review us and understand that a hit to our budget
that the chairwoman has spoken of, that I in my office,
personal office, will willingly accept but that this committee
had prepared itself last term and done that. So we are asking a
very careful, thorough review.
And I appreciate the opportunity to be before you here
today, thank you very much.
[The statement of Mr. Sessions follows:]
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The Chairman. I thank the gentleman for the comments.
The chair now recognizes the ranking member of the Rules
Committee, Ms. Slaughter.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. LOUISE SLAUGHTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Ms. Slaughter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member
Brady, and all the other members of the committee. I am pleased
to join with my new chairman, Pete Sessions, in presenting the
Rules Committee budget request for 2013.
I want to begin by saying that although Chairman Sessions
and I have worked together for many years on the Rules
Committee, this is our first appearance before you since he
became chairman. And I want to express my appreciation to him
for the warm collegiality he has shown to me and all members of
the minority since he became chairman.
Ours can be one of the most boisterous committees of the
House, but we have a long tradition of working in a bipartisan
fashion when it comes to the efficient operation and
administration of our committee. I am grateful that Chairman
Sessions has chosen to continue that tradition and especially
that he plans to continue the policy of dedicating one-third of
the committee's overall budget to the minority. I fully support
our chairman's request to the House Administration Committee,
and I, too, am glad Mr. Nugent is here, because I think he can
certify us.
Right, Mr. Nugent?
Mr. Nugent. Absolutely.
Ms. Slaughter. As the chairman said, we take very serously
our responsibility to tighten our belts and to reduce costs in
every way that we can. We have done our share over the last 2
years. In fact, the Rules Committee achieved a 12.4 percent cut
in our authorized level over the 112th Congress. We were able
to make that cut in the last round, and we continue to be ready
to do our share.
But as the chairman stated, the Rules Committee is a unique
institution in the House, founded in 1789; it has been
important to the runnings of the House of Representatives ever
since. We are small. We have a lean budget, but we are very
efficient. The most important distinction is the fact that we
do not control our own work flow or our schedule. Our agenda is
set by the leadership, and we must be able to act at a moment's
notice. We have markups almost every single week, sometimes
more than one.
We do not have the option of using many of the traditional
tools for reducing committee costs. We cannot postpone our
meetings to save money. We cannot combine our hearings to
reduce duplication. When the agenda of the House calls for
action, the Rules Committee must be available no matter the
hour.
Furthermore, delays at the Rules Committee have significant
multiplier affects on the cost of operating the House. When we
take longer to do our job, the House must remain in session,
and that means all of the personnel, the police officers, the
Chamber security, the clerks, the Official Reporters and the
recording studio personnel must remain on duty and will often
be earning overtime. Even short delays can cost the House tens
of thousands of dollars.
Finally, I appreciate my chairman's point that since our
budget is small, the proposed cuts will have the largest effect
on the minority, where smaller cuts can have a larger relative
impact. If we must absorb the higher level of cuts under
consideration, the minority will have to choose between
essential administrative services and adequate staffing.
Madam Chairwoman, we are very proud of our committee. We
provide an essential and a cost-efficient service to the House,
and we have a long tradition of accomplishing that task with
bipartisan comity, no matter the intensity of our disagreement
on the underlying policy issues. And therefore, I am pleased to
support my chairman's request that the committee be funded at a
level that will allow us to continue to provide that same kind
of service to the House.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Slaughter follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you very much.
I just have one question, I guess, in regards to
technology, listening to you talk about all of the printing in
particular that you have done. I have had the pleasure of
testifying before the Rules Committee in the past, and I would
just comment--I am sure everybody has--it is run so incredibly
professionally on both sides, I think, very well, but there is
a lot of paperwork that has to go through there, as you say, to
keep the House running.
Ms. Slaughter. Yes.
The Chairman. Have you really explored, I am sure you have,
the various kinds of technologies that might assist you with--
you buy a new printer--you mentioned the upstairs printer--
those kinds of things or if there is anything that our
committee can help you with, duplicative kinds of things, that
we may be able to resource you with as well, have you looked at
those kinds of things?
Mr. Sessions. In fact, I believe we have. In some
conversations, I believe, that have taken place between our
staffs, the Rules Committee began a discussion 3 or 4 years ago
about how we were going to adapt ourselves to the needs of
Members. For instance, iPads several years ago became more
functional, and people came to us and said, your output doesn't
allow me a chance to get it on my iPad. Well, we had to go back
and figure out how to do that.
Increasingly as the complexity of technology has changed,
we have tried to do the same. Once again, our budgets and our
limitations have been met very seriously internally as we have
tried to adapt ourselves. Those of us that are on the
Republican side might remember there was a vigorous debate when
we reorganized about what is available through the Rules
Committee to CRS, back and forth with OMB, and how we
effectively work together. These have all been important
debates we find ourselves trying to meet the minimum needs of
Members. We are a supply-oriented body, and I think that Ms.
Slaughter very effectively not only laid out how essential our
services are but that we have people coming to us asking for
more and more, and there is only so much we can do at one time.
Now as it relates to the actual printing operations that we
have, that is perhaps the most essential thing that I would lay
before you today, not that we are a bare bones organization,
not that we necessarily would be available, as Ms. Slaughter
suggested, at a drop of a hat, at the whim of anyone who needs
our services, but actually the production of what we do. And I
believe I could successfully say to you today, every couple of
years, we wear out our machines, and we need that ability to be
able to stay leading edge with the essential services we
provide, and then we are trying to get beyond that for
technology.
The Chairman. Okay.
With that, I would recognize our ranking member, and I
apologize for not recognizing him for his opening statement.
Mr. Brady. You don't need to hear an opening statement from
me. I am fine, Madam Chairman. Thank you.
You know, about 12, 13 years ago, when I first got here, I
really wanted to get on the Rules Committee. I tried for a
couple of years, and boy, am I thankful Dick Gephardt didn't
put me on it, because without question, you are the hardest-
working committee there is.
You know, it is ironic that I have been here for a while,
and I just asked my staff, where is the request? It is the
first time we didn't get a request sheet. We are trying to keep
a status quo and hopefully not a major cut sheet. But I will
vote with Mr. Nugent to give you a percentage increase if you
like; I don't have any problem with that.
But I also hate to lead by example, Madam Chairman. I hate
to lead by example. But it is what it is. We have the cuts.
Everybody is taking them, our staffs, our committees.
The only thing I would have and I would probably--the only
real question I would have with a whole lot of these committees
is, can you function with a cut? Are you able to get quality
people to come in? Are you able to keep people that are quality
people when you are cutting their salary, while I am sure that
they have friends and people they associate with socially or
whatever are making more money than they are making and, on
your committee especially, aren't working the same hours? So
that is the only issue and problem I have with all the
committees that have come in front of us: Can you keep the
staff that you have with them taking a furlough or a cut? Do
you have the opportunity to even attract any other staff
members that can do the work that needs to be done on these
committees?
Ms. Slaughter. We are very proud of our staff, Mr. Brady.
I will tell you I think they are probably the hardest-
working people on the Hill, but they are also in demand in the
City of Washington because of the skills they could bring to a
better job with much higher pay.
We have been very blessed so far because the people who
work at the Rules Committee seem so dedicated to what they are
doing. The hours that they keep, I think, would astonish a lot
of people here. But I think we are going to see that, and I am
greatly concerned about whether or not we are going to be able
to keep really good people. We don't know yet. I hope so,
because I have never worked with finer people on both sides in
our committee. The skills that you have on the Rules Committee
I think are very unique. They understand exactly how the House
works and all legislation, and they have institutional memories
that are unsurpassed. We really want to keep them, and it is a
very big concern that with larger cuts, we will have to make
changes in staffing, and that would really be a loss I think to
the House.
Mr. Brady. Thank you.
That is all I have, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Mississippi, Mr. Harper.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank each of you for the hard work that you do. I know
that sometimes a thankless late-night job that you each have to
do; you do it well, and I am very impressed with the staff on
both sides and how you do that.
At this point, are each minority, majority staff, are you
fully staffed at this point?
Mr. Sessions. We are.
Ms. Slaughter. Yes.
Mr. Sessions. And I believe Ms. Slaughter is.
Ms. Slaughter. We had a part-time vacancy last year, but we
are fully staffed.
Mr. Sessions. But once again, with a moving forward
viewpoint, it would cause us to necessarily make changes in
staff or in some other area, and that is the reality of where
we are.
Ms. Slaughter. And that would be difficult because,
frankly, I really do believe that our staff, because of fact
that they are so accomplished at what they are doing, a loss of
any one of them would cause us some serious problems.
Mr. Harper. As you look at how to address the cuts that you
may face, I am sure you will look at every other option first.
Ms. Slaughter. Yes.
Mr. Harper. Before that comes about. Is that what you are
in the process of?
Mr. Sessions. In fact, that is an insightful request and
perhaps question to us. We believe very clearly, Mr. Harper,
that a delay of things that we would take could at some point
mean that our printer would be broken. And I think people learn
around here, you just don't go get another new printer. And we
would have to do that to operate day to day every day. And so
we wear through and believe we have, through not just Ms.
Slaughter's experience and staff experience, but our experience
in understanding what is key and critical, and so there could
be people laid off in order just to buy a printer to avoid
costing more money later. Those are decisions that we are
asking you to help us with also, and obviously, your answer
will dictate that to us.
And that is why we are trying to say, notwithstanding, I
accept these on my personal side, I think we have done a good
job, Ms. Slaughter, when she was the chairman of the committee,
and Mr. Dreier, as he made choices. Now we are where we are. We
believe in what you are doing, but we are trying to give you a
hint into the decision making. You will be a part of that
decision making by what you give us.
Mr. Harper. Thanks to both of you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The chair recognizes Mr. Vargas from California for any
question he may have.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you
for the opportunity to be here.
My question was going to be just simply about staff
retention. And I think you answered it, unless you wanted to
add anything to that, but that was my concern.
Ms. Slaughter. It is just that a loss of these people with
such skills that are so important to the House, it would not
just be a loss to the Rules Committee but a loss to the House
of Representatives. And as I pointed out before, I think this
needs to be said again, they are very valuable outside the
House. We can name people in very key spots in the City of
Washington who had their experience on the Rules Committee.
They are premium employees for people in Washington.
Mr. Sessions. I think what Mrs. Slaughter has said, I agree
with. I am entering now my 15th year associated with the
committee, of being on the committee. And I will tell you that
some of the things we do is to talk people into or out of
things they wish to do. But people seek information from both
sides. They seek information about the best way to accomplish
what they are trying to do. And a lot of times that is
communication, and the staff level is very important. You don't
really remember everything, I don't as a Member. But I know
that, on both sides, we have the ability to work together and
to remind each other what the past has been, what precedent has
been set and how we can go about allowing each side, as they
choose to operate within some parameters that do not embarrass
a Member and likewise does not harm the institution that we
serve. The betterment so that we are seen to the outside in a
thoughtful way, that is what our senior leadership is about.
And Mr. Vargas, I will tell you, it is probably never more
apparent than Rules Committee because that is where the focus
seems to come before a piece of legislation you know that will
be on the floor. So both Ms. Slaughter and I are very concerned
about how we temper our words with each other, the signals that
I send her and the signals that she sends me; it has a lot to
do with whether the team believes we are able to work together
and that is directly related to the senior staff that we have
at the committee.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Georgia, Mr. Gingrey, a former Rules Committee.
Mr. Gingrey. Madam Chair, thank you.
I actually had a bit of an opening statement, and I will
just submit that for the record. But I do want to thank you for
calling this hearing today on committee funding for the 113th
Congress.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Gingrey. And you are right, Madam Chair, I had a very
good one term on, unfortunately, only one term serving on the
Rules Committee, and without question, I think the Rules
Committee is one of the most important, if not the most
important, committee in the House of Representatives because
without it, we couldn't function. The House of Representatives
would not function without a strong minority and a strong
majority.
When you go to the Rules Committee, as all of us have done
with our amendments from time to time and you think that all
they do is argue and fuss and they sound like probably an all
American debating club, each and every member of the Rules
Committee is absolutely perfect in understanding the Rules of
the House and articulating their side to a degree of excellence
you won't see anywhere else on any other committee.
So I did want to commend Ranking Member Slaughter and
Chairman Sessions for the great work that you do.
I want to ask one question because this is--we are going
have to come back with a resolution in regard to your budget
and understanding it is probably bare bones and I am sure it is
bare bones in considering the 12, 14 percent cut last year, and
now we are looking at the sequester and an additional who knows
how much percent cut.
Let me ask you this, Mr. Sessions, in your testimony, you
mentioned that, and I quote, ``Costs that could be born more
effectively by the Rules Committee will instead be shifted to
the House and other legislative branch agencies at a much
higher cost.'' Could you provide examples of those costs and
which types of activities would have to be shifted out of your
committee on to one of the other committees?
Mr. Sessions. Yes, sir, and thank you for the thoughtful
question, because in fact, that is the essence of what I
believe Ms. Slaughter and I believe is an essential service
product of the Rules Committee. As you are aware serving on the
Rules Committee, we may meet at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. We
try to meet different times now to help in fact with the cost
of the House overtime and other things that happen as a result
of all the buildings need to stay open as we are open for
business.
If we and our services are impeded or delayed, computer
delay, printer delay, receiving information, transmitting on a
timely fashion following the Rules of the House, then that
means that others have to bear a cost as a result of our
mistakes or inefficiencies. So I am asking you, as you have
carefully understood, if you allow us to do our bare bones
service that we need to do without--with some understanding
that if we fail in our mission, it may cost other departments,
other areas of this business, an extensive amount of money that
would eat up the $12,000 or $15,000 that we would have gotten a
computer; if we are broken down one time with a printer or
computer, we would have eaten that up just in one time. So I
think we do have a job to do and would say to you if we cannot
meet our basic services, others pay the burden.
Mr. Gingrey. Ms. Slaughter, would you like to add?
Ms. Slaughter. Yes, just to restate what Chairman Sessions
said, if we don't have the ability to do our job, what we would
have to pay in overtime would be much more than giving us the
budget in the first place so that we are able to function. As
you know, the House does not meet unless Rules has put
something on the floor to work on other than suspensions. So we
can really bring the place to a halt. It would be awful if we
did that because of equipment failure because we did not have
an adequate budget. So the costs go far beyond what our
committee does; they affect the whole House.
Mr. Gingrey. I thank both of you. I thank you for your
great work.
Madam Chair, I yield back. I think my time has expired.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
And the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois,
Mr. Schock.
Mr. Schock. Thank, Chairwoman.
I don't have any questions. I just want to add my praise
and thanks to the good work you both do. It is an important
committee to this institution and one that I don't envy you to
run, but--I think you laid out a good argument, a good case for
your lean, mean budget being maintained. I think the challenge
for this committee will be the sequestration affecting all of
us how do we go about restoring a committee or a portion of
your cut and what effect that has on the rest of the committees
that come before us. So, anyway, I have heard you, and you made
a good case, and I will follow the chairwoman's lead on what we
can do to help you out. Thanks for what you do.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Nugent, also a member of the Rules Committee.
Mr. Nugent. Madam Chair, I appreciate your recognizing me.
The opportunity to serve on Rules obviously has been an eye
opener for me, to say the least. I am on my second term now
going into Rules, and we see this all the time, particularly as
it relates to getting a piece of legislation so the whole House
has the opportunity to hear it, to debate it, whether it is on
amendments or the underlying legislation. I myself have had to
go down to the floor at 2:00 in the morning to bring a rule
forward so we could actually debate it on the floor the next
day. So when you talk about computers, everybody goes, well,
everybody has a computer. But when you talk about the lack of
equipment that we have, when we talk that we only have one
printer, what would that do to us if that printer goes belly
up? Obviously, it delays the proceedings, and we have all these
other folks on queue ready to go, whether it is the
Parliamentarian or security force or whoever, how do we get
around that?
Mr. Sessions. Well, first of all, let me say that I believe
the committee effectively under Ms. Slaughter and Mr. Dreier
well understood their basic mission, and with the money that
was made available, there were normal and natural things that
they knew they needed to do literally every 2 years because of
a mentality of serving that customer. I think several years
ago, we recognized as technology, I will use the word leapt
forward or leaped forward, whatever is appropriate--if Virginia
Foxx were here, she would be my English teacher--as it might
be, as people have needs, we then used what extra money we had,
outside of that basic model of customer service, and tried to
then serve Members and other people that we have.
We are now saying we made some changes in computers, in
programs to enable people and now we are faced with basic
services, so we are making you wander a mile in our sandals,
and we are trying to say we have put off now buying that new
printer that we first of all essentially did that had to take
place right off the bat. And I think it would be a mistake for
me to come up here and say, look, as a arch conservative, I
believe everything we ought to do, we ought to fall in line;
Chairwoman, you can count on us to be right there with you and
to do what I believe a Member needs to do. As a chairman, I
don't want to argue we are more important than anybody. What I
would argue is, it is not something that we believe we should
put ourselves at risk for. We have tried to cut everything else
out, and that is why we are saying to you, Mr. Nugent, if
something went out at 2:00 in the morning, and by the way,
things do happen bad at 2:00 in the morning----
Mr. Nugent. Murphy's Law.
Mr. Sessions. It means it would delay everybody. We would
have to get a computer person, reprogram things, get them out,
simply to be ready to do work the next day. And in that
process, it would mean perhaps tens of thousands of dollars as
personnel were around watching us get our job done.
Louise.
Ms. Slaughter. I couldn't say it better. I think you
covered that quite adequately. We really need to be funded so
we can keep the House moving.
Mr. Nugent. Your funding level, obviously, is staff-
intensive.
Ms. Slaughter. Yes.
Mr. Nugent. It is not a big staff, though.
Ms. Slaughter. No.
Mr. Nugent. And I will tell you that whether it is minority
staff or majority staff, they both do a fantastic job, but it
really is the institutional knowledge.
Ms. Slaughter. Absolutely.
Mr. Nugent. How do you replace that?
Ms. Slaughter. Let me tell you, as far as I am concerned,
Hugh and Miles, who are the chiefs of staff, are the best on
this Hill, and everybody recognizes that. We hear from other
committees all the time. We are very helpful to other people in
parliamentary proceedings and numbers of things that they were
able to help them with.
Mr. Nugent. Well, without that parliamentary aspect of it,
we don't do our business as a House of Representatives.
Ms. Slaughter. The House comes to a halt, absolutely.
Mr. Nugent. I want to thank both of you for your service,
whether you are in the minority or the majority, it could be
either way, but we certainly do appreciate both of you.
Ms. Slaughter. Well, we appreciate having you on the
committee with us, and we sure appreciate having you here
because we know you are going to plead our case.
Mr. Nugent. I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
I certainly want to thank both the chairman and the ranking
member for coming. Your testimony has been excellent, very
poignant. And my last comment would be I certainly associate
myself with all of the various remarks about the
professionalism of staff.
I know, Miles, certainly on your side, and on our side,
there is always a steady line up behind Hugh, asking them this
and asking them that about every rule that is going on here, so
they are a valuable resource, not just for the Rules Committee
but for the entire House.
Ms. Slaughter. And the fact that they are friends and that
we all work together I think makes the committee work
extraordinarily well.
Mr. Sessions. Chairwoman, if I could ask, I have some
talking points, some of which I covered, some of which have
been made available to you, I know this committee, just like we
do, goes into extensive deliberations, and you are trying to
make tough choices, I would like to ask, if I could, to enter
those into that the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Sessions. And I think if Louise, if she wanted to put
hers in, it would allow you later, as you go back over and make
tough choices, to remember us being here today and what we were
trying to impart to you. And with great respect, both Louise
and I, thank you for your time today.
The Chairman. Thank you both very much. Appreciate it.
Before we get to the Ways and Means, I would just ask
unanimous consent to enter the following documents into the
hearing record, which are a statement from myself, as the
chairman of this committee, and a budget request materials that
we have to submit as our own committee to ourselves really for
the committee on House Administration. And without objection to
the request, that is so ordered.
[The information follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.016
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The Chairman. The chair now welcomes Chairman Dave Camp and
Ranking Member Sandy Levin from the Committee on Ways and
Means. I would ask the official reporter to enter a page break
into the record as we move on to the Ways and Means.
The Chairman. Obviously, Ways and Means is the chief tax-
writing committee in the House. Its jurisdiction extends to tax
system, trade agreements, Social Security, Medicare. And its
priorities in the 113th include comprehensive tax reform and
implementation of recently passed trade agreements.
With that, the committee would recognize the chairman of
Ways and Means, Dave Camp from Michigan, the great State of
Michigan.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DAVE CAMP, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Camp. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and Ranking Member
Brady, and members of the committee.
I am here today to present the proposed budget for the
Committee on Ways and Means for the 113th Congress, and I am
joined by our Ranking Member Sandy Levin.
As you consider how to allocate funding between the
different House committees, I ask that you keep in mind the
Ways and Means Committee's past record of fiscal restraint and
aggressive agenda that is before us this Congress.
As the panel with jurisdiction over so many aspects of our
economy, it is critical to consider how decisions made about
committee budgets will affect our ability to advance the
country's number one priority, and that is strengthening the
economy to generate much needed job creation.
Assuring this committee has the resources to fill that
mission is essential. In the 112th Congress, the Ways and Means
Committee held 112 hearings, and 18 business meetings. Of the
68 major pieces of legislation that became law last Congress,
more than 1 out of every 4 of those laws came out of the Ways
and Means Committee. That is just part of the story.
As you know, much of the work is left to languish in the
Senate. All told, the committee had 54 bills considered on the
floor of the House last Congress, more than one for every week
we were in session. Some of the major laws enacted include the
repeal of the onerous 1099 IRS paperwork mandate, passage of
three long-stalled trade agreements, reform of trade adjustment
assistance and reform of the Federal unemployment program.
We also began to lay the groundwork for comprehensive tax
reform by holding over 20 hearings, public hearings, including
3 joint hearings with the Senate, the first in over 70 years,
as well as work on discussion drafts to reform our outdated
international tax system and the taxation of financial products
by Wall Street--created by Wall Street.
Both full committee and the six subcommittees will continue
to be very active this Congress. The committee is going to
focus on comprehensive tax reform, which is needed to make the
Tax Code simpler and fairer and to strengthen our economy and
to create more jobs and higher wages; international trade
policy, issues to expand our opportunities to sell American
goods and services around the world, including a potential
trade agreement with Europe, and completing work on the Trans-
Pacific Partnership, a critical counterbalance to China's
economic growth and dominance in the region; improving the
Nation's welfare and job training programs to advance job
readiness and strengthen families; addressing entitlement
reform to protect critical safety net programs like Social
Security and Medicare; and vigorous oversight matters within
our jurisdiction, including the implementation of Obamacare.
The technical nature of the policies of each issue
increases the staffing costs of the committee. Most staff have
advanced degrees, whether it is in law, tax law, economics or
public policy, as well as years of experience in and outside of
government. Nevertheless, our staff is relatively small. The
committee's funding was reduced by approximately 13 percent
last Congress, as a result 8 staff slots on the majority side
are vacant. Further cuts would critically hinder our ability to
conduct the aggressive legislative and oversight agenda I have
mentioned.
As for the minority's budget, we have a long tradition at
the committee of the minority receiving a full one-third of the
entire committee budget and staff. In addition to receiving
their allocation, the minority spends their money as they see
fit without interference from the majority, and I will continue
that practice in the 113th Congress.
I want to thank the chairman and members of the committee
for this opportunity to present our budget request and
justification for that, and I look forward to any questions you
may have.
[The statement of Mr. Camp follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.020
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the ranking member, the other
gentleman from the great State of Michigan, Mr. Levin.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. SANDER LEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Levin. Great State. You describe us so well. Also, you
described our jurisdiction very well, Madam Chair, as our chair
of the committee has.
As is no secret, we have differences on many issues, there
is no difference about the importance of this committee, and
you have described it well, Mr. Chairman.
So I really have little to add, except to emphasize how
there is an allocation to the minority. That has been true in
this committee all the years I have been on, 26 years. And we
do well with money that is allocated to us.
Let me just emphasize the squeeze, we have three vacancies,
and we are not able to fill them. At the same time, we really
this session have increased work because of the problems
confronting this country. And so I know you have a difficult
job, you need to look at each committee and its work, and I
hope very much that you will be able to do that and to
essentially evaluate the work and the needs of each committee
on its own. I am sure you will do that, so that we will be able
to continue to function well in terms of an immensely talented
staff.
All of you really rely on our staff and when you have
issues relating to taxes, health, trade issues, whatever, you
call upon our staff as well as your own. And we need to be able
to sustain and, if possible, expand by filling some vacancies.
So thank you for hearing us, and both of us are here for my
questions.
[The statement of Mr. Levin follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.021
The Chairman. I appreciate your testimony and your
comments.
And I would say to both of you, certainly myself, and I am
sure every Member on our committee and in the House has had an
opportunity to interact with your staffs and have always been
unbelievably impressed with the professionalism and what a
critical component they are of keeping the House running and
making sure that all of our questions are answered.
And as the chairman just pointed out, one of every four
pieces of legislation came from the Ways and Means at the last
session, so 54 bills. That is--I hadn't realized it was quite
that many, but it seems like every bill was coming out of Ways
and Means. So I know you are very, very active.
My only question would be from this particular committee,
we really are trying to help with sort of some of the
enterprise kinds of things that might be able to assist some of
the other committees, utilizing new technology and that kind of
thing. I am not sure if I am asking you a question, but if
there is anything that we can do from our committee to assist
you with duplicative kinds of things, we might be able to
resource you a bit with, we certainly stand by in that regard
as well.
Mr. Camp. Well, Madam Chairman, to the extent that we have
been able to, we have tried to go paperless and use technology
and particularly in the miscellaneous tariff bill process that
was a big help to us. I think that there might be an
opportunity if we could find a way for committee offices to use
the House cloud, because that might possibly--we have obviously
created our own internal cloud, but it might reduce, in terms
of servers, backup systems, I think that is something I would
like our staff to explore with House Administration as a
potential for some savings in the future.
The Chairman. You can be assured, Chairman, that our
committee has taken a note, our staff has taken a note of that,
and we will be in contact with your staff director as well and
see what we can do. I am sure there is a way we can assist.
Mr. Levin. I don't have much to add on that.
I think there is a very active, at times intimate,
relationship between all the committees and the staff of our
committee as well as Members. Just recently, you and I began to
work on a matter of joint interest, and we just have a staff
that is really available, not only to us but to everybody. And
I hope you will just very much keep that in mind, I know you
will, as you decide your difficult task.
I hope--we know that some reductions are coming; there
already have been some. I just hope you will keep in mind the
salient activities of this committee, because your work is at
stake, as well as the chairman and mine and all the members of
the committee.
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the ranking member,
gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and Ranking Member Levin, for being here today.
My question is the same that I have, it bothers me we have
to do these certain cuts. You mentioned your staff. I know you
have specialties, a lot of your staff people have to have
specialties with what you do. Do you have a problem keeping
them? And with getting all these reductions, because I am sure
a lot of them, I know a few myself personally, could make a
whole lot more money someplace else with a whole lot less
hours? And do you have a problem attracting them at the money
that you have allocated to you that you can only afford to pay
them? In other words, you have staff that may leave because
they can't--there is so much loyalty, I guess, for lack of a
better word, that staff have toward each other, but when they
are out there and mingling with peers and they are doubling and
tripling the money that they make, they have to feed families,
too. And then to keep them is one thing, and to attract other
staff when you do have a vacancy and you can hire somebody, do
you have that problem, trying to find somebody who will come in
for the amount of money that we can pay them?
Mr. Camp. Well, your point is correct; many of the staff,
first of all, as Mr. Levin has pointed out, we have an
excellent dedicated staff who not only answer tax questions for
members of the committee but for Members of Congress who are
working on tax matters because of the highly technical nature
of all of that. Many of them have advanced degrees and great
experience. We have a number of long-time staff members on the
committee, but you are correct, our committee staff do very
well if they move into the private sector, and we do have that
issue.
The other point in terms of vacancies now is we have been
anticipating sequester. Obviously, having been a member of the
supercommittee, I knew this was coming. And so this is
something we anticipated, but it is also very difficult to
bring on very highly trained and educated people for a
temporary spot. So I didn't consider it fair to be hiring a
chief economist when that slot might not necessarily be able to
be there. So we have got these vacancies as a result of both
last Congress as well as anticipating what may happen. But yes,
our staff, as they go into the private sector end up doing
several times more than the salary we pay them here.
Mr. Levin. I will just add briefly to your excellent
question, a lot of the staff, so much of it in my experience in
26 years, they stay because of their dedication. And there is a
tendency in this country at times to criticize public service,
but I think the test of their dedication is, for so many of
them, they could leave and obtain--in fact, while we were in
the other room, David and I were talking about somebody who
left, and I was asking, how many times more was he earning than
when he was working with us? And we chuckled and said, many
times. And so there is a dedication here, and we need to be
able to pay adequately so people stay as long as they can. When
two, three, four kids come--we have a high birth rate on the
Ways and Means staff it seems--and----
Mr. Brady. I thought these people were spending a lot of
time at work.
Mr. Levin. No comment, but kids get older. We had someone
on our staff, and kids have to go to college, and it costs a
lot of money. So I think we need to be proud of our staff and
to make sure there is an adequate structure of compensation. We
know your job is tough.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, both, for the excellent job you do
under the circumstances.
Madam Chair, I have no more further questions.
The Chairman. The chair recognizes Mr. Vargas from
California.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
My question was virtually identical to the ranking member,
without the issue of fertility rates, but other than that, my
question was, again, can you retain your staff? I know it is a
very valuable staff, and I think the question was asked and
answered, so I appreciate it.
Thank you.
The Chairman. I want to thank both Chairman Camp and
Ranking Member Levin for testifying here today, and we
certainly, I am sure, the committee does recognize all of the
legislation you put out in the past and sort of the unique
challenges you face in the 113th, with comprehensive tax reform
in particular, some of the things you will be working on, so we
will certainly take all of that under consideration and
appreciate your time here this morning.
Thank you.
The committee now welcomes Chairman Hensarling and Ranking
Member Waters of the committee of Financial Services.
We appreciate you both attending, and I ask the official
reporter to please enter a page break, again, as we enter a new
section.
The Chairman. The House Committee on Financial Services
certainly has jurisdiction over issues pertaining to the
economy, the banking system, housing, insurance and securities
and exchanges; additionally, jurisdiction over monetary policy,
international finance, international monetary organizations and
efforts to combat terrorist financing.
In this era of financial instability, this committee will
continue to legislatively combat ``too big to fail'' as well as
any regulations that hamper Main Street and harm Americans.
So, with that, I would certainly welcome you both to the
committee.
And the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, the
chairman of the Financial Services, Mr. Hensarling.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JEB HENSARLING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. Hensarling. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and Ranking
Member Brady and the committee.
Ranking Member Waters and I are pleased to appear before
you today on behalf of the Financial Services Committee.
You instructed us to come up with two different funding
scenarios, one of which we take an 11 percent cut from the 2012
authorization to reflect sequestration; another representing a
5 percent increase over what was spent last year.
I don't necessarily come before you recommending either
scenario, but to comply with your request. Certainly I believe
that Congress must always lead by example in matters of
budgeting, particularly as we face historic and unprecedented
levels of national debt.
Budgets are both about limits and priorities. I certainly
recognize you have tough decisions to make in respect to both.
I am mainly here to explain the priorities of the committee and
discuss how we plan to allocate the resources to better serve
taxpayers, investors, consumers and our members.
Madam Chair, as you point out, in a very real sense, the
Financial Services Committee has jurisdiction over the entire
U.S. financial system, including the banking system, our
capital markets, housing, insurance, monetary policy and
international finance. Among the agencies we oversee are the
Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department
of Housing and Urban Development, Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau and several components of the Department of the
Treasury.
It is well recognized the 2008 financial crisis was the
worst since the Great Depression, and most believe that the
underlying causes and solutions fall within our committee's
jurisdiction. Whether it is examining the role of government-
sponsored enterprises in the lead up to the crisis or the
Federal Reserve's monetary policy, these are important issues
that must be addressed as we do everything in our power as a
Congress to try to avoid another similar crisis.
It speaks of the importance of the work of the committee
that we do through the work of 33 Republicans, 28 Democrats and
a few dozen committed staffers, whose salaries comprise the
vast majority of our budget. Just like every American family
has to prioritize their spending, so do we, and it is our goal
to allocate our funding so we can do more with less.
In preparation for anticipated cuts, we have combined two
subcommittees to streamline the workload. We put off major
equipment purchases and delayed repairs and other IT
investments. We refrained from fully staffing the committee
according to our plan, leaving many spots vacant until we know
for certain what we can afford. However, there are certain
functions that we believe would be unwise to shortchange,
including sending more jobs-growth bills through the House,
through this House committee, communicating with and listening
to those who rely on our financial system, and conducting
effective oversight.
One of the committee's signature achievements last Congress
was delivering the bipartisan jobs act, which we believe will
boost growth and help small businesses create jobs. I want to
work with our members, both in the majority and the minority,
and further bipartisan approaches to promoting economic growth
and job creation. One of the best ways to find capital for
small businesses is to unleash the capital that is sitting on
the sidelines of our Nation's small- to medium-sized banks and
corporate balance sheets. We will use or committee resources to
further identify legislative solutions that will allow for
regulatory relief and economic growth that will help remove
some of this logjam and get capital flowing yet against to our
small businesses.
Our committee must also fulfill its commitment to effective
oversight. As I mentioned, the jobs act is designed to
revitalize the creation of small business jobs. Our committee
will be intently focused on overseeing the act's implementation
by financial regulators.
We will, of course, continue our robust oversight of the
Dodd-Frank Act. As you determine how to allocate resources
among the committees, I would argue that Dodd-Frank is equal to
the President's health care law in that both are sweeping,
historic, massive pieces of legislation that restructure key
elements of our economy.
While the Affordable Care Act expands across three
committees of jurisdiction, the Dodd-Frank Act is almost
exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Financial Services
Committee, and we will focus our energy and attention on proper
oversight. In addition, the work of our committee impacts
everyone who balances a checkbook or opens a banking account.
Dodd-Frank includes a couple of thousand pages, 400 separate
rulemakings that reach into every sector of our economy, every
town, and every wallet. Virtually no one is beyond its reach,
and not everyone can come to Washington to make their voices
heard.
In order to understand the full force of the legislation,
we wish to make a concerted effort to reach out to people who
are impacted. Under the leadership of my predecessor, Spencer
Bachus, the Financial Services Committee convened hearings
throughout the country to listen to the concerns of community
banks and small businesses. Field hearings were held in
Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio, and other States. We believe these
hearings were invaluable. They gave our members the opportunity
to gather information that is not often gleaned on Capitol
Hill. So increasing the number of field hearings, we believe,
would allow our members to gather information on issues that
are key to their consumers and constituents.
Additionally, better use of technology and social media
will allow us to listen more effectively to and communicate
more effectively with Americans who are engaged as consumers or
providers of financial services, as well as provide a renewed
focus on member education so that our members will have the
tools necessary to share the committee's business in a more
transparent way with their constituents back home.
In closing, we are prepared to do more with less, but we
also have a plan in place if additional resources become
available due to what we believe are the priority areas of this
committee's jurisdiction. Our committee is already hard at
work, and we look forward to a productive Congress and
addressing our Nation's challenges. And I appreciate, again,
the opportunity to appear before you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
[The statement of Mr. Hensarling follows:]
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The Chairman. And the chair now recognizes the ranking
member, the gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MAXINE WATERS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much. Good morning, Chairman
Miller and Ranking Member Brady. I am pleased to join with
Chairman Hensarling to testify before you today to discuss the
budgetary needs of the Financial Services Committee. As ranking
member of the Financial Services Committee, I am very concerned
about any proposed reduction in the committee's 2013 budget.
Like Chairman Hensarling, I am new to this position.
However, I have been a member of the committee since 1991, and
over that time, I have seen just how important adequate
staffing and resources are for fulfilling the mission of the
committee. I am very lucky that I have a topnotch staff at my
disposal. They are experts in financial regulation, housing and
community development programs, monetary policy, and a host of
other issues.
However, I believe that additional staff and resources are
necessary in order for the committee to adequately provide
oversight of our financial markets and regulatory agencies. We
are currently understaffed, with only 18 staff members out of a
possible 28. The workload for these staff members continues to
grow. I believe that additional staff members are needed to
provide sufficient oversight of major statutes that are just in
the process of implementation. These laws include the Dodd-
Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the
Jumpstart Our Business Startups, that is the JOBS Act, and the
Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act.
Dodd-Frank implementation will be of particular interest to
the committee, as it involves critical rulemaking initiatives
across nearly a dozen agencies, including the newly established
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Moreover, I believe that
there are opportunities to work with the majority in a
bipartisan manner on several issues, including regulatory
relief for the Nation's community banks. Additional resources
would be helpful in achieving these goals.
The minority receives one-third of the staff slots and
total budget, with total control over both categories. You
asked me to provide estimates of how the committee would
allocate funds assuming an 11 percent budget cut from the total
budget authority in 2012, or a 5 percent budget increase over
what the committee actually spent in 2012. An 11 percent budget
cut would impede my ability to bring on additional staff, that
is senior staff members, to support the committee's legislative
and oversight agenda. However, a 5 percent increase would allow
for additional senior staff.
In addition, I am aware that the majority intends to hold
several field hearings this year. While the committee did not
allocate funds for travel last year, this year we are
allocating funds to allow for additional Democratic
participation in any such hearings.
With that, I will yield back, and I thank you very much.
The Chairman. I thank the chairman and the ranking member
for their testimony.
[The statement of Ms. Waters follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.025
The Chairman. And I am interested to hear you both comment
about the field hearings. We did look at the amount of field
hearings that you had in the last Congress, that the committee
had, and can see that you are interested in plussing those up
this time. So I appreciate the explanation from both of you
about how important field hearings are to your committee.
That is just an observation. I guess my only question would
be, as we think about some of the possibilities of utilizing
new technologies at all of our committees, when we had the Ways
and Means here we were talking about some of the cloud
computing and the availability that we might have from some of
the House systems here, sort of the enterprise systems that we
have within the House structure currently and whether or not
our committee could assist you in any of those kinds of things
as well, whether it is, you know, House-wide subscriptions or,
as I say, cloud computing, some of these enterprise projects,
if there is any possibility of us assisting you with resourcing
in some of those areas as well.
Mr. Hensarling. And I am sorry, Madam Chair, was that a
question or a statement?
The Chairman. That is a question. Yes. I don't know if you
have anything in mind. If not, I guess I am just offering that
up as we have our staffs discuss some of these possibilities,
there may be some areas we can assist.
Mr. Hensarling. Well, Madam Chair, I would like to explore
that possibility. And although I am not an IT expert, in
speaking to our staff we believe there may be opportunities
with respect to data storage where the House could be of
greater assistance, and there could be some efficiencies that
could be had there. I think that we have availed ourselves of
the availability of House-wide subscriptions, some of which I
guess would fall into the technology area. And we also, I know,
purchase a lot of our equipment through the House
telecommunications office. But we will continue to find if
there are areas of efficiencies and savings that could be had
there as well.
Ms. Waters. I, too, would be grateful for any assistance
that we could receive from you as it relates to IT. I don't
know at this point what that is, but I do know, to the degree
that we are able to expedite the tremendous responsibilities we
have, we could use whatever assistance we can get.
I may take this moment to tell you that I was just talking
with the chairman as we sat outside of this hearing room and I
talked about the possibility of more field hearings or work.
And some of what I am talking about is not necessarily field
hearings as much as it is getting out and understanding some of
the systems on Wall Street and understanding some of the
systems in Chicago.
We are now confronted with the kind of technology where the
trading is going on faster than the mind can understand. And
this nanosecond trading that they are doing has caused some
problems, and I think we are going to see more of that. But we
really need to see this at work, and how it works, and what it
is doing. And so some of what I am referring to in terms of
field hearings really does have to do with systems, trading
systems. And I think we really need to be in New York and
Chicago, in the futures markets to understand and get a real
handle on what is going on.
I also said to the chairman that I note that the New York
Stock Exchange has been purchased by ICE, and I understand that
there are some systems changes that are being made. I want to
know what those are and I want to understand them better. Yes,
we would like to have more assistance with IT if we can get it,
and perhaps that will be helpful, but I want to go, I want to
witness firsthand how some of these systems are working.
The Chairman. Thank you. The chair now recognizes the
ranking member.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to thank both of you for being here and the job
that you do under tough circumstances with the bare bones and
maybe getting cut a little bit more. My question is usually the
same, but because I am in front of Mr. Vargas I get to ask it
before he does. So I am going to just give back the balance of
my time, and when he gets recognized in his order he will be
able to ask the same question.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes
the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Harper.
Mr. Harper. I just want to thank both of you for the hard
work you are doing, the great staff. I know this is not an easy
time, and you will deal the best way I am sure you can with
whatever figure we do come up with, and wish you well. Thank
you.
The Chairman. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Vargas, for his question.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And the
ranking member has a reputation of being very generous to
novices. So I appreciate it very much. Thank you very much.
My question is with respect to retention of employees, and
also attracting employees under the budget that you have and
the projected budgets. I know that the people that work for you
are very highly trained, and the opportunities that they have
out in the private sector are significant, with a lot more
financial gain for them. So what has been your experience and
what do you anticipate with the budgets that you have proposed?
Ms. Waters. Well, if I may, I am very interested in
bringing on more senior staff with backgrounds and experience
particularly understanding the capital markets, and
particularly trading. As I have began to delve into what we are
attempting to implement with Dodd-Frank, it is clear that as we
talk about transparency with derivatives, we need people who
understand the complications of derivatives and the creative
ways that derivatives are being used.
When we delve into some of the new tactics of trading and
the platforms that we are trying to understand, we really need
people who have background and really who have experience. And
so we desperately need this. And when we try and compete with
Wall Street, with New York, with Chicago, what have you, for
these people, it is difficult. It is very hard. But if we are
to do a good job here, we have got to go after people, we have
got to be able to pay them a decent salary. And our committee
depends on knowledge, experience, and talent.
Mr. Hensarling. As I said in my testimony, Congressman, in
anticipation of reaching the moment that potentially we could
have this sequester, in the original staff plan based upon the
historic norms of funding, we did not fully ramp up our staff.
So I am not so concerned about retention. I have concerns,
again, that relative to the tasks that we fill or the
responsibilities we have on what is probably oversight of the
most sweeping law since the New Deal with respect to capital
markets, credit markets, Dodd-Frank, in respect to the work,
that we have to do everything we can to ensure we do not
replicate the financial crisis of 2008. Yes, I am in full
agreement with the ranking member, we want to ensure that we
have staff that have expertise in what many members view as a
fairly arcane area of legislation. That would be most helpful.
Again, I don't have your job. It is a difficult one in trying
to balance relative priorities. But I hope we have made a case
that, again, the responsibilities of this committee are
immense, and relative to that challenge we believe that we are
understaffed.
Mr. Vargas. Madam Chair, I guess I would simply comment
that this is an area where I have a little bit of expertise. I
was vice president at Liberty Mutual, as well as Safeco
Insurance, and the law has changed dramatically and is changing
dramatically, especially for large insurance companies,
interestingly, too. And this is an area where I think that, I
don't know, I certainly would look at their budget in a way
that, you know, with Dodd-Frank and the changes that are being
made are substantial.
Anyway, I would just make that as a comment. And I
appreciate the work that you have done. And I think you have a
lot of work ahead of you.
Mr. Hensarling. Would you care to join our committee with
that expertise?
The Chairman. I appreciate the gentleman's comment. And I
think it is true that this committee does have some rather
unique challenges going forward. And I think this committee
will certainly recognize that and be very aware of the comments
and the presentations that you have both made this morning. And
we are appreciative of that, and would excuse you. Thank you
very, very much. Appreciate it.
Mr. Hensarling. Thank you.
Mr. Harper [presiding]. The committee now welcomes Chairman
Kline of the Committee on Education and Workforce.
Would the official reporter please enter a page break into
the hearings record to begin a new section?
Mr. Harper. The Committee on Education and Workforce has
jurisdiction over our Nation's schools and workplaces. The
committee oversees programs that affect hundreds of millions of
Americans, from school teachers and small business owners to
students and retirees. The committee's priority in the 113th
Congress is to build on the vital reforms set in motion during
the past decade: pressing for enhanced flexibility and local
control in education, modernization of outdated Federal rules
that stifle job growth and innovation, and affordable access to
health care, retirement security, and training for American
workers.
Chairman Kline, we welcome you. You will have 5 minutes to
testify before the committee. And you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN KLINE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member
Brady, and members of the committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear here to testify about our committee
budget for 2013. I understand that my colleague, Mr. Miller, is
on the other side of the Capitol and trying to make his way
over here.
In 2012, our committee was allocated $7,812,094. This
represented a 6.4 percent cut in 2012, with an overall 11.4
percent cut for the 112th Congress. We honored this cut by
leaving numerous staff positions vacant on the committee. Our
staffs took on additional responsibilities and expanded their
areas of expertise. In late 2011, we heard rumors of possible
additional cuts for 2012, so we put caps on committee travel
and committee printing. Due to our prudent planning, we only
spent 82 percent of our overall committee budget.
My message to you today is: Don't punish the good actors.
Don't punish the good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We can only
go so lean for so long. We are asked to testify today to both
an 11 percent cut from our 2012 allocation and a 5 percent
increase over what we spent in 2012. We recognize the fiscal
challenges that exist across this country and we are willing do
our part to contribute to fiscal responsibility.
But I sit here today to warn you that drastic additional
cuts to this committee would affect committee product. Mr.
Miller and I have great aspirations for this Congress. We want
to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act, Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, Higher Education Act, and we also want
to reform the multiemployer pension system. But all of this
requires extensive committee resources. An additional 11
percent cut from our 2012 allocation or a 5 percent increase
from our 2012 actual expenditures spreads us too thin on the
work we want to do to achieve the best legislative product and
conduct the best oversight.
In particular, deep cuts mean fewer site visits and fewer
field hearings. Last year, my staff went on a site visit to a
high school in West Virginia to see implementation of the new
school lunch standards. They sat with the students and they ate
chicken on a biscuit. These real world visits are helpful. They
let us bust out of this Federal bubble and see what
implementation looks like. It is the best way to see successes
and identify challenges.
I feel the same way about field hearings. Field hearings
are a small way to take the Capitol on the road. They provide a
firsthand look at the issues under our committee's
jurisdiction, such as employer-sponsored health care and
workforce training. I hope the committee takes these important
activities into account as they determine our budget. If we
must choose between an 11 percent cut from 2012 allocation and
a 5 percent increase over what we spent in 2012, we ask for an
11 percent cut from the 2012 allocation. On this, Mr. Miller
and I agree. This treats all committees fairly and doesn't
punish the committees who, like us, were good stewards in 2012.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I appreciate your
time, and would be happy to answer any questions.
The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
[The statements of Mr. Kline and Mr. Miller of California
follows:]
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The Chairman. I guess my question is, we have been asking
similar questions to the other chairmen and ranking members as
they testified here about the possibility of our committee
actually assisting you, resourcing you a bit with any kinds of
new technology that might be able to be utilized your
committee, whether that would be sort of the cloud computing,
something, for instance, that Ways and Means was very
interested in working with us on, or, you know, different kinds
of subscriptions that can go House-wide, or various kind of
duplicative kinds of things that might be happening at your
committee that we could help you resourcing with so you would
have a little more cash maybe to spend on your field trips or
staffing levels or what have you. I am not sure if that is
really a question, it is certainly an observation. If there is
anything our committee can help you with, we certainly want to
do that.
Mr. Kline. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. I took that as a
question and an offer on your part which we would like to take
advantage of. I mean certainly subscriptions are helpful. But,
for example, you provide, the House provides the television
coverage of our hearings, but don't provide the closed caption
coverage. And that would be enormously helpful to us, and
particularly I would argue in our committee, where we have
jurisdiction over IDEA, for example, it would be very, very
helpful. We already spend money out of the committee budget for
closed captioning. If that is something the House could take
over, it would indeed be helpful. And so that is my response.
The Chairman. Very good.
Mr. Kline. And I am urging the committee to help us with
that if you can.
The Chairman. I know that we are taking notes here about
that.
Mr. Kline. I saw that, Madam Chair. I was very pleased to
see it.
The Chairman. And we will certainly take a look at that.
The chair recognizes the ranking member.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to thank you for
coming in front of us and doing the job that you do under some
tough circumstances. Appreciate you being here. Thank you.
Mr. Kline. Thank the gentleman.
The Chairman. Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Mississippi, Mr. Harper.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And Glad to have you here, Mr. Chairman. Are there any
special circumstances that we should be aware of that set the
Committee on Education and the Workforce apart from other
committees as we are looking at budgeting matters that you
think we should be aware of?
Mr. Kline. I don't anticipate any such special
circumstances. I was aware of the committee's interest in this
and had a discussion with staff. I don't think there is
anything that falls under that category. We are going to
continue to follow the aggressive agenda that we have shown for
the last Congress and this Congress. But I don't see a special
circumstance.
Mr. Harper. Well, I appreciate your good stewardship in the
last Congress, and I know you will do the same this time. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Kline. Thank the gentleman.
The Chairman. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate
your testimony this morning. And we certainly will take it all
under advisement, and we will get back with you. But we
certainly appreciate the unique challenges that you face in
your committee going forward and want to help resource you as
we can.
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. The committee now welcomes the chairman of
the Transportation and Infrastructure, Mr. Shuster, and the
ranking member, Mr. Rahall. We appreciate you both being here.
We would ask the official reporter to enter a page break in
the hearing transcript.
The Chairman. And I would just say that as a member of the
T&I Committee as well, I have often said that when I talk to my
constituents about what happens on the T&I Committee, I say you
can just think about the economics of our Nation as always
follow the transportation grid. Whether it was the wagon trains
going out West and the early part of the country opening up,
and then the railroads came, and then the Interstates came, and
now the aviation links are such a critical component, and
shipping as well. And the jurisdiction that you have on your
committee is very far-reaching, and I know you have some unique
challenges this Congress. And the chair would now recognize the
chairman for his opening statement.
Mr. Shuster.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. BILL SHUSTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Shuster. Well, I thank you, Madam Chair, for the
opportunity to be here today, and appreciate your kind words on
the committee. I would also say, for 230 years, going back to
our Founding Fathers, the commerce, the transportation link has
been what has really connected this country physically. So we
take it very seriously and look forward to working in this
Congress over the next 2 years with a pretty big agenda.
So thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member Brady. It is
good to see you, my friend from Philadelphia. Members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today
before you in support of the budget request for the coming
fiscal year. The committee is committed to ensuring that every
tax dollar goes to good use, both at the agencies we oversee
and within our own offices. In an era of constrained budgets,
we must focus on spending on those things that are necessary to
advance our agenda. The greatest resource and greatest expense
of our committee is our knowledgeable and experienced staff.
The committee staff not only benefits our members, but also
serves as a resource for the entire body.
The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is looking
forward to a productive 113th Congress. We have a lot of work
to do. Our legislative agenda for the next 2 years includes
addressing the Nation's aging water infrastructure in a Water
Resources Development Act, reauthorizing of surface
transportation programs set to expire next year, reforming
passenger rail, and additionally we will seek to bring a FEMA
reform bill to the floor. The committee has also developed a
significant oversight plan. Last Congress, the committee passed
major authorizations that now require oversight. As the current
administration implements these laws, we will ensure that they
do so in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Transportation programs are inherently partnerships with
States and local interests. What is necessary to develop these
programs with folks outside the Beltway is those partnerships.
Surveying the country's highways, waterways, railroads,
seaports, and airports provide the committee with the context
for our policies. It is our responsibility to educate the
committee and the House on the national transportation system,
and the travel allotment in the budget allows us to do so.
Together with my friend and ranking member, Nick Rahall from
West Virginia, we have compiled a committee funding request
that is $773 below last year's level. The level is about 5
percent above the previous Congress' actual spending. Last
Congress was the only one chaired by my predecessor, and
because of his short tenure he made few staffing additions as
he transitioned from ranking member to chair. This was
reflected in his budget.
With regards to the allocations of resources between the
majority and the minority, we will continue to provide two-
thirds of the personnel budget to the majority and one-third to
the minority. This is consistent with previous Congresses. The
majority and minority will continue to fairly share a budget
for nonpersonnel expenses.
Finally, Madam Chair, to bring up a subject you and I have
talked about on the floor before, before I yield to Mr. Rahall,
I am going to ask you all to hear me out on this, the Rayburn
House Office Building, as you know, is sometimes very difficult
to navigate. And I proposed to the chair that to make it more
hospitable, to stencil the names of the corresponding streets
onto the walls in the different hallways. I think you would not
only help visitors but Members who get lost in that building.
So again, I think to better navigate I propose that again to
you. I think it would make this committee the hero of Congress.
Because I have been around for 12 years, and sometimes I walk
out of those committee rooms and go, where am I? And there is
no point of reference. So, again, I would propose that would
make you all the heroes of Congress if you would help us get
through the Rayburn Building.
So again, thank you for providing this opportunity. I would
be happy to answer any questions, and yield back.
The Chairman. I appreciate that.
[The statement of Mr. Shuster follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.033
The Chairman. And you know I am a lifetime boater, I always
feel like I have a pretty good sense navigational-wide of where
I am. I am in the Rayburn, I am always looking for my bread
crumbs. And I do sometimes walk out and go, where am I? So I
appreciate that----
Mr. Shuster. If you stencil those street names up there,
you would know where you are all the time.
The Chairman. And it is all about transportation, how we
transit around the campus here, right? So with that, I would
recognize the ranking member.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. NICK J. RAHALL, II, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
Mr. Rahall. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Brady,
for this opportunity to be before you today. And I certainly
appreciate your comments, Madam Chair, about the bipartisan
nature of our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, upon
which you serve. We have worked bipartisanly together as well
on National Guard legislation, giving them a seat at the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. And both of us being recipients of the Harry
Truman Award, the most prestigious award the National Guard
gives out. And I am proud to talk with that wherever and
whenever I go, and that was a bipartisan effort with you.
During the last Congress, the committee minority was
treated fairly. I controlled one-third of the budget for staff
salaries and other matters such as equipment and supplies,
where it dealt with, on a nonpartisan basis. And as Chairman
Shuster, my good friend, has testified, we do not anticipate
changing that under his leadership. And I do appreciate his
efforts to reach out to the minority on this and so many other
issues before our Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure.
Now, you have asked House committees to submit two budget
options, one which would provide for an 11 percent reduction
from the current spending authorization, the other which would
provide for a 5 percent increase from actual total expenses. In
the event the 11 percent reduction option becomes final, I
would have to reduce my committee staff salaries by $165,048,
if the traditional 10 percent of the budget is dedicated to
equipment, supplies, and maintenance.
To put that figure into perspective, Madam Chair and
Ranking Member Brady, if that cut is applied equally across the
board, each one of my staffers' salary would be reduced by
$6,877. As we all know, on Capitol Hill, in order for us to do
our jobs for the American people, it is essential that we are
supported by qualified staff. And it is a plus if they are
seasoned and they have some institutional knowledge.
In my case, my committee staff director, Mr. Jim Zoia, has
been with me for 32 years. My committee chief counsel has
served for 20 years. I have two other staffers who have worked
for the House of Representatives for 18 and 17 years
respectfully. This type of seasoned staff not only serves us
all well, it serves me well, but they well serve the entire T&I
Committee Democratic Caucus. In each case, these staffers have
had more than ample opportunity to leave House employment for
more financially lucrative jobs in the private sector. Instead,
they have opted for continued public service.
So I would hope that an 11 percent cut is not the route we
would go for committee budgets. Again, I thank you for this
opportunity to testify, Madam Chair and Ranking Member Brady,
and be glad to respond to questions.
The Chairman. I appreciate that very much.
[The statement of Mr. Rahall follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.034
The Chairman. I actually had the staff pull out some of the
detail that you had submitted in regards to some of your field
hearings. And first of all, let me just say how appreciative I
am of what you have come forward with, with the cuts and
everything else. And I think most committees, I guess, but
certainly T&I does have a necessity to get out into the field,
so to speak, when you are talking about all the various States,
I mean every State that we impact, and et cetera, et cetera. So
I am just sort looking at some of the detail on that.
And I guess my question is one I have been sort of asking
some of the other chairs, and an observation or a question, if
whether or not, with some of the new technology that is
available, whether our committee can help resource your
committee with various kinds of things. And if you don't know
the answer to that, I guess I am offering up our staff to work
with your staffs about, like, cloud computing, some of the
various things. I think apparently you have already got
something a little different than cloud. But that is about to
stop here on your lifecycle with that. I am not quite sure
where it is. But at the expiration of that contract, that would
be something we, I think, could really help you with and help
with some of the expenses that you have on that. So some of the
various services we have within our jurisdiction here to help
you, we would like to be able do that if we can. So if you have
any questions or comments about different kinds of equipment or
technology we can help you with, we want to do that.
Mr. Shuster. Sure. I appreciate it. Some of that we have to
look into. I know teleconferencing would be something we could
do more of, I think help us. When it comes to technology, I am
not the person to ask. I can barely use my BlackBerry.
But I also want to concur with Mr. Rahall on the 5 percent
increase for us actually is, based upon last year, Chairman
Mica gave back so much money, a 5 percent increase is not an
increase in our overall budget, It is actually still less than
it was last year. So, again, looking at our staffing needs. We
are going to do probably 18 field hearings this year, give or
take. But the amount of oversight we have to do, we have to do
oversight on the FAA bill, oversight on MAP-21. And when I look
at, for instance, FAA, we have got between the two of us about
60 or so staff, and the FAA has got 47,000 people. So, you
know, we are up against a behemoth when it comes to try to get
information and do aggressive oversight. So again, it is
something to consider.
The Chairman. Yeah, and particularly so I think with
sequestration, there has been a big focus on what is going on
with the FAA and what is actually going to happen out there and
the traveling public.
Mr. Rahall. I associate myself with the comments of
Chairman Shuster, Madam Chair. And it is certainly a tremendous
offer you have made, and it does merit further exploration. The
chairman has mentioned the various oversights we have, and he
has only touched the top of the iceberg. There is many, many
other safety issues, especially for the traveling public, that
we will have to address. And those are major concerns for all
of us.
The Chairman. Appreciate that. The chair recognizes my
ranking member, Mr. Brady.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just wanted to expand upon what you had said about the
staff people. I have been asking the committees the same
question. With the cuts that we had and the cuts we may be
getting, but we don't know what they may be, are you able to
maintain--and it seems that you have because you have a lot of
staff members that have been with you for a long time--but it
is hard to maintain people with that institutional knowledge
without paying them a decent amount of money. I am sure they
can go out and get more money doing what they do on the outside
rather than be here on the inside and on the Transportation
Committee. And also do you have a problem with--asking both of
you--do you have a problem maybe even attracting quality staff
that would come to work for a small, you know, not a large
amount of money anymore? That again that they can make more
money on the outside.
It is the staff driven that we all are, and I just think
they are the ones that are getting the short end of all of
this, and we are getting the short end by not being able to get
qualified people to come to work for us, especially fields,
especially in transportation. So, I mean, are you having
problems keeping--you probably not, but they must be paying a
heck of a sacrifice--or even attracting new employees?
Mr. Rahall. Well, Mr. Brady, I would say that, you know, we
have a lot of people willing to work in public service seeking
jobs every day. But what I am referring to, and you are as
well, are the qualified institutional knowledge that is so
effective here on Capitol Hill, those that have, like myself, I
guess, been around for a few decades or so. And it is that
institutional knowledge, the battles through which many staff
have been through, conference committee negotiations, the give
and take between the two bodies, the chemistry of the players
involved and the bureaucracies involved, that is what is so
important to us.
So those that are seeking jobs that I referenced in the
beginning of this response don't have that knowledge. And, yes,
they are willing to come and work for us at probably minimal
wages, but the institutional people require larger pay,
obviously. But even that larger pay that we pay them cannot
compete with the private sector, and that is a tremendous draw
downtown, K Street or whatever street you want to call it. When
they come knocking on our staffs' door, it is hard for many of
them to turn that down. But they do, there are those that do,
such as work on our T&I staff and on my staff. And they are the
ones you just have to struggle to keep. And that knowledge is
so important to the legislative process.
Mr. Shuster. I would agree with Mr. Rahall. We have been
able to attract good talent, smart people. But I think long
term keeping them it becomes difficult because they can make
more money on the outside. And having that institutional
knowledge is absolutely critical.
Mr. Brady. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rahall, and
thank you, Mr. Shuster. It is good to see you sitting there. I
was very happy and proud to know a fellow Pennsylvanian was
going to chair the Transportation Committee. But more than
that, I am sure your dad is proud to have you follow in his
footsteps. And they are tremendous size footsteps, sir.
Mr. Shuster. I am not even trying to fill them, I am just
trying to get in and out of them.
Mr. Brady. And I am looking forward to seeing him hopefully
Saturday night, and give him my best. Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. Thanks.
The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Mississippi.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thanks to each of you for the work you are doing. And I
know that you have been good stewards of what we are attempting
to do here. But as we are trying to set what the funding level
will be for your committee for this Congress, are there any
special circumstances that haven't been discussed that you
think we should be aware of that perhaps hadn't been mentioned?
Mr. Shuster. I just think our agenda is pretty significant.
I know there is a lot of committees that have, but we have
three significant bills we have to do, plus others that we are
attempting. And then a pretty broad and large oversight, from
MAP-21 to FAA, which I mentioned, which are the bigger ones.
But as Mr. Rahall mentioned, there is a number of things that
we have to have oversight over that we are aggressively
pursuing, and having a pretty aggressive taking the Congress
outside the Beltway, because especially what we do with
partnering with States and locales, it is important for us to
see firsthand. There is no substitute. I can read reports and I
can have people tell me about it, but until you go to the Port
of Brownsville in Texas and see the kind of operation they have
there and the need for the dredging and the widening, and it is
$3 billion to $4 billion of investment that will come that will
help with the U.S. economy, that will help the State of Texas,
I think it is important to see it firsthand.
Mr. Harper. Thank you. And I yield back.
The Chairman. Thanks very much. And we certainly appreciate
both the chairman and the ranking member being here. And we
recognize the unique considerations and challenges that the
committee has in the 113th here as we go into the budget year,
particularly with the sequestration, the oversight
responsibilities that you have. And you have laid out some
certainly excellent arguments why we need to look at your
request. And we certainly will give it every consideration. And
we appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I will be happy to
help you pick out the paint for that stenciling on the walls of
the Rayburn Building.
The Chairman. With that, the committee will be in recess
for 2 hours. We will reconvene at 2. Now, we have a vote series
at 2. But I think we will just reconvene at 2. We will see what
time they call the votes, and try to get her done here today.
[Recess.]
The Chairman. The committee will come back to order, and
the committee now welcomes Chairman Jeff Miller and Ranking
Member Michaud on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. And I
would ask the official reporter to please enter a page break
into the hearing to begin a new section.
The Chairman. The Committee on Veterans' Affairs recommends
legislation expanding, curtailing, or fine tuning existing laws
relating to veterans' benefits. The committee also has
oversight responsibility of the VA, and of course the committee
is the voice of Congress for veterans in dealing with the VA as
well. Its priorities for the 113th Congress are to continue to
make sure our veterans are afforded the very best and most
effective care possible that helps their transitions to
civilian life, make sure they are as efficient as possible, and
to conduct vigorous oversight of the Department of Veterans
Affairs so that it is meeting all the needs of our Nation's
veterans. And the committee is very appreciative of both of you
coming, and at this time I would recognize the chairman of the
Veterans', Mr. Miller from Florida.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JEFF MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. Miller of Florida. Thank you very much, Chairman Miller
and Ranking Member Brady. It is great to be back before you
again to discuss the Committee on Veterans' Affairs budget from
113th Congress. My good friend, Ranking Member Mike Michaud,
joins me here at the table today. We have submitted our funding
request forms for 2013 per your committee's guidance on budget
reduction amounts. As in the past, we have no choice but to
find those savings from decreasing our personnel budget and
continuing to combine and consolidate administrative
responsibilities. And we will make some tough decisions on
equipment purchases and travel should we receive a further cut.
As you know, the committee has oversight over the entire
Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as over various
programs serving veterans at the Departments of Labor and
Defense, sharing Arlington National Cemetery's oversight and
other matters. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the
second-largest Federal agency, employing over 300,000 people,
with a budget of roughly $140 billion. Due to budget
constraints, we perform our oversight role with only 25 of the
committee's 36 staff slots filled, 16 majority and 9 minority.
Further illustrating our lean operations at the committee,
we currently have an Oversight and Investigations majority
staff of only three. Adding an investigator as a fourth staffer
is a necessity during this Congress, and I feel that we also
are going to need to hire an additional person in our Health
Subcommittee. We currently have only two staffers overseeing
the Nation's largest integrated healthcare system, and most
member travel in concordance with the committee's oversight
duties falls within the Health Subcommittee's jurisdiction, and
that preparation falls to this very small staff. Additionally,
the very high volume of health-related bills introduced in the
House and requiring the analysis of this subcommittee warrants
a third committee staffer.
I am very proud that we did in fact return money last
Congress, given the committee's commitment to living within its
means. We did not fully staff the majority to allow some
flexibility within our budget reduction for any unforeseen
circumstances and so that we would not find ourselves in the
undesirable position of having to let people go. That does not
negate the critical need that we have to fill the vacancies
that I have previously discussed.
The full committee again has an aggressive oversight plan
and has already engaged in oversight in several of the many
areas that I have mentioned. As was the case last Congress, we
hope to be able to afford each subcommittee chair and ranking
member an opportunity to hold a field hearing on oversight
matters that are important to their respective subcommittees.
We will also be holding full committee oversight hearings as
the need arises. This will require the retention of our
extremely modest travel budget.
The vast majority of the committee travel in which our
members engage is actually funded by the Department of Veterans
Affairs, the very agency over which we are charged with
oversight. While this may seem ideal, it also puts the
Department on advanced notice each and every time that the
committee engages in an oversight visit.
Now, turning to equipment, last year we upgraded one-third
of our computers, using end-of-the-year available funds, but we
will need to upgrade another third this year and then again in
2014. We also replaced a correspondence management system that
has not been updated in 8 years and will cost us approximately
$5,000 a month for maintenance and support. The previous system
was no longer technically supportable.
This is a small committee charged with an awesome
responsibility: oversight of those who care and provide
services for our Nation's warriors and their families. In doing
so, we have exercised extreme fiscal responsibility, and any
further cuts will be challenging. But, in keeping with our
practices of the past 2 years, we are anticipating and planning
for those cuts. Madam Chairman, you have my assurance that we
will continue to account for and stretch every dollar afforded
to us as we out-stride the expectations placed upon this
committee.
My humble request for you and this committee is that our
committee not be punished for our good stewardship of the
taxpayers' dollars. I appreciate the opportunity to appear
before you today and would gladly welcome any questions that
you may have.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
[The statement of Mr. Miller of Florida follows:]
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The Chairman. And the chair now recognizes the ranking
member, from Maine, Mr. Michaud.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MAINE
Mr. Michaud. Thank you very much, Chairman Miller and
Ranking Member Brady, for this opportunity to appear before you
today to speak in support of the proposed budget from the
Veterans' Affairs Committee. I am pleased to join with Chairman
Miller to support the proposed budget. We approach this effort,
as we do everything in the committee, in a bipartisan manner,
looking to what is in the best interest of our Nation and our
veterans.
I believe our proposed budget is a barebones budget. The
committee has already been a good steward of resources afforded
to us in the past. We have diligently reduced cost and achieved
savings where we could while ensuring that the committee
continues to operate on a sound fiscal footing. Much will be
expected of this committee during this Congress. With our
conflicts drawing to a close in Afghanistan, we must ensure
that our returning servicemembers receive the benefits that
they have earned in a timely fashion. This will require a lot
of oversight and attention by our committee.
In addition, almost all of the Department of Veterans
Affairs' major transformational initiatives are planned to come
to fruition in 2015. This includes efforts to tackle the claims
backlog, homelessness among our veterans, and deliver an
integrated Electronic Health Record. As you can read in the
newspapers, and if you can see from listening and watching our
hearings that have been held so far, many of these initiatives
do not seem to be going well. They are not making the progress
in a manner that would make us feel comfortable on the
Veterans' Affairs Committee that the goals laid out over the
next 2 years will be met.
In a tight fiscal environment, among many competing
priorities, veterans must remain one of our highest priorities.
One important way to achieve this is to ensure that the
resources we have provided to the VA are producing outcomes
that we have intended. All of this will require an enormous
amount of policy guidance and oversight by the committee, and
it is essential that we have the necessary resources in order
to meet our responsibilities. I believe, along with Chairman
Miller, that our proposed budget provides those needed
resources.
On a final note, as you know, I became the new ranking
member of the committee this year. Change often brings new
direction and focus on our efforts on many of the challenges
that we have in our veterans community, and I am extremely
proud of the dedicated and effectiveness of the staff who have
remained with us in and the new staff that I am bringing on
board now.
If your committee deems it necessary to effect cost savings
by mandating across-the-board cuts, I ask you to take into
consideration what effect that will have on personnel and take
other actions to ensure that we have the necessary resources in
order so that we can continue doing our work. For example, if
cuts were made on the basis of actual expenditures for 2012, I
believe this would have devastating impact on our committee.
Our 2012 actual expenditures, in my view, do not provide an
accurate representation of our resources requirements. If you
look at, for instance, on our staff, at one point in time we
had a 50 percent vacancy rate. We have hired several new staff
members in the last month, but we still face gaps in areas such
as oversight and investigations, one of the most critical
functions, especially in the light of VA's transformational
efforts. Without the proposed payroll I will be forced to
reduce salary and even lay off staff.
While I understand the fiscal pressures faced by all of us
and by our country, I respectfully request that you support our
proposed budget level so that we can play our critical role and
essential role in supporting those who have served this great
Nation of ours. And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
[The statement of Mr. Michaud follows:]
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The Chairman. I thank both the chair and the ranking member
of the Veterans' Committee for coming before us and laying out
your case, and think you have made a very strong argument. I
often think to myself that I think a society, quite frankly,
can be measured in large part by how you treat the vulnerable
amongst us. I always say seniors, children, and our veterans.
And that particularly so, I think, with all of the brave men
and women coming back. Any time any of us thinking we are
having sort of a bad day, we could just take a stroll around
the physical therapy ward in Bethesda and see what is happening
there, or so many of our VA hospitals throughout the entire
Nation.
And I was sort of just looking at the detail that you all
submitted here for your various field trips. And I guess I
would just--field hearings, I should say--I should just applaud
you for, I mean, every one of them is at a VA hospital
somewhere practically, which is so important that you are able
to get out there and see exactly what is happening there or at
our cemeteries, national cemeteries for the VA, et cetera. I
think those are very important things for you to be doing.
And as we are looking through your budget, I also just want
to say I think you are talking, Chairman, about how you upgrade
about a third of your equipment each time. That is, I think, a
very good way to, I mean, you can't really do it all at one
time, but when you do those kinds of things in that very
practical manner it is a good way to upgrade equipment, I
think.
And the only thing I would say, I don't know if this is a
question or observation or just sort of throw something out to
you, as you are looking at the possibility of utilizing new
technology for the committee, where our committee may be able
to help resource you a bit with various things, whether it is
using cloud computing, even House-wide subscriptions, there are
a lot of areas where you might be able to save a little bit, if
you are not utilizing some of the various things. And we are
really going to make a big push on trying to do different
things here in-house that would save the committees, you know,
duplicative kinds of fees, et cetera, so you can resource
yourself with staff, making sure you keep, you know,
particularly on a committee like yours, that you keep the kind
of staff that you have the institutional knowledge, people that
understand the systems, and the bureaucracy and the whole maze
of what is the Veterans Administration, sometimes how important
that is. So we want to help you there. If there anything at all
that----
Mr. Miller of Florida. No. I appreciate the suggestion as
well. I believe that the House cloud is a great way to minimize
space being used by some very large servers that are in our
committee spaces, as well as utilizing a House-wide LexisNexis
subscription if offered. We use LexisNexis quite frequently.
And so I appreciate that and look forward to any help that your
staff can give our staff. We appreciate it. And you will also
notice on the field hearings that it doesn't matter if it is a
Democrat district or a Republican district, we will go. If it
needs to be done, if we need to do a hearing in a specific
facility, my ranking member and I have made an agreement that
we will go wherever the committee is needed and partisanship
aside. We are truly one of the most bipartisan committees on
the Hill.
The Chairman. Appreciate that. And I would recognize my
ranking member, Mr. Brady.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you for what you do. Unfortunately our veterans
are getting larger and larger and larger, and we are trying to
shrink to smaller and smaller and smaller. And I would also
like to applaud you for your field trips, because you are
telling our men and women that are in harm's way coming back
that we do care. And you are giving them a platform and a
reason and be able to let us know just what is on their mind
and be able to talk to congresspeople to show that they care.
My question is that--and I heard that you have to lay
people off or maybe maintain some people at a lower salary--
well, when we have cut our staff it makes it difficult for them
to be able to stay here because they can--and I know they are
dedicated, they all are--but they can make much more money out
there in the private sector doing what they are doing for us.
So it is tough to keep them, and then we cut them, it gets
tougher, and then, if you have to replace them, to find people
with their expertise and you can't pay them enough money to
lure them back in and you lose that expertise that they have
and it is hard to do that.
So have you had that problem with people that I know they
are staying on, but maybe it would be nicer to attract other
people with the expertise, you know, the institutional
knowledge, that you keep them instead of having them lured away
to the private industry? And then hiring other people at a
smaller amount of pay that they could probably make in the
private industry. That is my problem when we do these cuts. And
we are all staff driven, we are all staff driven, you know. And
if we can't attract the best and the brightest to do the most
important work that we do, we have to take a look at that. So
is there any problems, do you find that a problem when people
are here, to keep them, and people coming in, to get someone
with the right expertise?
Mr. Miller of Florida. The majority has not been as much of
a problem. Obviously we were growing our staff when we took the
committee over a couple of years ago. I know it was very
different for the minority because they do have some senior
individuals that have been there for an extended amount of
time. But your comments are well taken. We do have a lot of
very qualified staff that have serious expertise in their
various areas, and I would not be surprised at all if they are
not contacted on a weekly basis by outside groups trying to woo
them away from Capitol Hill. I think we are both very fortunate
in the fact that the folks we have on our staffs are very
dedicated to the task that we have before us. But for us it
hasn't been an issue. I am sure it is a little different for
the ranking member.
Mr. Michaud. Thank you very much, Mr. Ranking Member, for
that question. It is a little bit different for the minority. I
have reduced staff salary already this year in anticipation of
a freeze or a cut on our staff side. In addition, I was able to
hire someone, brought in just actually this week, significantly
below the standard salary for that position. It is a big
concern that I have. When you look at VA, as you heard from the
chairman, it is the second-biggest agency is in the Federal
Government. And I am very pleased to have the talented staff
that we have on board. My new staff director actually was the
deputy under secretary for policy over at the VA. She knows the
VA system very well. She worked on the Hill as well. And she
can get a job pretty much anywhere she wants to.
Likewise, my new staffer that I just brought, who was the
national service officer for the American Legion and the VFW
and worked under Secretary Hickey, which when you look at the
huge backlog claims that is out there, we need to know what VA
is capable of doing and be able to change the direction and use
the finite resources VA has.
As I mentioned, I just came on board as ranking member this
year, and I think we can do a lot more to make VA a lot more
efficient, such as reorganizing the VA system. I have some
ideas how we might be able to do that, but that is going to
take staff time and energy because I am sure the VA probably
will not be as responsive to those changes to make them more
efficient.
On the benefits, the Veterans Benefit Management System,
yes, it is technology, a computer system, but you also have to
look at policy changes and how can we improve that to help with
that backlog, and that is going to take time, effort to do
that, and that is why we need really good staff. And I am very
concerned, since I have reduced salaries already this year
among the minority.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, and thank you for all you do, and
thank you for being here today.
Madam Chair, I have no other questions.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman, and I thank you both
again. And just talking about the VA hospitals, when we think
about sort of the signature wound of this theater, the PTSD,
and how many are coming home with that that have flooded our
hospitals. And my husband is a Vietnam veteran and I have told
him. In Vietnam you would have died with those kinds of
injuries, but now because of the triage and the ability to get
them to Germany, to get them to Bethesda within 24, 48 hours
they live, which is a wonderful thing, but we have got to make
sure that our VA hospitals are running to the very best of
their ability to be able to treat these brave, brave wonderful
patriots as they come back. We certainly appreciate your
service and your staffs as well, and you have made a very good
case here today, and we certainly, the committee, will take all
of that under consideration. Thank you so much.
Mr. Miller of Florida. Thank you.
Mr. Michaud. Thank you.
The Chairman. The committee now welcomes Chairman Rogers of
Michigan and Ranking Member Ruppersberger of the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. And again the
official reporter will please enter a page break. We are going
to a new section.
The Chairman. The House Intel is charged with the oversight
of the United States Intelligence Community, which includes the
intelligence and intelligence-related activities of 17 elements
of the United States Government and the military intelligence
program. And this committee just wants to welcome both of you
gentlemen, and we look forward to your testimony, and we have
reviewed what you have submitted thus far and look forward to
hearing a little bit more from you. And at this time I would
recognize Chairman Rogers.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Madam Chair. And it is exceptionally
good to see you there in the chair this year. Congratulations.
I can go through the whole comments, Madam Chair, or I
thought maybe I would just, you have my statement, maybe I
would just cover a couple of quick points I think are
important, and then, I know my ranking member, and we are
completely on board together in this presentation, and then
maybe take some questions if you have them.
A couple of things I think it is important to point out on
the committee. First of all, all of our staff, including our
research and executive assistants, are required to obtain and
maintain a top secret special compartmented information
clearance. And because of the committee's security requirements
and restrictions, we are not able to supplement our staff with
summer or academic year interns or law clerks, we just don't
have the same capability or flexibility of other committees. As
you can imagine, this limits the hiring pool to those who have
and are able to qualify for the highest security clearances and
requires us to pay higher salaries. We hire program managers.
We have very few junior staff on our committee. We hire
individuals per program, FBI, CIA, NSA. On average they have 19
years experience in the intelligence community, have the
ability to get a clearance. So we can't really bring them in at
the lower pay scale, would not be fair, A, and we would not
attract any of the candidates that we need to be professional
staff to do this oversight.
So the committee was able to absorb in the 112th Congress
an 11 percent cut. It would be very, very difficult for us
moving forward at this point. So we tried to find efficiencies.
We did, we think, find efficiencies, that we could kind of
wring out some savings in the committee. But now it is getting
to the point where we can't staff every program that we have at
the requirement that we would need, the requirement meaning the
individual that has the right set of, A, clearances and, B,
experience and capabilities to perform the function. So you can
imagine if you are going to walk into the CIA, and FBI, and
NSA, if you are going to have the credibility that you need,
you need to have people who have the credibility to walk in the
door.
And just where we are heading from here and where we have
already seen some slowdown, we are continuing our review on the
Benghazi terrorist attacks and it is going slower than we want
because we can't apply the right personnel resources to the
task. The follow-up investigation to the national security
threats posed by the Chinese telecommunications companies is
going to require more staff application which would take away
from other programmatic needs. The review of the Intelligence
Community support to the ``CFIUS'' process. You and I know this
better than anyone with the sale of A123 batteries to China.
And if we don't get this review and begin to incorporate
intelligence concerns on these matters we are going to lose
more great American technology, that taxpayers paid for, to
countries like China.
Perform a comprehensive review of the recently proposed
Defense Clandestine Service, which is intended to completely
reform DOD's human intelligence collection activities, we have
lots of concerns. It is going to be manpower intensive. Pursue
the passage of a cybersecurity-related information sharing
bill, and establish a business advisory team to propose
additional reform and integration of the Intelligence
Community's organizational and IT structure.
So we need to do all of these things all at the same time.
And right now we are not at our full capacity based on the
limits that we have had by previous reductions. So at some
point we begin to reduce our capability to do the required
oversight of our committee. And I am all for cutting waste and
I think we have stepped up to the plate. Matter of fact, the
ranking member and I have found about $3 billion across the
Intelligence Community that we have been able to save taxpayers
over the last few years and still maintain a robust mission,
and we have done that on a reduced committee budget.
I do believe that the number that we have proposed today
would at least allow us to fill all of the slots that we would
be minimally required to move forward on the issues that I just
talked about and then maintain current counterintelligence
oversight operations, which we do now regularly, covert action,
the most sensitive things our committee does on a regular
basis, daily for staff, weekly for members, monthly and
quarterly for the committee. All of those things still have to
happen. And by the way, we are going to produce a budget
authorization bill here and get it out on the floor in June.
And it all happens at the same time.
If you look at our numbers compared to other committees, I
just don't think it meets the priorities of national security
if you are talking about reducing our ability to do that as we
speak. So I respectfully submit that testimony, ma'am, and I
know you have a lot of difficult challenges here facing where
you put your resources. I hope you will consider the
Intelligence Committee's needs in the national security
structure and the importance of our oversight in those
deliberations.
The Chairman. I Thank the chairman.
[The joint statement of Mr. Rogers and Mr. Ruppersberger
follows:]
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The Chairman. And the chair now recognizes the ranking
member.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Ruppersberger. A lot of what the chairman said I don't
want to repeat. I think the first thing in the last 2 years--
6.4 percent, but now where we are in the world responsibilities
Intelligence Committee we really need to--3.2 percent increase
from 2012.
Now, what are the reasons for that? The Intelligence
Committee does oversight of all the intelligence agencies and
we also do the budget. We have right now one of the most
serious issues before us, are cyber attacks from the Chinese.
The Chinese have stolen billions of dollars from us in the last
couple of years. Now, our committee and Chairman Rogers and I
together have investigated the Chinese, we are calling the
Chinese out, but there is a lot of sophisticated cyber attacks
that are happening.
We are worried about right now Iran, and we know cyber
attacks are coming from there, destructive attacks, because
Iran in my opinion is a robust rogue terrorist country, and
they don't like the United States. Very sophisticated, and the
people that we have on our staff who oversee all of this have
to be sophisticated, they have to have the top clearances. And
they could go out and make a lot more money in other areas. So
we can't afford to lose people.
We also are allowed as of this time, which probably is not
enough based on all the things we are doing, 44 staff. We are
29 right now and we are really not asking for anything more,
maybe 1 or 2. I just made a replacement as far as my deputy who
oversees. And right now if this occurs I won't be able to hire
a deputy. We won't be able to do the things we need to do.
People on our staff go, they travel to the front line, Iraq,
Afghanistans, the Pakistans and those different areas. So we
are saying from a national security point of view it is very,
very important that we allow to do the things we need to do.
I think I can stop there because the chairman has addressed
the issues basically. It is a priority of the national security
and we feel we have maintained our budgets the last couple
years. Also this committee, until Chairman Rogers and I have
gotten into the leadership, for almost 7 years they weren't
able to pass a budget. This is important because the stakes are
so high that we are able to do the correct oversight and that
the agencies have the confidence in our committee to move
forward. But if we don't have the ability, with 29 people, to
oversee the entire Intelligence Community.
The other issue I want to get into, because people don't
talk about it a lot, and that is the issue of space. One of the
reasons we are the most powerful country in the world is
because of our space program. As a result of what the Russians
did with Sputnik, that scared the United States and got us to
worry about the Russians controlling the skies. So JFK put
billions of dollars into space, and we have spent more on
space, which is paying off now, than any other country. The
Chinese are aggressively pursuing space, they are going to the
moon and they are attempting to develop a control program. We
can't let that happen, we can't be weaker. Space and cyber and
all these things come together. The average person doesn't
realize the GPS systems, all the things that are occurring. And
that doesn't even include the intelligence we are getting to
see what North Korea is doing, seeing what Iran is doing, and
all these other areas.
So we are asking just for a small group. We are all
fiscally responsible, we have cut billions of dollars. And
again in the last 2 years we have cut 6.4 percent. But where we
are as a country now and where the threat is, we are asking for
3.2 percent over 2012. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you both. You made a very compelling
case. And I think about you can have all the conventional
armaments that you want, that you could possibly buy, but there
is no second for human intel, there is just no second. And that
was a very vivid demonstration, whether it was bin Laden or
Saddam even. I mean, all of that was really human intel.
In fact, let me also just compliment you, I am not just
saying this because you are sitting here, but it is widely
acknowledged throughout the Congress of how you two gentlemen
have worked together in such a bipartisan way on our
commonality there for national security through the
Intelligence Community and what you have done there. But you
just talk to any of the Joint Chiefs or anybody, you talk about
what keeps them up at night, it is cybersecurity and the
ability for them to be hacking in. And when you see some of our
friends like China actually using their intel, their military
and their intel, their intelligence, to take our intellectual
property and various things, it is really quite disconcerting.
So I think the kind of oversight that you are producing,
and I appreciate the cuts that you have taken in the past, as
you have pointed out, and as you are looking, and as going
forward you do have some unique challenges I think on your
committee and your priorities, like a cybersecurity bill and
some of these various things that certainly this committee will
take into account. You are a smaller committee, really, from
your budgetary standpoint, et cetera. And like all committees
really it is principally staff, your expenditures.
But one thing that I would just sort of throw out, either
as an observation or sort of an offer to you, if there is
anything that our committee can do to assist you resourcing
when you are utilizing on the committee some new technologies,
whether that is cloud computing, whether it is House-wide
subscription services, I mean, you can save really some dollars
there that you could put into getting yourself a deputy and
make sure you have the right people that you need on staff when
you are hiring somebody at that level to be able to do the kind
of oversight we have tasked your committee with. So if there is
anything at all that our committee can do to assist you, have
your staff talk to my staff and we certainly want to do that.
Mr. Rogers. Five bucks under the mattress, we will take it.
The Chairman. And I know that is true about you.
Mr. Ruppersberger. You kind of said what keeps you up at
night. We kind of say a joke. Three things that keep us up at
night, Mike and I, and we are also the gang of 8: spicy Mexican
food, weapons of mass destruction, and cyber attacks. Those are
the two areas that are really difficult. But thank you for
those comments and we appreciate it.
The Chairman. Thank you. And I would recognize our ranking
member.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, and thank you for being here today,
appearing in front of us, and thank you for the job that you
do. You have answered my question.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Do you have your mike on?
Mr. Brady. It is supposed to be on. Thank you. You can't
hear me? You can't hear me say thank you? You want to hear it
again?
You answered my question about being able to hire quality
people and then be able to keep quality people that are going
to take a pay cut that are already hired. And I think that it
is incumbent upon ourselves and this committee to make that
point extremely hard as it pertains to your committee, because
it is awful important.
Thank you. And I have no other questions, Madam.
The Chairman. Thank you both very much. Again, you have
made a really compelling case and we are going to take
everything you have said into serious consideration, do the
very best that we can for you.
Mr. Rogers. On the IT front, we have made significant
investment in technology. We are trying to find those resources
where we can, but one of the problems we have on the IT front
is we maintain both classified servers and unclassified
servers. Our IT expense is actually higher than the average
committee, there is only one other that I can think of that
might even come close, that might be Armed Services, just
because of the nature of the material that we have and the
obligation to secure that material. So we do have that added
cost that I don't think was factored in originally when they
designed the committee.
The Chairman. Okay, very good. Thanks so much, gentlemen.
The committee now welcomes Chairman Issa and Ranking Member
Cummings of the Committee of Oversight and Government Reform.
Again the official reporter will enter a page break who are
making the recordings there.
The Chairman. The Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, the
government procurement process--if you could close those back
doors there please, thank you--Federal personnel system, the
Postal Service, and other matters. Its primary responsibility
is oversight of virtually everything that the government does
from national security to homeland security grants, from
Federal workforce policies to regulatory reform, information
technology, procurements at individual agencies, to government-
wide data security standards.
Again, I am sure in the 113th you are going to be look at
rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, and those kinds of things.
And we certainly look forward to both of your testimonies here
today, gentlemen, as the committee takes into consideration the
challenges that your committee is facing as we go forward. And
with that the chairman would recognize the chair of the
Government Oversight Committee, Mr. Issa.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DARRELL ISSA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I would ask unanimous
consent that our joint statement be considered for both of us.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Issa. And I will be brief in summarizing. Madam Chair,
as you know from your time on the committee, the Oversight
Committee is unique in that we do not oversee a part of
government, but in fact all of government. It gives us a unique
relationship with 73 inspectors general, the GAO, and
particularly the ability to look for the kind of duplication
and cross-agency waste that in fact is not a Republican issue
or a Democrat issue, it is the result of decades of building
infrastructure, whether it is 44 different programs to do the
same thing but spread over multiple agencies, or in fact the
stovepiping. For example, just in IT, information technology,
we have $81 billion a year spent and yet we only have one CIO,
one chief information officer in all of government that
actually has budget authority. In agencies there were as many
as 40-some individuals who have the term chief information
officer with none of them having budget authority and none of
them ultimately being accountable.
Our committee over both Republican and Democratic chairs
has found waste that is often as much as 1,000 times what our
budget is, on our roughly $6 million budget, and we would ask
that it be considered to be increased at a time in which what
we are trying to do is find that waste, find that duplication,
and in fact reverse it.
Now, just to give some examples that both of us are aware
of, we have found as a committee just today an example where
one of our major Cabinet positions failed to even follow up
until after the statute of limitations expired $415 million
worth of overpayments, just one agency. That agency has a $2
billion reduction, and one-quarter of it was not even pursued
to try to get the reclaiming up until after statute of
limitations expired.
Earlier this month we became aware and worked jointly on a
couple of States in which there were abuses under Medicaid.
These were abuses in which the Federal Government was a willing
participant in overpayments over a period of multiple
administrations and nearly 2 decades. CMS, as the responsible
party, was in fact going to negotiate and change over time
payments on things that were supposed to be capped at $700 per
person that we are paying as much as $5,700 per person,
representing over $15 billion.
We are not casting blame over anybody, but once discovered
it was only through our committee's hard work that we were able
to save at least $600 million just in this 2-year period by
ensuring that that overpayment stopped immediately. It is those
kinds of things that cause you to make an investment in our
committee. And in fact the reason that we worked hard to make
sure we had a joint statement is this is the part we primarily
offer you. We are a unique committee, we look for waste, fraud
and abuse, and at a time in which you are trying to find win-
wins, we can help provide them.
The one point I hope we all have, and, Madam chair, you are
very aware of this, we are not a spending committee, we are a
savings committee, that is what we exist for. And we believe,
just like the $2 billion that we invest in our inspectors
general throughout government, that we save so many multiple
times that, that any cutting back of the IGs is in fact,
cutting back of us is in fact an opportunity to lose the very
auditors that will guarantee you multiple savings.
In closing, we see savings, we see opportunities. Our
committee alone internally has managed to be able to do a great
deal with less over the last 2 calendar years. I might note,
though, there are some institutional changes that will be
needed, such as going to VoIP rather than conventional phones.
Going perhaps, and we have talked to your staffs, to per diem
for many of the people who have government work being done on
phones would cut our $80,000--just my side--$80,000 budget as
much as in half by allowing us to provide similar reimbursement
for government use on personal phones as we provide for
government use on personal cars. That kind of change throughout
Congress would represent millions of dollars a year in savings.
As you know, currently only Members of Congress are allowed
to have their phones, whether campaign or personal, on the
House system. By definition, the secure question has already
been answered by those personal phones being there, the dual
use has been answered, but we haven't facilitated that and
dozens of other savings that we believe we could have. We would
like to work with the committee to allow us and other
committees to find similar savings, but we must ask that you
not allow the audit committee to be reduced when in fact we can
return you more than 1,000 times our budget.
[The joint statement of Mr. Issa and Mr. Cummings follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.049
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Cummings.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Ranking
Member Brady, other members of the committee. I am pleased to
join my colleague, Mr. Issa, in our joint statement. And I just
want to add a few things to what he has said.
You know, just this morning, we had an interesting thing
happen. We had the IG for the Department of Education come in.
And it was so interesting how her situation sort of parallels
ours. She basically said that because of the sequester and
because of the cutbacks in her money, she can't do certain--she
said she has some criminal investigations she can't even deal
with. She doesn't have the personnel to deal with them and
can't allocate people to do that.
We have left some investigator positions open because we
don't have the money already. When I first came into this
position, my employees took--most of them took a 5 percent cut.
And that was 2 and a half years ago. And the interesting thing
is every time I come to these--not just this hearing, but I sit
and I listen to what employees go through, you know, I think
about the fact that these people come to work because they
believe in government. I guarantee you, you ask your staff,
those people sitting right behind you, them, those, they will
tell you, it is not the money. It is not the benefits. It is
because they believe in doing something for public service. And
they want to make a difference. And we want to make a
difference.
And you know, Chairman Issa talked about the GAO, us just
highlighting that, I guarantee you has had a phenomenal effect
on every single agency. As a matter of fact, the President
right around that time, remember, Chairman Issa, put out an
order to reduce spending on these conventions; I think it was
about 20 percent. Is that right?
Mr. Issa. Exactly.
Mr. Cummings. And so it does pay for itself.
The question is, I think it is a key question that we need
to ask ourselves, are we going to sit back and let these things
go on? In other words, not have the watchdog or have a watchdog
with no teeth? Or are we going to try to do the things that are
practical and that make sense to save the resources?
And again, Mr. Brady, Ranking Member Brady, I had an
opportunity to kind of listen in on the last hearing, we are
losing experienced people. They don't always tell you why they
are leaving. But one of the words that I hear around here a lot
is uncertainty. You know, when somebody is trying to raise
their family, they figured out they are already sacrificing,
they don't know whether they are going to have to take a cut in
their pay, whether their pay is going to be frozen, they are
trying to figure out how they are going to pay the babysitter
and all that, the last thing they want is uncertainty.
And I realize that we are going through some very, very
difficult times. But at some point, we have got to ask
ourselves where does the cutting get to a point where it
basically becomes counterproductive? And I would plead with you
to look at, not just our committee, but other committees so
that Congress can do its job effectively and efficiently. It is
one thing to have resources and spend them unwisely. It is
another thing to have resources and spend them effectively and
efficiently.
Almost every single hearing that we have in our committee,
I say to some point, I say it to my staff all the time, every
action that we take should be done in an effective and
efficient manner, period. And so I would just ask you to use
that measuring stick when you consider the things that Chairman
Issa said and things that I am saying and looking at what we
are trying to do.
Clearly, we have seen many cases, and I am sure you all
have seen this, too, where because we mandate that witnesses,
that people come before us, and maybe a subpoena or what have
you, but one of the things that I have noticed and I know the
chairman has noticed this, too, it is very interesting that so
many changes happen just before the hearing. Folks come in, we
may have been complaining for a year, and the next you know,
because they know they are coming before us, the next thing we
know, they have got all kinds of changes, things that we could
not even legislate if we wanted to.
And so again, I would hope that you would give
consideration to our requests. And like Chairman Issa said, we
actually need more money, not less.
Thank you very much. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, both of you, gentlemen.
I appreciate the ranking member making the statement people
change just before they come before the hearing. It is amazing
sometimes when the Sun shines in on what kind of behavior you
find there. So your committee is an extremely critical
component, really, of everything that goes on in government.
And certainly during this time of trying to do more with less,
it is very important that that kind of oversight is exercised
appropriately to save taxpayers' dollars and to root out some
of this waste that we find and fraud certainly as well. I would
just, sort of looking through some of the detail that you
offered up here to the committee, staff, I was just asking
them, I was looking, and I made this comment to some of the
other chairmen as well, you know, in an age of technology,
where always the staff is the overriding principal percentage
of your staff budget, of course, your committee budget, is
staff, but when we think about some of the emerging technology
and various kinds of things that perhaps our committee could
help your committee with. I was going to mention cloud, but it
looks like you are already using the cloud computing. But then
you do something a little differently with Web development,
which is something perhaps we could help you with. I am not
sure. But I am just sort of offering this up. If there is
anything that we can do from our committee standpoint of things
that you might be doing that are duplicative on the committee
that would free up a little cash for staff, et cetera, we
certainly want to make that offer and be happy to talk to you
at length or in any ways that we can help you with. We have
some various enterprise solutions that the committee has been
doing very aggressively. And we are going to really try to
ratchet it up here on the committee as well.
Mr. Issa. And Madam Chair, two areas, one I already
mentioned, if we could switch to a reimbursement system so that
particularly light users but people who do need to be--we can't
mandate that private individuals spend money on behalf of the
government. So when somebody has a requirement to be able to
get House email or a direct voice contract, we only have one
solution right now, which is to give them a government phone.
If we were given the ability, like we do with an automobile, we
don't buy an automobile for everybody that uses it for official
use. Changing the system so that you could have an appropriate
reimbursement for their shared use of their personal phone
would be huge for us.
Like I say, it would be a big chunk of my $80,000;
commensurately probably about $40,000 for the ranking member.
And that goes over all the committees.
Secondly, you did mention cloud computing. One of the
inherent problems we have in the House, and I don't want to
disparage House Administration, your IT folks, but they have a
``make the system bulletproof'' mentality. So the Wi-Fi, which
is top notch, doesn't actually work that well, and it still
causes people to use Mi-Fis and other technology. But also, we
have no interactive capability. When we developed the Madison
Project some time back, actually, I paid for it out of my
personal pocket because there was no blog, if you will, no
interactive capability possible within the House.
One of the things that the House could do which could be a
win-win is look at those .gov activities which do not have to
be directly connected to the House system--in other words, our
exchange system is deliberately behind a firewall with certain
protections--but House activities, hundreds of them, including,
to be honest, our personal Web sites, could all be bid out to
any number of other services, and I don't want to name names in
here, but you know the various companies that specialize in it.
At the same time, it would allow for products to be
purchased. And I will just give you one example. I am using
Amazon for a reason because they were before our committee.
Amazon actually sells its services in minutes of use. So some
examples where we have very little use but we need a site, they
are much cheaper than we would possibly be because we are
paying for incremental use. And they are scalable to a huge
amount at the time that there is a hearing or something else.
At least beginning the process of asking how much of it doesn't
have to be done behind infrastructure here would be helpful to
us all.
But at the end of the day, our problem is that we save you
as much as a thousand times what we cost you, and part of it is
because we leverage those 12,000 men and women of the Inspector
General's Office. We really implore you to hold us accountable
but in fact to realize that the kinds of savings we give is
often in the entitlements, which aren't even subject to
sequestration. If we save you Medicare or Medicaid money, it is
money net saved in an area in which we don't currently have any
authority to reduce spending, except by reducing waste.
The Chairman. I really appreciate your idea about the per
diem for the phones. I hadn't really thought about that. But
that is a very, very good idea. It is something we are
certainly going to take a look at.
Mr. Cummings. Just the outside vendor, you know, we are
paying an outside vendor for Web hosting services. And, you
know, your Web assistance team might be helpful to us there. We
understand they are still working through the little kinks and
whatever. But that would be helpful, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Okay. Appreciate it.
The chair now recognizes my ranking member, Mr. Brady.
Mr. Brady. Thank you.
Thank you both for being here today. And you made my point,
and my question, are we attracting quality people? And when we
attract the quality people, do we keep them, because we wind up
cutting their salaries and they can make much more money
elsewhere? So that is the point I keep stressing with every
panel. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I have no more
questions.
The Chairman. Okay.
Mr. Issa. Doesn't the freshman, Mr. Vargas, have a
question?
Come on, Juan, throw one at me, please. This is your first
chance.
The Chairman. Mr. Vargas of California.
Mr. Vargas. Well, first of all, it is a pleasure to see
you, Congressman Issa, from San Diego. It is an honor.
My question is the question that the ranking member has
already asked. I have been asking the same question. I
apologize I wasn't here earlier for your full testimony. But
are we able to retain the excellent personnel that you have?
And are we able to attract excellent personnel, knowing that
they can go into the private sector and make multiples of what
they are making in the committee?
Mr. Issa. Well, Mr. Vargas, the fact is that the ranking
member said it very well, given a fairly stable budget and
predictability, we can. We are always going to have the reality
that, for example, the ranking member's staff director was
hauled away by the President when he got sworn in. I just lost
my general counsel to the Leader's office. I lost another chief
individual to Senator McCain's office. Mobility occurs here.
But we do maintain, on both sides of the aisle here, we
maintain some very good and dedicated people. But we have to be
able to tell them with some certainty how we are going to work
for multiple Congresses. Because most of my people didn't come
in with me. And I think the same is somewhat true of the
ranking member. These are mostly career people. We have very
few true political appointees. As a matter of fact, our head of
all of our parliamentary activities and so on, she has
transcended multiple administrations. She does a great job. Her
team does a great job. That is one of the challenges. Career
people, we want to maintain them. And particularly when you
want to look at investigators who will investigate repeatedly
areas like that. So it is a great question.
We don't need a lot more money. What we would say, though,
is that every time you give us more money, we can show you,
through our oversight and investigations, where we will
uncover--a hundred times is an underestimate--as much as a
thousand times. And the same is true of the IGs, very
documentable about how much we actually find that leads to real
recoveries.
Mr. Cummings. You know, I think that we can--there are
always people coming along who I think want to move into
government. As I said a little bit earlier, though, sometimes
you don't really know why people are leaving.
And you know, one of the things I have noticed,
Congressman, and I talk about this to my constituents, that a
lot of people who come to us are taking a pay cut. And a lot of
them--the reason why I am so adamant about defending public
employees is because they tell me things like this, they want
to feed their soul. And so they want to do something that is
meaningful. They want to, at the end of the day, be able to
look in the mirror and say, you know what, I made a difference
for a whole lot of people.
And I just think in fairness to them, those kind of people,
we do need, as the chairman said, we need to provide some type
of certainty. I am sure my employees now are just wondering,
you know, what is going to come out of this hearing? Who is
going to have to go? Are their paychecks going to be slashed?
And I always try to keep in mind that a lot of these people
are struggling. You know, I mean when somebody, one of my
assistants was telling me what it costs for her just to have a
babysitter--I mean, I don't know if you know this, but a
babysitter is almost as much as it costs to go to college. And
so you have two or three kids, forget about private schools and
things of that nature.
So what I am saying is I think we owe them that. They have
dedicated themselves to public service. They want to make a
difference. They give their blood, sweat and tears to our
Nation. They never get any medals, never get any awards. But
the least thing we could do is give them some kind of
certainty.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you.
Again, it is a pleasure to see you. They are well trained I
know when they go along.
Mr. Cummings. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
The Chairman. Thank both the chairman and ranking member.
Mr. Cummings. That is why everybody steals them.
The Chairman. Thanks so much, gentlemen, for your
testimony. We certainly will take everything under advisement
here. You made a very compelling case. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. The committee now welcomes Chairman
McCaul and Ranking Member Thompson of the Committee on Homeland
Security. And again ask the official reporter to enter a page
break as we move into the next committee here.
The Chairman. This committee was established in 2002. And
it has jurisdiction to provide congressional oversight for the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, certainly to help better
protect the American people against a possible terrorist
attack. The committee's priorities for the 113th are to
continue to prevent terrorist attacks on our homeland, secure
our borders, protect against cyber attacks, manage the
Department of Homeland Security with a business model approach,
and to ensure our counterintelligence efforts are as effective
as possible. And I am delighted to have both of you gentlemen
here before this committee, since I have an opportunity to
serve on the Homeland Security Committee as well.
And I certainly at this time recognize the chairman, Mr.
McCaul.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MICHAEL MCCAUL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. McCaul. I thank you, Madam Chair Miller and Ranking
Member Brady.
I apologize for my voice. My five kids passed something
onto me at home. I want to thank the members on the Committee
on House Administration as well for the opportunity to testify
before you today.
You asked us to prepare three sets of potential budget
allocations for the 113th Congress. The first represents a
budget of actual funds spent in the 2012; the second an 11
percent reduction in the 2012 authorized amount; and the third
represents a 5 percent increase from actual spending in 2012.
Before I address your requests, I would like to thank the
committee for the funds the committee has already received to
date, that we received in the 113th Congress. We recognize that
in this current environment, every dollar we receive represents
taxes paid by the American people. We are stewards of their
money. And we are obligated to spend it wisely. And I am
committed to doing so on this committee.
Among our many responsibilities is an equally important
obligation to oversee the Department of Homeland Security,
which is the third largest department in the Federal
Government, and help develop the laws and policies that guide
DHS and help secure the Nation. I can think of few
responsibilities more important to this Congress and this
Nation.
So I am here to express gratitude. I am also here to
explain why we must not allow any further reduction in the
committee's funding. As you may know, during the 112th, the
committee experienced a 14 percent reduction in its funding
levels from the previous Congress. As a result, the committee's
majority and minority staffs had to reduce the number of its
personnel, reduce staff salaries, left unfilled staff positions
vacant, ended stipends for interns, and limited the committee's
travel and purchases in a fiscal way.
Currently, the Committee on Homeland Security is operating
on a budget below that allocated, and this is a very important
point, below that allocated in 2006. Madam Chair, that was 7
years ago. And I would submit the threats are much greater
today than they were 7 years ago. And at the same time, our
current staffing levels include 15 additional personnel from
the 2006 levels.
You all know the oversight and legislative responsibilities
of your respective offices and committee assignments. These
efforts require significant resources if we are to fulfill our
responsibilities in a meaningful way. As the new chairman on
the committee, I feel a particularly strong obligation to
ensure we fulfill these in as robust manner as possible. To
that end, we are focusing on developing strong legislation in
areas related to cybersecurity, border security, and DHS
authorizations. We will continue and enhance the committee's
oversight of the department as a whole, with a particular
emphasis on its management practices. This is a primary focus
for the committee. DHS is plagued with inefficiencies in its
procurement processes, technology development, human resource
practices, and general management. DHS lacks a permanent
general counsel, inspector general, and a commissioner for
Customs and Border Protection to just name a few examples of
the vacuum in senior management levels.
The situation is unconscionable. It needs to be addressed.
I believe it is time that DHS start acting as more than just a
holding company for 22 separate agencies. It is time for DHS to
act and function as a unified department. Conducting the
appropriate oversight and developing legislation to help DHS
achieve that mandate is among my highest priorities. This
effort requires sufficient staffing and resources to do so. Our
people are our most precious assets, and the committee has an
excellent staff on both sides. We may not always agree on
policy all the time, but in a true spirit of bipartisanship, we
make every effort to minimize the committee's resources where
possible. The committee has made every effort to limit its
expenses. Indeed, we will soon return nearly $400,000 of our
budget from 2012. But please do not punish us going forward for
acting in a fiscally responsible manner. To limit our budget
for 2013 to the amount spent in the 2012 represents a reduction
of 6 percent from last year. An 11 percent reduction from our
2012 authorized budget represents nearly $850,000 in this
committee's budget.
You will hear more specifically from my ranking member, Mr.
Thompson, on how these reductions will impact the minority
staff. But I can tell you, on the majority side, we already
experience difficulty in offering competitive salaries. And we
have lost a couple really good hires this Congress because of
that fact. With further reductions in our budgets, we will have
to continue to leave unfilled positions vacant, limit our
ability to travel on committee business and conduct field
hearings, and further limit our ability to replace aging office
equipment and limit the purchase of necessary supplies,
technology services, and other things.
DHS includes nearly 225,000 personnel at 22 separate
agencies operating across the Nation and across the globe. The
department's creation was an enormous undertaking, with huge
management and programmatic challenges. Recognizing those
challenges and the time it would take, the Government
Accountability Office in 2003 determined that the creation of
the department would be high risk, meaning the potential for
waste of taxpayer dollars was likely. A decade later, GAO has
again concluded in its recently released biannual report that
DHS remains at high risk in implementing key management
initiatives critical to its mission outcomes. As the report
noted, serious deficiencies still exist in how the department
buys technologies to secure the homeland, manages its finances
and data, and deals with low morale scores.
To further highlight the need for rigorous oversight, in
2004, DHS had a budget of $39 billion. Now it has a budget at
the department of $60 billion. Even the department's most
ardent supporters would not argue that it is where it needs to
be. Much work remains to be done to ensure the department
continues maturing and further enhancing the Nation's security.
Our committee has a total authorized combined staff of 75 to
oversee the department. And no matter how you slice it, those
numbers are already pretty slim to do the committee's work in
an effective and meaningful way.
Madam Chair and Ranking Member Brady, I thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you today, and I am happy to answer
any questions you may have. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. McCaul follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank the chairman.
And I would recognize now at this time the ranking member,
Mr. Thompson.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Chairman Miller and
Ranking Member Brady, for this opportunity to talk to you about
committee funding for 2013.
In 2011, the Committee on Homeland Security's budget was
cut by 6.8 percent. Last year, our budget was cut again by 6.4
percent. Each year, those were between majority and minority,
according to our two-thirds/one-third share. Yesterday, we
learned that our 2013 allocation would be further reduced by
8.2 percent or more than $200,000 for the Democrats. This cut
would put the committee more than 20 percent below its funding
level for the 111th Congress.
After reducing the size of my staff, cutting salaries,
streamlining office expenses, and curtailing travel, it is fair
to say we are doing more with less. Last year, the committee
worked hard to see that the Department of Homeland Security
received adequate congressional oversight. We pushed for
implementation of the hundred percent cargo screening mandate
signed into law in 2007. We forced the agency to be more
responsive to Member requests after Hurricane Sandy hit the
Northeast. We called for transparency within the Secret Service
after its latest scandal. We also worked to improve our border
security both on the southern and northern border, Madam Chair,
and strengthened our cyber networks, work that will continue
this Congress.
These efforts and many others are taking place at a time
when we must remain as vigilant as ever to protect the
homeland. In order to do that, we need sufficient resources. I
would like to be able to have staff to travel and not be
limited to what they can learn in the confines of Washington,
D.C. I would like to be able to replace aging equipment later
this year. I would also like to remain a competitive choice for
bright young staffers who have options for where they will
work. Further budget cuts would complicate these goals.
Thank you, again, Madam Chair and ranking member, for the
opportunity to testify. And I look forward to answering any
questions that you may have.
The Chairman. I appreciate, gentlemen, both of you coming,
and your testimony here today. And I appreciate how fiscally
conservative the committee has been in the past, and your
comments not to penalize you for showing that good stewardship
of the resources that the House has given the committee over
the past.
One thing I would say, and I appreciate very much the
chairman and both the ranking member mentioning some of your
oversight responsibilities of the committee in particular. You
think about the committee, really, and the Department of
Homeland Security forming, after 9/11, 22 various agencies and
is now one of the largest agencies within the government
structure, and still I think both sides would agree probably
not the best cohesive management structure, so the oversight is
very, very necessary. And I appreciate those kinds of things.
One thing I had said to some of the other committees, and I
think it is true with this committee as well, if there is
something that we can do from the House Administration
Committee, various kinds of enterprise projects that this
committee has undertaken in the past and we intend to ratchet
up now that may have application within the Homeland Security
Committee for a whole raft of various things, for instance like
the cloud computing. I was looking at some of the detail that
you have given to the committee here. You actually, I think the
committee right now is paying for private vendors for three
different services actually that the House could possibly
provide to the committee. So I am not so much sure if this is a
question or something I am sort of throwing out there we want
to work with you on. Whether it is cloud computing, systems
management, and your Webcasting, and even archiving the videos.
And the amount that the committee is spending on those kinds of
services could be a couple of staff people I think even. So I
am just saying perhaps there is something--and I may be reading
it wrong--but as I look through some of the detail that we put
here, I guess I am just offering if there is any area at all
that the committee can assist you with, particularly as a new
chairman while you take a look at all of these various things,
we certainly want to be able to be in a position to do that,
resource you as we can, certainly.
Mr. McCaul. May I respond?
Thank you for that offer.
As you know, I am new to the chairmanship, so I am seeing
this all for the first time, and I appreciate that offer, and I
look forward to working, following up with you on that.
In fact, when I asked about IT cloud, I was told the
committee didn't have that, although I know from my own
cybersecurity background that the House had an IT cloud. So I
don't understand why the committees would be any different from
that. And that is certainly something we can work on.
The Chairman. Very good. I look forward to doing it.
I would now recognize the ranking member.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just to thank you for appearing before us and testifying.
And myself and Mr. Vargas are on the same page. We have the
same concerns in mind. So, with that, I would like to yield my
time to Mr. Vargas to share our concerns.
The Chairman. Mr. Vargas.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, again,
for your graciousness, Ranking Member.
You really did answer my question. It was the issue of
retaining personnel and also attracting personnel. I think the
quote was that they are our most precious asset, is personnel.
Then you did mention it has been somewhat difficult. I guess I
would ask you to maybe expand a little bit on that.
Mr. McCaul. Well, not to get into specific cases and
names----
Mr. Vargas. No.
Mr. McCaul [continuing]. But we have one individual
currently who has a very good background within the department,
who works for a business consulting firm, as we look to hire a
policy adviser on management issues, which, you know, is
critical to this department. We have to oversee the third
largest department in the Nation. So we thought it would be
smart to bring in someone with not only DHS background but real
world business management experience to help us, you know, in
addition to the GAO and the IG, look at the department to find
inefficiencies and how we can save the department money so we
can redirect its moneys and efforts toward high priority issues
like cybersecurity or like border security.
Right now, I mean, candidly, I had the interview, offered
him the job. I thought he had accepted. He is now on the fence
because of the salary. So that is just one specific example of
several where we may lose really good talented individuals that
could help this committee do its job.
And let me say, you know, Mr. Thompson has been ranking
member for quite some time on the committee. I am new as
chairman. But you know, this committee has gone through a lot
of growing pains. We have had to, you know, defend our
jurisdictional boundaries when other committees want to take
advantage of it.
I don't think we need turf wars after 9/11, particularly in
the Congress. And we are just trying to do what this committee
was originally designed to do and set up to do, and that is to
protect the American people. And if we can't do that, if we are
hamstrung from a budgetary standpoint and we can't fulfill that
mission, it is not the department not doing it; it is the
Congress not fulfilling its mission. And so I really appreciate
you bringing up that question. Thank you.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Thompson. Well, the retention of qualified staff, as
well as the ability to bring on qualified staff, is essential
to the work of this committee. And you can only do that with an
adequate budget. You pay for what you get. And if we are
looking to be rigorous in our oversight of this department,
then we need the ability to have a competent staff to allow
this committee to do its work.
Mr. McCaul. If I could follow up just to your point again,
the amount of money that I think--and Mr. Thompson and I are
committed to the accountability issue. We may disagree on some
things, but not many. We fervently agree on the accountability.
The amount of money that we can save the American taxpayer by
doing our oversight responsibilities appropriately would be far
beyond the numbers we are looking at on these sheets. A $60
billion department, they have almost doubled in size since the
inception, while this committee is going back to 2006 levels.
So, anyway, thank you for the question.
Mr. Vargas. No, thank you very much for your answers.
Thank you, Madam Chair, I appreciate it. I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank both the chairman and ranking member.
Gentlemen, you have made an excellent case. And again, I am
personally well aware of what your challenges are, as I am very
proud to sit on the committee and work with both of you. And it
is a very bipartisan committee, works extremely well. But it
has huge challenges ahead. And so I am appreciative of that.
And we will certainly take everything you said under serious
consideration here. Thanks so much.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you so much.
The Chairman. The committee now welcomes Chairman Upton--
didn't mean to make you jump there, Mr. Chairman--and Ranking
Member Waxman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Again, the official reporter would enter a page break as we
go to the next group here.
The Chairman. The Committee on Energy and Commerce has
jurisdiction over the Nation's telecommunications, consumer
protection, food and drug safety, public health research,
environmental quality, energy policy, and interstate and
foreign commerce. It oversees multiple Cabinet-level
departments and independent agencies, including the departments
of Energy, Health and Human Services, Commerce and
Transportation, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency,
and the Federal Trade Commission, and Food and Drug
Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission, and
on and on and on.
I know I am missing a number of things. But this is a
committee that has incredible challenges facing it in the
113th, as you exercise your oversight and new legislation, et
cetera. There is so much of the legislation that does come to
the House floor that emanates out of your committee. And this
committee is well aware of that and has evaluated the testimony
and the backup for all of that that you have already given to
our committee. We certainly look forward to your testimony here
today and appreciate your attendance.
With that, the chair would recognize Chairman Upton.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. Well, thank you, Madam Chair.
I, too, apologize for my cold that I think I must have
gotten from Mr. McCaul just passing through the door.
You know, no one is immune from belt tightening, and our
committee has taken our fair share of budget reductions and,
obviously, will continue to do so. Like others, we absorbed a 5
percent cut from our 111th congressional level and another 6.4
percent cut in 2012.
To absorb those cuts, we took a lot of steps. We left a
number of senior staff vacancies unfilled. We have consolidated
staff positions. We have made significant reductions in field
hearings, site visits, all other types of travel. Reduction on
many subscriptions. We have clamped down on office supplies. We
purchased refurbished print cartridges. And we have moved to
paperless hearings. I have told my members that they need to
learn how to use their iPad.
Those steps are also key to our planning for the 2013
budget. We prepared two budgets, as you requested, an 11
percent reduction from the 2012 authorized funding level, and a
5 percent increase over actual 2012 spending.
Needless to say, absorbing an 11 percent funding reduction
on top of the cuts that we took over the last 2 years would
affect our work. But we are going to do our part. Mr. Waxman
and I are committed to working together on the types of
operational savings that we outlined.
However, in an 11 percent reduction you will see that it
cuts deeply beyond operations and into personnel costs and
essential functions. In contrast, any additional resources, for
example, the 5 percent increase over the 2012 spending, would
be used for targeted spending that would increase our
legislative output and support oversight and investigations,
particularly going after fraud and abuse.
We have many important issues on the docket for this year,
supporting and overseeing a dramatic shift in the American
energy resources, reforming Medicare and Medicaid, finally
reforming the broken Sustainable Growth Rate for Medicare
physician payments, oversight and legislative solutions for
public health threats, monitoring implementation of the health
care law, modernizing environmental programs, assessing the
challenges and opportunities facing American manufacturing, and
identifying solutions to spur job growth, reassessing how our
government uses scarce spectrum resources, and engaging the
private sector and government in our efforts to improve
cybersecurity.
I note that Mike Rogers from Michigan serves on our
committee.
That is just a sampling of our plans. So we are going to
make the most of our resources allotted to our committee.
I would be glad to discuss in greater detail any questions
you might have, and yield to my friend, Mr. Waxman.
[The statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.054
The Chairman. Thank the chairman.
And the chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr.
Waxman.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Waxman. Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Brady, other
members of the committee, I appreciate this opportunity to
testify on the proposed budget for the Committee on Energy and
Commerce in the 113th Congress. And I am pleased to be here
with Chairman Fred Upton. We come with a united message.
At the outset, I want to commend Chairman Upton for the
fair way in which he has treated the minority last year. On our
committee, the tradition has been that the minority gets one-
third of the resources after accounting for shared employees.
Chairman Upton has followed that tradition. He has allowed the
minority to control how we spend our budget to meet the needs
of our members. And I greatly appreciate the comity he has
shown us in handling the committee budget.
We both are committed to working together to reduce costs
sensibly and to operate as efficiently as possible. Like the
majority, we have also reduced subscriptions, cut back on
office supplies and remain focused on making sure that every
penny in our budget counts.
I support the chairman's proposal for paperless hearings,
and I hope we can find additional ways to use technology to
reduce our operating expenses.
Despite our joint commitment to operate more efficiently,
the big problem we are facing now is to meet our growing
legislative responsibilities with a shrinking budget. We may
disagree on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, but the
ACA is now the law of the land. The Energy and Commerce
Committee is responsible for overseeing both the new health
exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid. These two programs
will dramatically expand our oversight responsibilities, yet we
are being asked to do so with a shrinking budget and a smaller
staff.
We face the same problems in other areas of our
jurisdiction. We have enormous energy challenges in the U.S.
Yet, at the same time, we are being asked to respond to these
growing challenges, our budget and staffing continue to be cut.
Over the last 2 years, our budget has been cut by over 15
percent in real dollars. That may be pennywise, but it is pound
foolish.
On the minority side of the committee, we have 39 staff
slots. But if we have to operate with an 11 percent cut, as
contemplated in one of the budget scenarios you asked us to
complete, we will be able to fill only 80 percent of these
positions. There is no way we can do our job ensuring that the
taxpayers are protected with one out of every five slots
unfilled.
And I want to give you some concrete examples. The
committee recently received an enormous set of documents from
the Food and Drug Administration in response to our bipartisan
investigation of the circumstances surrounding a deadly
meningitis outbreak caused by contaminated drugs from a
compounding pharmacy. These injections have so far killed 48
people, sickened over 700 people in 20 States. We need to
understand how this tragedy occurred and what role FDA plays in
ensuring the safety of compounded drugs. Ultimately, our
investigation will be critical to the consideration of possible
changes to the FDA law to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.
At the same time, in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, the
committee is examining mental health, mental illness, violent
behavior, mental health treatment and research, and Federal
programs that provide care for the mentally ill. The goal of
this effort is to provide recommendations to reduce violence
and improve and enhance the capacity of the Nation's mental
health system. Yet, on the minority side, we are going to be
operating with only three professional investigators. That is
not enough staff to meet these pressing responsibilities.
I recognize that we are now living under the sequester. Our
committee must do its part. But I hope you realize that further
cuts to our committee would be counterproductive. The taxpayers
need us to make sure our health, energy, communications, and
consumer protection agencies are doing their job. Thank you for
this opportunity to testify. And I would be happy to answer
questions.
[The statement of Mr. Waxman follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.056
The Chairman. Thank you, both of you gentlemen, for your
presence here today and the good presentation that you have
made.
I guess one thing, and I sort of asked this of some of the
other committees, as well as the ranking member, you mentioned
particularly about the possibility of utilizing additional
technology to save a little bit of cash. Maybe you can use that
money toward staff. And you are saying one in five is vacant at
this point, which is pretty high. I understand that,
considering the kind of challenges you are mentioning. You
mentioned about the meningitis. I think Michigan had the
highest death rate, actually, of those folks. It has been a
front page story all over our area. So I am very appreciative
of what you are saying there as far as the oversight and
investigating those kinds of things.
But I am not sure if I am asking you a question or just
offering, certainly, anything that we can do from the House
Administration Committee to assist E and C with various kinds
of technology. If I could, just a couple in particular, I was
looking at some of the detail that you had submitted to the
committee here. There are a couple of different things where
you are paying a private vendor for some things that we may be
able to help you with. Whether that is Web site development or
systems management, a couple of those kinds of things,
possibly. If you are satisfied with what you are doing, that is
fine. But there may be areas where we are able to resource you
a bit. And we want to do that. This committee has been very
aggressive from the former chairmen and ranking members
certainly who have been here, but we want to really ratchet
that up a bit, too, particularly now with sequestration and
these kinds of very restrictive financial world that we are
living in right now. We think we may be able to help some of
the committees. So I just throw that out there. If there are
ways we can help, we want to.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you.
Mr. Upton. I would just note that improving the Wi-Fi
system that we have on Capitol Hill would be of an enormous
benefit. I know that when I sent the word out to our members at
the end of last year that we were going to try to move to
paperless hearings, so I brought my iPad in--and you know, we
got some of the older Members in the House, the Dean of the
House, John Dingell. We have got Ralph Hall, who will be 80--or
excuse me, 90 years old on May 3rd----
The Chairman. Oh, to be 80 again.
Mr. Upton. They are both in their 80s now and moving on,
which is a good thing in terms of age, better than the
alternative, but they have to use an iPad. And rather than
printing--you know, we have 54 members on our committee--54
copies of the testimony of, you know, the two or three hearings
that we have every day, it is a large resource. And so I
brought my iPad in to do it the first time, guess what? I
didn't get a signal. Couldn't get a signal in our hearing room
from the service provider that I had. So improving Wi-Fi will
be a big help, not only to just help reduce our costs but for
our constituents who want to watch these hearings. We had a
great one earlier today in Oversight on mental health issues.
And again, being able to put that testimony on the Internet for
anyone to watch as they watch C-SPAN to see what is being said
is a tremendous advantage. And at the end of the day, saves us
a lot of money. So that would be a big help.
The Chairman. I appreciate that. I am making a note as you
are talking about it. We certainly will look into that. It is a
very good point.
Mr. Waxman. I want to point out that when we tried to
update our Web sites, we went to HIR. They have terrific people
there, but they were so backlogged, it took us 18 months before
they were able to help us. And we had to go to a private vendor
for that. So maybe some of your offers of support would be very
helpful to us. And we welcome it.
The Chairman. We appreciate that. As a new chairman, I am
going to take a look at that as well. So we appreciate those
comments, sir. Because really, this committee has done
remarkable work in the past. We always say the largest room is
the room for improvement for all of us, right? So we just want
to be able to resource you as we can. At this time, I would
recognize the ranking member, Mr. Brady.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to thank the
chairman and ranking member for appearing here today and giving
us your testimony. Thank you.
The Chairman. You done? Okay. All right. I am back here
telling the staff, did you take notes of those comments that
they made? So very good.
Mr. Waxman. Excuse me. I have just been informed that I
said it was an 18-month, it was a 6-month to a 12-month delay.
So anyway.
The Chairman. Still.
Mr. Waxman. I don't want HIR to----
The Chairman. I know. We all went 18 months, oh, my gosh.
Mr. Waxman. I added them up.
The Chairman. All right. But still we are going to take a
look at that, because we want to--I mean, this is the Members'
committee, and the ranking member and I have had a lot of
conversations about various things that we can do to help
Members, majority, minority, and we want to be able to that.
That is a long time to be waiting, 6 months, 12 months, right?
We want to do better.
So thank you. I appreciate both of you attending. Thanks.
The committee now welcomes Chairman Royce and Ranking
Member Engel of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Again, I
would ask the official reporter to enter a page break as we
enter a new section.
The Chairman. The Foreign Affairs Committee jurisdiction
relates to our foreign policy, war powers, treaties, executive
agreements, the deployment and use of the United States Armed
Forces, the enforcement of U.N. sanctions, arms control,
disarmament issues, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, and foreign assistance.
The committee's priorities for the 113th will be to
continue to focus on the effectiveness of the U.S. foreign
policy, the review of agencies and programs operating under
permanent statutory authority, and the elimination of programs
and expenditures that are inefficient, duplicative, or
outdated.
So we certainly welcome both of you to the committee here.
We have already looked at your testimony that you have entered
and some of the background for the various resourcing that you
are asking for, for your committee's services. And this is an
extremely important committee that you are the chair and
ranking member of. We are well aware of that.
So, with that, the chair would recognize the chairman, Mr.
Royce, for his testimony. And we appreciate both of you
gentlemen coming.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. EDWARD R. ROYCE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Chairman Miller. We appreciate your
patience with this and this opportunity, and Ranking Member
Brady. We appreciate it very much to talk about our work.
I am the new chairman of the committee. My colleague, Mr.
Engel, is the new ranking member. So we are new to the
positions here, but not to each other, having served together
for many years, and having spent much time together on a recent
CODEL. I am confident that we will have the strong working
relationship needed to be a very effective committee.
Madam Chairman, as a Member who has always acted and voted
in a fiscally conservative manner, I would like to commend the
committee for taking a close look at how the 2012 committee
funds were spent before considering our 2013 funding. Budgets
are tight for all Americans, and we must continue to set an
example of fiscal discipline. As a new chairman, I didn't put
together the 2012 budget. However, I have reviewed the numbers.
And I believe that the committee was fiscally responsible.
As you can see from the packet that we provided to your
staff, for 2012, we spent 98 percent of our budget
authorization. On the breakdown of actual spent, funds were put
to sound use in the budget categories, and we responsibly
returned a surplus of $157,000. So the past chairman was a good
steward.
In addition to being good stewards, we have an obligation
to effectively carry out our committee's responsibilities. And
key among those is oversight of the State Department and other
government departments and agencies and the grant programs that
are funded with taxpayers' money. So tens of billions of
dollars are spent in these areas, and it is our job on this
committee to make sure that it is all accounted for and that it
is being spent judiciously. Following oversight, the committee
plans on being extremely active legislatively, including
producing bills to sanction Iran; and a bill to sanction North
Korea; to reform the Broadcasting Board of Governors; to
reauthorize the State Department; to increase our economic
competitiveness by reforming export controls; and improve
embassy security. Our investigative team continues to look at
lessons learned from Benghazi. Unfortunately, there is no
shortage of crises in the world demanding our attention.
Field hearings are also important to the committee in terms
of us meeting our responsibilities. Southern California is home
of the Nation's largest Taiwanese American population. With the
restart of U.S.-Taiwan trade negotiations, a field hearing to
hear from this community on how to boost economic ties with
Taiwan is particularly warranted. Seven committee members are
from this area. And we plan on holding a similar field hearing
in Florida to look at trade with Latin America.
Another fact to consider is that we are a must stop in this
Capitol for innumerable foreign officials, innumerable heads of
state who come through here. And they want to come to the U.S.
Congress and talk with committee members about U.S. relations
with their home countries. We want to be there for them. And
our leadership, frankly, expects us to be there to meet with
them. And we recently hosted the U.N. Secretary General, an
expense, but a worthwhile one here in this Capitol. Nearly 30
of our members attended.
So my concern is that with a potential loss of 11 percent
of our 2013 funding, that would be over $900,000 in 2013 alone.
We will not be able to carry out these responsibilities in the
manner in which they should be carried out. Strong oversight
requires high caliber staff, with experience in intelligence,
law enforcement, and private sector fields. I have attracted
such staff; one individual with extensive CIA field experience
and another with time spent as a major investment bank--as an
investigator. These individuals took pay cuts to join our
staff. And I would like to be able to retain them and attract
others.
But the committee currently has six unfilled positions that
we will not be able to fill if we were to absorb an 11 percent
cut. Also, in anticipation of budget cuts in 2013, we
eliminated a subcommittee, a reduction of three majority
subcommittee staff positions in so doing, as well as an
administrative staffer. So we are working to reduce costs and
streamline our committee's organizational structure.
I would also like to express my concern that the budget of
this committee includes the salary and administrative expenses
for the House Democracy Partnership, as well as the Tom Lantos
Human Rights Commission. I believe that both of these entities
should be funded independently. But for now, please account for
the fact that our committee provides considerable support,
funding, for these two groups.
In conclusion, Member Engel and I are raring to go. We
organized earlier than ever, have held several important
hearings and last week introduced the Royce-Engel Nuclear Iran
Prevention Act. We are asking you for the resources that we
need to succeed.
And I thank you, Madam Chairman, and I thank the ranking
member as well.
[The statement of Mr. Royce follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.058
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
And the chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Engel.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Chairman Miller, Ranking
Member Brady.
Thank you for inviting me to testify. And I thank you for
doing yeoman's work and listening to everybody testify. I want
to enthusiastically endorse everything that Chairman Royce has
said. I couldn't agree with him more. We are working together
in a bipartisan manner. We both believe that foreign policy
needs to be bipartisan wherever possible, and are working very
hard to make it bipartisan in every way.
Ed and I have already established a very good relationship.
And I look forward to working with him as a friend and partner
in the weeks and months ahead. So I endorse everything he had
to say.
As I said, I have always believed that foreign policy
should be as bipartisan as possible. And we are working
together to address a huge number of important and complicated
issues, ranging from the Iranian and North Korean nuclear
programs to the civil war in Syria, the conflict in Mali,
Chinese hacking of our computer networks, the transition in
Afghanistan, and the list goes on and on. I think that we and
our staffs get a lot done for the good of the country and the
world.
But our ability to do that will be severely undermined if
we have to absorb yet another round of significant cuts to the
committee budget. Already, as the chairman pointed out, in the
past 2 years, we faced budget cuts of 5 percent and 6.4
percent. In each of those cuts, the Democratic staff was forced
to take significant pay cuts. We also have three vacant staff
slots that we aren't able to fill as a result.
Mr. Engel. With the further budget cut of 11 percent, staff
would be forced to take yet another substantial salary
reduction, even larger than those in the past 2 years. This
will obviously hurt morale and cause experienced staff to leave
for the private sector and make it harder to attract new
talent.
But even more importantly, further cuts will make it
virtually impossible for the committee to conduct effective
oversight at the State Department, USAID and other Federal
agencies under our jurisdiction. I think we can all agree in
Congress, no matter what party we are from, that our committee
has this important work to do, the oversight of the State
Department, USAID and other Federal agencies.
Among the other things, these cuts would undermine our
ability to ensure that every reasonable step has been taken to
guarantee the safety and security of our diplomats. At the end
of the day, this lack of oversight will end up costing the
taxpayers much more than they will save in any additional
reductions to or budget.
Madam Chair, and Mr. Ranking Member, I think sequestration
is bad policy. I voted against it, and I continue to believe
that indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts are a terrible and
counterproductive way to deal with our fiscal situation. I
understand the need to tighten our belts, just like millions of
Americans have been forced to do.
Over the past 2 years, our committee has done just that; we
have cut through the fat and even the muscle, and now we are
down to the bone. At this point, we are well beyond the point
at which we can do more with less. If this happens, now we will
have to just do less with less. And I would argue that bad for
U.S. foreign policy and the prosperity and security of the
American people.
So, again, I thank you for inviting me to testify. I
wholeheartedly agree with the chairman, and I hope you will
take this under very serious consideration. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Engel follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 80285A.059
The Chairman. I want to thank both gentlemen for appearing
before the committee. We have looked at what you submitted to
the committee and will continue to evaluate it, as we do in the
overall for everyone.
One thing I guess I was not aware of, I am having the
committee take a look at here, that the chairman pointed out, I
did not realize the House Democracy Assistance Commission is
actually under your budget as well as the Lantos Foundation. I
am not sure how much that costs the committee. I don't know if
you even know the answer to that right now. We are trying to
look at it.
Mr. Royce. We are providing staffing for that.
The Chairman. Yes, that is a fantastic thing, but it could
be quite labor intensive, I would think as well. I didn't
realize it was part of your budget. I am not sure what we can
do about that immediately, but it does seem like it ought to be
able to be broken out or something, it seems like it should be
recognized as something that you have absorbed there. Although
there are a lot of kinds of services that House Admin or
whatever the whole House really does provide when you do that,
I mean, whether it is the Library of Congress for some of these
emerging democracies, et cetera, services through the Library
of Congress or some of the various things that would be an
assist.
But certainly, I don't know if I am asking you a question,
but I am trying to absorb what you told me, and we will see
what that means.
I think what you have looked at as far as you mentioning
some of these field hearings, I think those are very important
things that you have identified.
Mr. Royce. Yes.
The Chairman. I would also say this, as early as today, I
had a group in, some folks that were here for the AIPAC that
talked about both of you gentlemen and how excited they are and
the committee continuing a very bipartisan approach to some
legislation that you mentioned that is coming out and how
important it is with the challenges the entire planet is facing
and how important it is your committee is taking a lead on some
of those things. So I know you have incredible challenges this
year.
The only other thing I would say, again, I am not sure if
it is a question or just something I want to throw out there
for you that I mentioned in some of the other committees as
well; this committee has a history of being on the leading edge
of trying to have services that we can resource the various
committees with and we really want to ratchet that up in
various ways with utilizing new technologies, existing
technologies, emerging technologies that can help the
committee. I think you are already using the cloud computing,
but we have some enterprise types of projects that we are
trying to use. And I was just looking here, and I know that
your committee actually switched to the House-provided Web site
development just last month, so good.
Mr. Royce. That is true, Madam Chairman.
We are also moving to reduce printing costs by requiring
members to use iPads to review hearing testimony and committee
memos and suggested questions and so this will have enormous
savings. You referenced the House Democracy Partnership and Tom
Lantos Human Rights Commission. That share of our budget just
for the salaries is $235,000 a year alone. So I appreciate you
being sensitive to the fact that we do carry these additional
costs for these additional purposes here within this budget and
appreciate your consideration.
The Chairman. I appreciate that. At this time, I would
recognize the ranking member.
Mr. Brady. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member, for
appearing in front of us. My question is real quick; with the
budgetary cuts, how much of a problem is it for you to be able
to attract quality people to go to work for your committee? And
how much does it affect you able to keep them working for your
committee when you have people who come to work and, like you
say and a lot of our chairman and ranking member say, that they
do it because they have a passion and they want to be a public
servant and want to help out. Well, that's all well and good
but that gets old pretty quickly. And then not only can't you
give them what they are worth or even give them a raise, now
you are cutting their salary. So how hard is it to get quality
people, and how hard is it to keep them?
Mr. Royce. I think I can speak to that, because there is a
tremendous feeling of patriotism--I am thinking for the moment
about the individual with extensive CIA field experience, who
came to work for us and took a pay cut to do it, because of the
feeling she felt that these issues were so important, she
wanted us to have her expertise. And indeed, to not be able to
retain her, for example, would be a great loss to the
committee.
I think of the fellow who had the experience as an
investigator with a major investment bank, who we are using on
precisely the kinds of investigative work that this committee
must succeed at, again, already taking a pay cut in order to
take this job because it is important work he feels should be
done for the United States, but at this point, those cuts have
been implemented, and that is why we ask for your
consideration. It is exactly the issue you raised. We want to
make certain that those individuals who will make a sacrifice
and come up here and work for reduced wage will stay with us.
There is a question of how deeply we can cut.
Mr. Engel. You know, obviously, as we said before, both Ed
and I are new to being the leaders of our respective parties on
the committee. My predecessor was Howard Berman, who, since I
have been on the committee for many, many years, I watched his
staff and was very pleased with the professionalism and how
hard they work. I made a decision to basically keep his staff
in tact because they do such an effective job and work for much
less than they could easily get out--if they went to the public
sector. And my worry would be that if some of them have to
start leaving, which they will have to do having absorbed two
cuts, then it is really going to be very difficult to retain
them. And then, when you get new people, if you are going to
get people that are going to be paid less, they are not going
to be as experienced, and the whole committee will suffer at a
time when the chairman and I are trying very hard in a
bipartisan manner to do these kinds of oversight
investigations, which is really what our committee does. This
committee, probably almost more than any other committee, one
of its very important purposes is to investigate the State
Department and all the other agencies. If we lose the ability
to retain good staff because of that, I think the committee
work will be all that much poorer.
Mr. Brady. And when you lose them, you also lose their
knowledge.
Mr. Engel. Definitely.
Mr. Brady. Their institutional knowledge goes with it.
Thank you.
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, both of you, thank you.
Mr. Royce. Thank you.
The Chairman. I am going to look into this, and I don't
know if we can change it in the immediacy here, but I think
your point about the various Democracy Assistance, et cetera,
if you think about what is happening with our individual MRAs
is whatever happens with the committees as well--I mean, the
House, we took the 5 percent, and then we took the 6.4, and now
we are taking 8.2, we are below 2008 levels. At the same time,
the executive branch has actually expanded their spending by
16.7 percent I think during that time.
And I am only saying that in light of this particular
thing. I think an argument could be made some of these salaries
possibly could be paid for from the State Department budget,
really. Would you have any comment on that, or you don't have
to comment if you don't want to?
Mr. Engel. No, I agree. And it is not only the executive
branch; it is the Senate as well. If we don't have the ability
to retain good staff because we can't pay them what they want
to be paid, they will either gravitate to the private sector if
they are just interested in making money, but if they want to
stay in government, they will go to the Senate and to the White
House. I think that leaves us all in the House of
Representatives a lot poorer in more ways than one.
The Chairman. Okay, gentlemen.
We really appreciate your time and attention to the detail.
We appreciate your answers to the questions. We will give
everything serious consideration, and we appreciate it very
much.
Mr. Royce. Thank you.
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. At this time, we are going to recess our
hearing, and the committee will reconvene tomorrow at the
appointed time and will continue. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 4:29 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]