Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

Of individuals like the clintons, who worked hard for the middle class throughout their entire lives. [applause] hillarys here today to talk about economic growth. She is here to talk and take your questions regarding our economy. We had this promise here in america. That promise is if we all work hard and we play by the rules we can get ahead. You folks who dont know me, i have run a business here for 40 years. Im in the boat business in dover. I can tell you that they are saying a rising tide floats all boats. I can tell you that the greatest expansion in peacetime since world war ii is during a time that the clintons from arkansas occupy the white house. [applause] and i dont know about you but we are still here in dover we are still members of the working class, middleclass families, and we need an ally. We need an ally in the white house. That will not forget where they came from. I can tell you and you have my word that the clintons never forgot where they came from. Ever. [applause] so as i mentioned earlier, a rising tide. Im in the boat business, so i know this. A rising tide floats all boats. We need a new rising tide in america. It is my privilege to introduce to that person who is going to bring us that tide. Hillary rodham clinton, the next president of the United States. [applause] ms. Clinton thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Wow. Thank you very much george, and i do have a really soft spot in my heart for dover. There are a lot of young people here, which im thrilled to see. [applause] it looks like some of them were born in 1992, the first time i came to dover but i remember it so well. Thank you for gathering today on this beautiful summer day for this town hall, right before i came in i was told that the Dover Babe Ruth under 16 Girls Softball Team just won the state. [cheers and applause] i played softball. A long time ago. The last team i played on in high school was sponsored by the local candy distributor and the distributor got to name the teams that he sponsored, so we were the good and plentys. [laughter] the kindly suggested that we wear a uniform the corresponded with the color of the candies. Black, white, and pink remember . We did. We did. So im especially pleased that that team is now at the regionals, and i wish them well. I hope today to talk to you about the economy, to hear from you on that issue or anything else that might be on your mind. Some of you may know that i gave a speech this past monday about what is at the center of my economic agenda, and that is raising incomes for the American People. [cheers and applause] making the middleclass means something again. Helping pool horse stretched people who are so stretched with her budget be able to meet their daily expenses and put some aside to save for the future. Given what we have been through with the gate Great Recession , the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression in america, it took a lot of hard work for people to call themselves out of the ditch we were in. It also took good leadership from a democratic president , and i believe [cheers and applause] i believe president obama does not get the credit he deserves for digging us out of that ditch. [cheers and applause] in fact, there is a pattern here. We have had in the last 35 years five president s, three republicans, two democrats. Each of the democratic president s inherited problems, economic and other problems, but focusing just on the economy from their predecessors. I remember very well when right after the election my husband said to me, you know that deficit is a lot worse than they told us. And then i remember meeting with president elect obama about a week after he won and he was asking me to be secretary of state and he started by saying you know, the economy is a lot worse than they told us. So we know that it takes a lot of hard work to get the economy moving again. And, as you heard george say im very proud of that during my husband posit ministration we did have the longest peacetime economic period in history, 20 million new jobs. Im very proud that now president obama and the hard work of the American People reversed losing 800,000 jobs a month. We have recovered more than 12 million jobs. We are on the right track. We are standing, but not running yet. Its going to be up to the next president to figure out how we take the gains of the two terms of president obama and build a Strong Foundation for raising incomes for hardworking americans. That is what i want to do. And i will tell you what the contrast is, because that is what this election in many ways will be about. Everybody running on the other side has a different economic philosophy. They really still believe that if you cut taxes on the wealthy if you lift regulations on corporations that somehow Economic Activity will trickle down to all the rest of us. Well we have tried that. We have tried it and it hasnt worked. You know that old saying, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We are going to have a big debate in this campaign about what Economic Policy and philosophy to follow. And i think its really important for voters to be as engaged and informed as you possibly can, and theres no place more important to do that than right here in New Hampshire. Thats why on monday i laid out a threepronged strategy for strong growth, fair growth, and longterm growth. I dont think you can have growth or fairness. You have to have both. [cheers and applause] the way we do that is kind of getting back to basics. Of course there will be a lot of important recommendations that i will be making throughout this campaign about what works, but the evidence for what works is, and how we can hopefully Work Together to implement those policies. Its important for me to really ask you to think about your own lives. One area for strong growth we have to pay more attention to his Small Business. Small business on average creates 60 of the jobs in america. But it has been really difficult for Small Businesses in the last decade in ways that you can all probably imagine. Regulations, taxes, and particularly since the Great Recession, not enough access to capital to be able to start a business and grow a business. I want to be the Small Business president. My dad was a Small Businessman. I know what his hard work gave to us. He gave us a good middleclass lifestyle. And he worked hard for it, but we were able then to realize what i think is a basic bargain in america, where you work hard you get your reward. You get to do better. And you really do hope that your children will do even better than you. That is what we have to restore. When it comes to fair growth, of course theres a lot of things we need to do. Raise the minimum wage, enforce laws like over time, make sure we finally pay Women Equal Pay for equal work. [applause] and i am quick to say, this is not just a womens issue. This is a family issue in this is an economic issue. If people are not being paid fairly, that hurts everybody. It hurts the Small Business town that doesnt get enough customers because people cant afford what they are selling. When i talk about equal pay for equal work, i really mean that that is a Growth Strategy as well as a fairness strategy. The more we equalize what people are paid according to their own effort, the better off we will all be. On longterm strategy we have to make investments that will grow our economy and research and development in infrastructure. It is the on to my understanding that we are having a partisan battle in congress over funding infrastructure. We are in a global competition. Other countries are investing in their infrastructure. I dont mean just our physical infrastructure, as important as that is, roads and airports and bridges. I also mean our virtual infrastructure. We need to get broadband affordable quality broadband to every place in this country just as we got electricity to every place in this country in earlier times. [applause] this one particular issue i want to talk about today before throwing it open to questions. I really think the corporations are missing a big bet. Credible studies prove that Profit Sharing with your employees is good for the employees, good for the businesses, good for the economy. I want to incentivize more companies to do just that. We have some great examples here in New Hampshire. One you are familiar with Market Basket, right . [applause] Market Basket provides profitsharing for employees who work more than 1000 hours a year for both fulltime and parttime employees. Im pretty proud of that, and i think it makes Good Business sense. [applause] and when you hear from Companies Like Market Basket is that this increases productivity, it increases loyalty of employees it gives you a bond with your employees, they will work harder, they will look for more things to do to improve whats going on in the stores. That is common sense straight you treat somebody like they have a stake in your business, they are going to stand up a little straighter, they are going to work a little harder, they are going to make a difference. Theres another company here in portsmouth, pax world investments. Joe kivas right there. Hey, joe. Joe started this company, it is an investment company. Hes a big believer in profitsharing. He provides profitsharing to his employees. I want us to try to convince more companies to do just that. I am proposing a rising income sharing profit tax credit that would encourage more companies to provide profitsharing by giving those companies a 15 tax credit of the amount of the profitsharing for two years to get that started and to see that it works like so many of the other companies that already do it. [applause] i think by providing examples and incentives and comparing what works to what doesnt work just like economic policies that work and dont work, corporate policies that work and dont work, we have got to do a better job using information as a tool for changing corporate behavior and corporate purpose. I think its a big part of what we can begin to implement when im president. And i believe that if we do more of that, we will send a very strong signal i will have more to say about corporate purpose next week i doubt we need to get businesses back looking after their employees that is that we need to get businesses back looking after their employees, not just their executives and shareholders. There has got to be a [applause] there has got to be a recognition that there is more in it for all of us if we do it like that. So therefore, i am going to be presenting a lot of plans that i hope will find favor first with voters, and then as president with those who im going to try to influence by incentivizing but eventually by changing laws, if that is what it takes, so that we have more of an economic approach the reflects, number one, how lucky businesses are to be operating in the United States of america with all that we provide, the support we give, the rule of law that is part of our National Economic climate and therefore we need to work more as partners and not have an adversary relationship between our economy and our society. I believe weve got to get the economy to work for everybody and weve got to get our democracy to work for everybody. Its going to require changes in both. [applause] so im excited. Im excited about this campaign, im excited about what we can do together. I really believe with all my heart that this is one of those elections that will set the course for the rest of the century, and we need to get it right. We cant go backwards. What im proposing is not left or right so much as it is forward or backward. We are going to go forward. So, with that, lets start with your questions. They can be about anything. Do we have microphones around . The first hand i saw was this young woman right there. Yes . My name is brenda. I have been a caregiver for my husband for nearly 10 years. He has younger onset alzheimers disease. My mother is almost 89 and lives with me. She has alzheimers disease too. I am one of 65,000 alzheimers caregivers in the state of New Hampshire. I know firsthand the pain of seeing somebody slip away to this disease. I also know the financial burden this disease carries for families as well as our country. In your president ial campaign and beyond, what will you do to that this devastating disease and the potential bankruptcy to medicare and medicaid will get the attention it needs . Thanks. Ms. Clinton first let me thank you for your caregiving and your care. [applause] i want you to think about what she said. 65,000 caregivers in one state and multiply that many times over. And we have a caregiving crisis. We have so many millions of people who are providing either fulltime or parttime care for those they love, for spouses, for children for their aging parents or other relatives. We are going to have to come to grips with this, because right now we are not doing enough to support you in the important work you are doing in your home. I want to make three points. First, with respect to specifically to alzheimers, i am 100 committed to increasing the research that goes into alzheimers. One of the real unfortunate setbacks from the cutbacks from congress is that so much of the Health Research done by the National Institutes of health and other firstrate Research Institutions has been cut back. I was talking to a scientist the other day who said that when congress cut the money for the nih and others, literally labs were closed, young scientists were laid off, and it stopped progress in a number of very important efforts, including with respect to alzheimers. We have got to get back funding our research and science agenda, and particularly our research into diseases like alzheimers. We are going to be on the brink of making some breakthroughs. [applause] secondly, i think we have got to do more within the government programs, particularly medicare, to provide more support for caregiving that is given by a relative. People worry, ok, how do you make the judgment . We can pay for a visiting nurse. We can pay for some buddy in from the outside, but how do we provide Financial Support for the woman taking care of her husband and her mother . I think we are smart enough to figure that out. I think our failure to do so will actually end up costing more money because more people will not be able to do what you are doing. They cant afford it, so therefore they will turn and say, i have to keep working because i also have dependent children at home, i have to keep working because my husband no longer can and so i cant do any of the caregiving. Ive got to go into the formal workplace. Somebody will have to come in and help. Why cant we be smart enough to figure out how we support the Family Caregivers in addition to the nonFamily Caregivers . Im working very hard to figure out how we do that, because clearly the costs projected into the future are quite substantial. But as a friend of mine who is taking care of her husband said to me not so long ago, she said if every Family Caregiver stopped working tomorrow, you would have to find about 350 billion worth of care to make up the difference. Lets figure out how we do that and dont discriminate against Family Caregivers. We also need to give you more respite care. There has to be a program for respite care. [applause] too many people, they do the work and they do it out of love, devotion, but it is 8147 job. They dont have time to go to the store, have a cup of tea with a friend, get their hair fixed. They dont have time to do anything unless there is respite care in the home or in another facility. The last thing i would say is im looking at an idea that i heard about recently, the care core. Here is what i think we might be able to do in every community have a coordinating mechanism so that people who are trained in how they would care for who has alzheimers or any other ailments could be on a volunteer basis willing to comment to your home for a certain period of time. There are a lot of people who are retired. There are a lot of retired nurses and teachers, Business People and others who look for volunteer opportunities. I think if we had a care core where we helped to fund just the mechanism, maybe the online request, maybe the telephone line, maybe somebody to make the appointments, we could help supplement what might be done by both the family and professional caregivers. This is a huge issue. As you can tell, ive been thinking a lot about it. My late mother lived with us until she passed away. She was thankfully in good health but she had some real beginnings of deterioration physically and so i am well aware of how important this is and i really want to thank you for raising it. Thank you so much. [applause] i am going to get to as many questions as i can. How about you right here . My name is marie. Im a High School Student from dover, New Hampshire. I have a question that pertains to social justice. I am very involved with the lgbtq community. I know that gay marriage was just legalized in all 50 states and i dont want to undermine that. [applause] yeah. Thats awesome. But i was wondering what you specifically were going to do about antidiscrimination laws in the workplace, because i dont want to be able to get married to someone of the same gender but also be discriminated against in my workplace. [applause] ms. Clinton thank you. You are right, the Supreme Court has to sit in was an extraordinary historic milestone. Courts decision was an extraordinary historic milestone. It is a constitutional decision, the more than that it is a decision about how we treat each other, how we respect each other, how we acknowledge that as Justice Kennedy said, people should not have to be lonely. People can have relationships, they can love one another. It was a quite moving decision to me. You put your finger on what the next big challenges, and that is discrimination. When i was in the senate, i supported the law to end discrimination against people based in those days as we used to say on sexual orientation. I think we do have to do more to make sure that we end discrimination in the workplace in particular. I am committed to that. I will work for that comment as president i will do everything i can to get that enacted into law. [applause] wait. Maybe we can get a microphone. Here comes one. The room got so overcrowded. Thanks all of our aids for doing the work here to get us in here. I want to thank you, senator clinton, for speaking out about the problem that corporations are having too much ability to write the rules in this country. This is related to the city of dover which is one of the communities across the country that has gotten a grant to acquire military equipment from the federal government, in this case an Armored Vehicle called a bearcat manufactured by a Company Called lancome. Lego actively helps cities figure out how to do the paperwork so they can get these military vehicles which then causes problems with Community Relations in communities where the police start to act perhaps more like military forces instead of like people protecting the community. What steps will you take to make sure that our local Law Enforcement do not become just another Profit Center for the militaryindustrial complex . [applause] ms. Clinton thats a very important question on several levels, one of which you just mentioned. And also because the militarization of local police has been in many ways a problem over the last couple of years with some of the incidents that we have had in communities across our country. I have already spoken out and i said we really do need to look hard at preventing the militarization of local police forces. That means a lot of this heavy military equipment that was either already manufactured or manufactured after 9 11, which is now made available to local communities, should not necessarily end up there. Let me make this point. Part of the reason for this is that after 9 11 i was a senator from new york, so i was there within hours the next day seeing what had happened in new york, and as part of the effort to try to protect our country to the new department of homeland security, a lot of money was appropriated that would go through that process that could then be be used by cities and towns across america. I think it was too broad. I think it was unfortunately lasting too long, so it is going on as you rightly say. Local communities working with the federal government need to make a hard look at whether we need to be paying for and subsidizing the transfer of such equipment to local communities are there still may be places in america where it is warranted, but i think it has gone too far and needs to be reined in. Thank you for raising that. [applause] go ahead. Here comes a microphone. Secretary clinton, thank you for coming to New Hampshire and speaking to us today. You talked a lot about building our infrastructure and our future in this country. As a young person i am very concerned about the threat of Climate Change to our families, to our country and around the world. Scientists have shown we need to keep 80 of the fossil feels of the ground to prevent two degrees celsius warming which would be very dangerous for us around the globe. My question is will you commit to banning fossil fuel extraction on public lands on this country . Yes or no . [applause] ms. Clinton the answer is not until we have the alternatives in place. That may not be a satisfactory answer to you, but i think i would have to take a responsible answer. I am 100 in favor of accelerating the development of solar, wind, advanced biofuels, energy efficiency, everything we can do. [applause] and i would hope that we could get to the point that we made which is looking at our public lands and cutting back over time, phasing out the extraction of fossil fuels. But i will say this we still have to run our economy. We still have to turn on the lights, wiest ill have to make sure that businesses operate. I want to do as much as i can as quickly as i can to make this energy transition, but i could not responsibly say to you that i could automatically stop the source of fossil fuels right away without having a substitute in order to keep the economy going to keep people employed to keep the lights on. But your larger point really bears repeating. Climate change is the next potential is not a next essential threat. In israel. Climate change is a very real threat, anybody who says i am not a scientist, you should say why dont you listen to the scientist . And once you do, then you will be urgently trying to act in your own personal situation trying to be moree energyefficient, get more available to your states, and working against those who are working against those things that can make a difference just been up for that moment and i think we have to have a comprehensive and very well thought through antiClimate Change prorenewable energy plan. I really applaud with the president has done without having the authority from the congress, what he is done with executive orders. We need to continue that, build on that, protect that. [applause] hopefully we can get to the point where we develop Something Like a consensus in our country. This is what really upsets me. The people who are against doing something on Climate Change have no alternative rate it is just more of the same. It is just keep doing what we are doing now. That is a losing policy. We do need more people in congress who understand and believe in the importance of addressing Climate Change. We need a president who will keep moving as far as possible on executive authority until we can get more legislation passed. We need the United States to set the example. I do not want to say i will do some ink that i know would be very difficult to do we get everything moving in the right direction and we get better results and we get more people doing what their piece of the action might be. I want all of us to think through what can we do, and if we can get to the point where we end the extraction on public land and at least until we face it out, get more money that might fight Climate Change for those who do the extracting, then we will be on the right track to get to where we need to be. [applause] how are you . I just want to ask you [inaudible] ms. Clinton i am very glad you asked that question because most people think the student loan problems are a young person problems, and it is not. It is not only people like yourself went back to school to get additional education but a lot of parents and even grandparents or cosigning and guaranteeing and taking out student loans, sometimes mortgaging their home in order to do that. This is a multigenerational problem. We have 1. 2 trillion in outstanding student debt. Held by 40 million americans. This is a terrible drag on individuals, it is a budget buster for so many individual families, and it is so bad for the economy. Because a lot of the people who are weighted down at all ages of this student loan debt, they cannot start a new business they cannot buy a house. I have young people telling they cannot afford get married because of their student loan debt. Here is what i want to do. I want to refinance existing debt, the Interest Rate is too high compared to what the real Interest Rate [applause] and i will be rolling out a specific plan about how i think we can refinances. The they concern is that a lot of that money is out to the government. If we refinance and lower the payment, that creates an additional budget strain on the government budget, but i think we have to do it. I do not see any way out. I think that the Interest Rates were too high to begin with, especially when they did not reflect the real Interest Rate. The other thing is we have to get the cost of college to be more affordable. Going in it has to be affordable. [applause] and i also really appreciate what you said about how you had to be for a payment, because youre paying a flat rate on that 6 Interest Rate. When i went to law school i had to borrow money. I did not have money i came from a middleclass family. I worked, i got a little scholarship, but i borrowed money. And i borrowed money on a plan that was available to me and my boyfriend at the time borrowed money as well. We signed up for an income contingent repayment plan. In other words, i went to work out of law school for the children defense fund. I do not go to a law firm, im a 14,000 a year. We paid back at a percentage of our income. We did not have to defer payment because we did not have a high Interest Rate that was literally causing us to have to crowd out other obligations. I want to have more people to have access to income contingency repayment programs as well. [applause] and i believe at a certain point, particularly if you do Public Service, to go back to the woman with alzheimer challenges, if you become a nurse, a social worker more a firefighter, a teacher Public Service jobs that our society needs, you ought to have your loan were given four given after a certain time. Edit to have another kind of employment we should look at how we get the Interest Rate down the payment schedule down, and even the Interest Rate because think of the amount of money one. 2 trillion dollars, think of what that would mean going into the economy. I think that we can see it is a very good trade off if we make it. We will be looking to see how we can refine it and make college more affordable. [applause] thank you for m taking my question. I have a public schoolteacher and i want to know what your stance on education is and the economy. Because in the last 17 years i have seen Public Schools really decline, as it is a concern of mine and i am sure of many people here. [applause] ms. Clinton what do you teach . Special education. Ms. Clinton thank you for teaching. [applause] i am really concerned about what were doing to our teachers and our students and our Education System because i do not believe that we are recognizing the challenges that can spring to school these days that have to be addressed by the teacher in the classroom or the teacher in the Specialty Program like special ed. I believe strongly we have two do more to support what works in school. What works is recognizing what a hard job this is for so many teachers with so many kids. [applause] i have a great friend, one of my friends run sixth grade who taught for 35 years, and retired. I asked her what was the difference between the beginning of your teaching career and the end of your treacher career teaching career . She said, a lot more kids with problems who came to school who did not really have any support and i had a difficult time trying to help them. And she said i felt like every kid that i taught had a little reward control device in their brain and they were turning me off all the time because there were so used to a fast response, and the slow and hard and boring work of learning something was just hard for them to concentrate on and to grasp. Heres what i want to say, i want to support those tried and True Research proven approaches that help you as a teacher do the best job you can. Help your students to succeed to the best of their ability. Help the school you are in to be a success. I fear that we have gotten so focused on test taking to the exclusion of everything else. [applause] i believe in tests. They should be diagnostic, you should figure out how to help some of you learn more. They are a good benchmark. But there are a lot of other things that help you teach the children who are in front of you that may or may not ever be reflected on a test. Special education it was a great accomplishment for the united days. One of the things that i did was to gather evidence about how many children and our country were not in school because they had some kind of disability. We forget those days. Im knocked on doors to ask who did not have children in school. I met death children, blind children, people in wheelchairs. There was no place for them in our schools. We integrated them in our schools. But the federal government promised it would pay for the additional cost us agile education. Cost of special education. They pay about 17 . What weve done is to say we want you to educate all of our children, a noble and important goal, but we are not going to give you what you need to do that. The other thing we did not do is to recognize that as important as our country and secondary school is, the first five years determined so much about how successful you are. [applause] this is something i have worked on ever since i was in law school because it just struck me that if you want lawabiding citizens to make you want productive workers we got to make sure kids go to school with the right amount of discipline and love to make sure they take it vantage of the learning. And then along came the Brain Research in the last 15 and 20 years 80 of your brain is physically formed by the age of three. Think about the kids that you know like my wonderful and amazing, honorable nine and a half month old granddaughter. We can talk about her for the rest of the day if you wish. [applause] we are reading and talking and singing to that child since she was a week old. Our words are going to be enough with the reading and singing. [laughter] we have actually looked at the scans of little brains it fires up that brinkman it creates synapses, it gets neurons to develop. We are doing this like crazy with her, and we have other little kids. I have a lot harder time. They may not have two parents in the home and they may be the like crazy to put food on the table. They may have difficulties with drugs, alcohol or other problems in by the time a little grin garter gets to kindergarten, the Research Shows she will have 30 million more words than a child of a less advanced background. Put yourself in the teacher position. First day of kindergarten, little charlotte, she probably talking too much. [laughter] think about charlie who had just as much potential wants to learn as much, but his vocabulary is nowhere near where it could be. And then we turn to the teacher, and say you have this achievement gap, and you go fix it, and you close it. We will point fingers at you if you dont. That is not right. That is just not right. [applause] so many people. This young man. And think as we all know, the new horizons probe just passed within 8000 miles of lo pluto. I hate to say it, but is not a planet. Its a dwarf planet. But that is not the point. I am wondering if you think that Space Exploration is dwindling as it has the past 15 years, is irrelevant or suit or as an obsolete leftover of the 1950s where we should leave it to corporations . Ms. Clinton you are talking to somebody who wanted to be an astronaut. When i was a teenager, about 14, and the Space Program was Getting Started and i wanted to be an astronaut, and they wrote to nasa and asked what i had to do to be prepared. And they said thank you very much, but we are not taking girls. But that changed with sally ride in a lot of the other great women astronauts. [applause] to be fair, i could never have qualified anyway. But i really do support the Space Program. Here is why. When of the great advantages we have had over the last 50, 60, 70 years, visavis the rest of the world is the investment we have made in science and research. Of all kinds. It is a huge economic boon. Back in the early 1990s our country invested in mapping the human genome. My husband was president when it finally was revealed. Money has been put in i both republican and democratic president s and congress is because we wanted to know more about what this meant. In the years since, hundreds and thousands of jobs have been created and many millions of dollars have been generated for our economy. I saw it as an in the hundreds of billions. We have also had lots of his mrs. Span off from nasa research. We have had the benefit of that Research Going into the Public Domain so that it could be used not just for Economic Research services, but also for commercial services and i personally believe it is one of americas advantages. Nobody is as an innovative creative smart about taking research and scientific recruits and translating them into commercial and economic activities. I would like to see us continue to explore space. Were just at the beginning of understanding what is a black hole, why is it there, what does it mean for us . We should be mapping the meteorites and asteroids that people workingry about. I think it is a good investment. So on my list of things that i want our country to investm in,s pouring space, exploring our genome will we are at the brink of all kinds of new information. Lets not back off now. I do not have an objection with parterin partnering with commercial, but they are in the Applied Science arenas that only the government or support. [applause] hello. I would just like to ask you, last time you were in the last time you are in the white house, we had a valid budget. Do you think that is possible again . Ms. Clinton thank you for asking. Yes we did. We had a balanced budget and a surplus when my husband left the white house. And we had we have the opportunity, i know there are not only democrats are, there are a lot of independence in New Hampshire, and a lot of republicans. I hope youre hereto. You are here too. Really paying down our national debt. I went from the senate to new york in january of 2001. I remember very well that president bush and his administration had a different philosophy. And they really wanted to cut taxes very deeply. I can support a matter of tax cut water tax cut, but lets not do to the extent that we lose the advantage we now have to control our own fiscal destiny. I lost that argument. The 9 11 happened, and as a senator from new york, i knew it was going to cost many billions of dollars to rebuild new york to rebuild the pentagon, to start doing what we needed to do to protect ourselves. The administration asked for another big tax cut. Then we had two wars, and i think it was it was not the only time, but one of the very few times we waged war and did not pay for them. By the course of that he years he8 years, we saw huge sense is going into our military, and we saw our balanced budget once again turn into a big deficit, certainly no surplus, and we have the economic crash. So i would hope, with sensible Economic Policy, we could get back moving toward balance. My problem is i feel a little bit like my husband and president obama, i am not sure how we will put it all together because we need to be fiscally responsible, but we also need to make some investments that will make us richer in the future. We need to keep our eye on abuses on wall street and other financial is occasions. We have to defend. Frank and other efforts to rein them in. I was very proud that we had a balanced budget and a surplus, and i wish we had paid for those wars. I wish we had ended up in a better fiscal position than we currently are because of the collapse. Everything the president obama has tried to do to dig us out of that hole, that is important. But we have to figure out how to get out of it and do what we need to do. [applause] ms. Clinton this man has been very patient and very anxious. It comes the microphone. Good afternoon. How do i address you . Ambassador, secretary, or hillary . Ms. Clinton hillary is fine with me. As you can tell, in yiddish i am called the old man. One of the things that i have enjoyed by being in New Hampshire is contributing to society, and one of the ways that i can do that is because i have this wonderful thing called Social Security. Thank god for Social Security. Lets hear it for Social Security. [applause] to remind people, it was a democrat that got to Social Security. With that in mind, while i still have Social Security . Thank you. Ms. Clinton yes. The answer is yes you will. We do have to defend against the efforts to privatize against Social Security. It makes no economic sense at all. We also have to do more to help people make more savings themselves, and have the savings produce results, which means we have to have better efforts to get the advisors who tell people about their investments in 401k enough to be churning and not to use the money for other things. We need a savings plan on the one side, but we have to defend and strengthen Social Security, which remains the base for the vast majority of americans in their older years. You do not look cold to me, but in their older years i want to say a fast word about this. Most people who are on Social Security, or whose spouses or whose parent is or who have some firsthand knowledge of what it means in supporting someone they care about understand why this is an essential safety net program. We have had a lot of efforts as a senator is very involved in beating back resident wishes efforts to privatize also security because it would have been a disaster for the vast majority of people. But we do have to take a look at how it is operating. For example, one issue i concerned about is that the wellbeing of older women particularly single, widowed and divorced women on Social Security who themselves never worked out of the home or who worked at very modest jobs with low wages, or who worked only intermittently, they are having a very hard time of it. We have to look at Social Security, we have to attack and defend Social Security. Protect and defend Social Security. If we do this right, it will be there for these young people as well. It is not going away if we take care of it and do what is necessary. [applause] you have many titles, we are very proud of that. You have the most experience and i wish you the very best, and i think will be run away. My complaint is very inane, but it affects every Single Person in this room. I do not know of it is something you can help with or not. But if you initiated a call, and it was the National Health care which i thought was a Marketplace Health care organization, to look at reduced health care cost. It seemed it was kind of a scam and im getting upwards of 20 calls a day. I have tried everything. Ive tried blocking our phone compan blocking, our phone company only blocks 12 numbers. Short of me changing my phone number, i really dont want to do that, but we have elderly, we have sick relatives, we have children that need to reach us. This phone is constantly bouncing across the country. It goes to seattle war washington dc. Somebody is always calling me and im always running for the phone because i am waiting for a Family Member to call me. What can we do . Even though the do not call registry says you initiated that, how can wes these robo calls . It is out of control. [applause] ms. Clinton thank you. I have to tell you, this is the first time i have been asked that. [laughter] i do not know the answer, but i will try to find out if there is an answer. I would love for somebody on my campaign to meet with you. We will figure out i cannot promise you, i can only tell you i will look into it. I will try to figure out if there is a way to help you. It is a really annoying. I know. I had the same issue at home. It is really so annoying when you have told so many im not interested and they call you again and call you again and all the rest of it is i will try to find out what we can do to help you. Yes sir . Congratulation on that grandparent saying. Ms. Clinton isnt it the best . . Youre are the only candidate with international experience. [applause] i was telling my 95yearold motherinlaw who drove up here to see you today that i think the secretary of state job is the most demanding thing we have seen, especially the bouncing around. With that in mind, are we going to regret my 10 years from now, and will charlotte regret the fact that the iranians will get to move to as fast as they want to develop Nuclear Weapons, and it five years they will be selling arms to all of the bad guys in the middle east . Ms. Clinton it is a very fair question. It is going be something i hope people will follow, because the consequences, as you point out are ones that we all have to address. Let me tell you how i look at it. And i will just go back a little bit of background. The iranians master the Nuclear Fuel Cycle when george w. Bush was president. They dealt to covert facilities that we know of and they began to stop them with centrifuges that were increasingly sophisticated, despite the world and our best efforts to try to prevent that. The efforts that we began when president obama came into office, and i became secretary of date, were directed at trying to force them into a negotiation to do as much as we could to put the lid on their Nuclear Weapons program. I spent the first 18 months of my time in the secretary of state job working to put together the coalition that passed Security Council resolution that imposed the crippling sanctions on iran and then enforcing them because there were a lot of people in the world, and a lot of countries who do not share our concern. Especially in asia. They are only interested in energy. We had to convince them that it really was there were a because the only alternative to some diplomatic negotiation might very well be more which would be a disaster for the region, for energy supplies, and for all of the consequences that would flow from that. We really did put in place a very tough regime of sanctions and then after the rainy elections when i went to jean was a the leader was finally gotten rid of, we explored whether or not there would be a serious effort by the regime to negotiate an end to their Nuclear Weapons program. The interim agreements thus was reached as called the lausanne agreement. It was generally accepted as a positive step on the path toward trying to get the iranians to back off from Nuclear Weapons research. The final agreement, which is over 100 pages and has lots of annexs, does put a lid for a time span on the uranium program. Iranian program. There are people on the other side of this who have said very clearly that they cannot support it, they think it is a mistake. They believe that the iranians will cheat on the agreement, and even if they do not change on it, in 25 years when certain provisions sunset they will have a free hand. I think that is a respectable argument. However, i think it is important to ask what our our alternatives. And i may not just our alternatives today tomorrow in 20 years from now, but are told to us right now that could have gone that would put on in any other way . Do i trust the iranians, absolutely not. This is not Ronald Reagan who in arms control agreements with the soviet union which were very important and two were criticized by people in his own party and he famously said trust everify but verify. Here i say dont trust, that verify. We will have monitoring equipment that is highly sophisticated, that even without inspections we will be able to alert us to cheating. We will have a chance to put the iranians to the test on what they are doing if we think they have cheated without having to get russia and china on board, which is a very important achievement in this agreement. The secretary of energy, who is a very respected Nuclear Scientist has certainly told many of us that this is the very best inspection agreement and intrusive monitoring that we could have put into place right now. I am hoping that we move forward on this agreement with our eyes wide open. Because i think it gives us a chance to tackle the other serious threat that iran poses. Even if we put this lid on the Iranian Nuclear program we still have state sponsorship of terrorism, we still have using proxies like hezbollah, and we have the next essential threat to israel. We have so many of the problems from irans bad behavior. But it would rather deal with her bad behavior while we have a fighting chance to prevent them from continuing their Weapons Program that you try to deal with that and the Weapons Program. So for me, this is a very cold and calculating assessment. I do not expect their other behavior to change. I do not expect them to wake up and say they want to be part of the world. I do not expect the ayatollahs to cede power. But i just believe when it comes to protecting our friends and our allies, particularly israel in the middle east, this will give us a better chance than a lesser chance. That is why i end up on the side of supporting it. In five years, 10 years, 20 years, if we get there without the agreement blowing up before then which given the iranians behavior and their lack of trustworthiness is certainly possible, at least we will have had a chance to do what i have advocated are a number of years which is to be much more forceful in putting together an umbrella of security around the region that includes israel and our arab allies so that it is much more clear to them that they will pay a serious price like a diplomatic agreement, a has its pluses and its drawbacks, but it is on our National Security interest at this time. [applause] thank you for taking my question. I will be honest, i was disappointed by the answer you gave before about Climate Change. You said earlier that you think this election will be a very deciding election for the century, anything that Climate Change is an important part of that. Is your refusal to take leadership on Climate Change to the fact that you have contributions from the fossil fuel industry in your campaign . Ms. Clinton no. No it is not. I know what the right answer in terms of getting votes would have been, the right answer will be cuba i will ban extraction on public lands, and if sony asked how will you do that . While i will advocate. How do you get it done . I will keep advocating for it. We have to change our energy policy. I have been clear about that. I have been repeatedly clear about that. We also to do it in a way that does not disrupt our economy. It is easy to say, lets pay on all these fossil fuel extractions, and forget about all of the people who are employed, who have jobs, who rely on the energy. I have a strong believer in tackling Climate Change in the very strongest way we can, to have that transition away from it into clean and renewable energy, solar and wind and advanced biofuels and the like. I want to say to you i am sorry if the end her if the answer wait ok. Thats ok. I am in favor of acting on the climate. I will tell you what i believe. Some people may like it, some people may not like it. [applause] i believe strongly [applause] ms. Clinton i respect the passion and the urgency. I understand it. I believe we have a lot of work to do if we are going to have the kind of Energy Agenda that will actually create the millions of jobs that comes from clean and renewable energy. [applause] from my perspective, Climate Change is an absolutely essential issue and there are candidates that tell you whatever you want to hear. There are lots of things we need to do to address it, number one we need to prevent backsliding. Enabling customers to sell back to the grid because they want to prevent the transition. We are a lot of work to do to make that happen. I certainly would have public lands on the list of things we need to address there is no doubt about that. My biggest problem is trying to figure out how we do what we need to do, absent a congress that will support what we need to do. [applause] we need those who act as passionately as you do, run for office and have your voices heard. It is imperative that we support president obama because he has pushed forward despite congressional opposition. [applause] we have a lot to do. I would just like to know your stand on immigration. It is a hot topic now. How would you stem the flow of Illegal Immigrants into our country . I support comprehensive Immigration Reform with a path to citizenship. [applause] i believe it is not only the smart path to take but economically smart. It will also help us get the labor market working for everybody again. Here is what i mean by that. And the legitimate concerns civil have, and a hero to cross the country, is people who are undocumented are doing jobs that used to be done by people who are american citizens i deplore that. Here it is why it happens. If you are an undocumented immigrant, with no legal rights whatsoever, employers cant exploit your cant exploit you, can play you less than any minimum. They do not provide good working conditions and eight this waste jobs of people who were doing them before. One of the positive results of comprehensive Immigration Reform is to remove that incentive or to there would be no incentive to coast the rules would apply to everybody. I do not believe that we are going to deport 11 Million People who are living here. If someone says that they want to do that, i think they are saying something which is never going to happen. Maybe they can get people to nod and agree and cheer, but it is never going to happen. I believe we have to do a better job securing our borders, and not just our southern borders, but here or, and ports and everywhere else. I think if we move towards comprehensive Immigration Reform , and we provide a sound path to citizenship, the countries we did take a deep red and say lets figure out how we live with all of that and make sure that people are going to be treated fairly and that we have the right approach economically. I brought the senate bill the Senate Compromise bill the democrats and republicans supported it, and it had a comprehensive immigration plan and it never got a vote in the house. I believe it would have passed the house by both democrats and republicans. That was a real lost opportunity, but i think that particular bill remains a very Good Foundation to start to try to get coverings of Immigration Reform accomplished. [applause] thank you. You mentioned earlier the congressional opposition that we face. I was wondering if i could bring that to a different issue. You mentioned he would support a constitutional amendment on campaignfinance reform. [applause] this is a very important issue i think everyone is in support of. The question is, given contemporary electoral conditions, is that something that could happen during your presidency . Or are there alternative approaches . [applause] ms. Clinton great question. I think we should do everything we possibly can and legislatively, regulatory lee, and there is a debate going on. Some experts say there are things that the congress can do if you put the pressure on them to get them done. Whether they will or not, that is often the year. Because we still have a for a lopsided majority in the house but at least it would be a path forward. There are those who say no wonder citizens united, you have to change the constitution. I think we would have to make that a voting issue. We would have to make it an issue that in every town hall, every meeting, every District Across our country, incumbents and challenges would be asked. There is another route going straight to the states. Going straight to the states might be a good organizing tool. But it would certainly raise the availability of this issue and make it clear. That is what i intend to do if necessary. Climate is my issue. I am listening to all of the issues that people have. What im realizing is the question is what if you have a lopsided congress . What you going to do . What is your plan . Ms. Clinton first of all, i hope we do not have as quite lopsided a congress. I really do. [applause] there are a lot of states that are far ahead of the federal government. Iowa gets 25 of its energy right now from wind. So does texas. It is not like nothing is happening, it is just at the federal level, not enough is happening. The more we can incentivize state and local communities to do much more, the better off we will be. Even if we cannot get the big solution adopted by congress, getting other kinds of financial incentive to continue the expansion of wind and solar and the event biofuel. Lets not forget energy efficiency. It is the easiest path forward, and there are hundreds of thousands of jobs with energy efficiency. There is a lot we can do this i wait for the congress. [inaudible] ms. Clinton youre talking about everything. Ok. The way i did when i was in the senate. I was both of the majority in the minority. There is no substitute for building relationships with people and trying to piece together answers to problems one step at a time. I will go anywhere any time to meet with people on Common Ground. [applause] i did that in a senate and i sponsored legislation, i worked paths to legislation with people with whom i have nothing else in common. I found that link, and that is what i did as senator, and secretary of state. It is really going to be fun and this in this campaign. They are going to try to forget that they praised me as secretary of state. I know how to find Common Ground and how to stand my ground. On the issues of principle and values i will stand my ground. [applause] thank you. My question is about National Service programs. We mentioned recording citizens for their Public Service. I am an alumni of americorps vista. And i believe we need to invest in National Service. Im very grateful for my opera opportunities to serve in they allowed me to have advances in my professional development and complete my undergraduate integrate degree. Ms. Clinton thank you for your service. I am a very strong supporter of National Service, and i am pleased that you took advantage of the Financial Aid to get your undergraduate education. That is one of the ways, to go back to the question about death and the like, we need more National Service linked to payments for college, for training, for other kinds of advanced education. I will definitely push the support of it. I think it is quite a tribute to how well the program is operated that it is still alive. That the congress has not they take whacks at it but it has survived because fundamentally it is really america, patriotic ring to do through server country. Thing to do, to serve your country. I support that. [applause] let me just say one thing. As you all know, the selection coming out this president ial election coming up is down about her, it is about us. This is a Job Interview here. And it is a heckuva job. Lets take one more question. [applause] ms. Clinton thank you. Ive no idea. Thank you. I represent the state legislature. A couple of years ago we lost the program to sequester for children who are early learning, head start. We had a program of 18 children who were going to head start and then they could not because of the sequester. What can we do about that . Ms. Clinton it really means a lot to me that as a public official you ask me a question about Early Childhood education because to me that is where it all begins. I want to have universal prek so that every child, everywhere in america can have a good experience getting ready for school. [applause] when i was first lady i created something called Early Head Start to get them ready as early as possible for education. It is a partnership between the federal government, state and local communities like yours. Not every local community will want to do it exactly the same. Different communities have different numbers of kids who would be eligible and the like. I want to have a Good Partnership and i want to make that a high priority. [applause] i just want to say, youre doing very well in your Job Interview today. [laughter] i want to thank you on behalf of the people of dover and the region for holding this town meeting. He did a great job. Ms. Clinton thank you. Thank you very much. This weekend on the cspan networks, politics, books, and American History. A road to the white house coverage features almost all the president ial candidates and begins tonight in iowa. We are live from cedar rapids, iowa, for the Democratic Party hall of fame dinner. All day saturday, starting at 11 00 eastern, we are live at the emily leaderships amid in ames, iowa. Family leadership summit in ames, iowa. On book tv, saturday morning beginning at 11 00 eastern, we are live from the 17th annual harlem book fair, with talks on economics, africanamerican identity, and reese race and politics. And sunday nig political commentator and coulter says the greatest issue facing the u. S. Is on American History tv on cspan 3, saturday afternoon starting at one of clock is time warren g. Harding symposium on modern worse ladies, modern first ladies. Speakers include the executive director the National First ladies library. At a little after 9 00, jake ursuline shows how the u. S. Government used propaganda during world war ii to persuade citizens to join the military, buy war bonds, and keep national secrets. Get our complete schedule at cspan. Org. Federal air Marshals Service director Rodrick Allison testified this week for a house subcommittee. He said air marshals are still needed on the job. The hearing examined the effectiveness of air marshal operation and the impact on Aviation Security. It is about an hour and 10 minutes. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. I would like to welcome everyone to todays hearing on tsas federal air Marshals Service. The subcommittee is meaning to examine the federal air Marshal Service and its readiness to meet the evolving threat. Before we begin, i would like to express my support for administrator net binge or, neppinger, who assumed his position last week. I had the opportunity to sit down with him and am hopeful he can provide the steady leadership that is badly needed at tsa, to bring tsa into a new and more effective chapter. While it is clear he will have his work cut out for him i believe his experience in the United States coast guard will be a valuable asset to tsa. I look forward to working with him and hearing his plans to fix the agency. Since the beginning of the 114th congress, this subcommittee has aggressively examined issues created to related to tsa operations, policy, and procedures, to assure tsa is fulfilling its mission of keeping the traveling public safe. Today, we will examine what many have called the last line of defense against potential terror attacks in the sky the federal air Marshal Service. The federal air Marshal Service was significantly expanded in the wake of the terror attacks of september 11, 2001. The outcome of 9 11 could have been very different if we had real air marshals on those planes. However, we also have to keep in mind that the threat to Aviation Security has evolved to medically over the last 14 years. The terrorists who want to do us harm are confidently adapt thing tactics and week adapting their tactics, and we need to make sure we are not protecting against yesterdays threats and ignoring the threats of tomorrow. The threat of an ied or improvised explosive that made it a borden aircraft detonated aboard an aircraft is real. Is a federal marshal capable of preventing an ied from being detonated . Or should we reallocate some of the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars appropriated every year for the federal air Marshal Service toward security measures for other soft targets such as unsecure areas of airports . The purpose of todays hearing is to discuss if the admiral the federal air Marshal Service in its current form is using an effective approach to securing our Aviation System from a terrorist attack. It is not clear to me whether the service and strategy for resource allocation have kept pace with new threats, and that is why i look over to hearing from mr. Allison today. In addition, i am concerned that public allegations of employee misconduct and abuse within the admiral air Marshal Service have hurt Public Perception and confidence in the air, and have the concomitant effect of decimating employee morale. Today, we plan to examine several key areas to determine this programs effectiveness and whether there is Anything Congress can do to assist and assure the continued safety and security of the traveling public. We all share the same goal, and as such it is our duty to ensure we constantly reexamine what we are doing and why we are doing it, in order to yield better Security Enhancement and be more intelligence driven. At todays hearing, we are very fortunate to have the assistant administrator of tsas office of Law Enforcement, mr. Rod allison , to discuss what is necessary to approve efficiency and security. On our second panel, we will have captain tim canoll from the air Line Pilots Association to discuss the real flight deck officer program and its coordination with the admiral air Marshal Service. I look over to testimony from both of our messes and having a meaningful dialogue on how to make improvements to the federal air Marshal Service as we Work Together to counter threats facing the u. S. Aviation sector. I recognize the Ranking Member of this subcommittee, the esteemed gentleman from new york, ms. Rice, for an Opening Statement. The esteemed gentlewoman from new york, ms. Rice, for an Opening Statement. Rep. Rice thank you for convening this hearing. I understand this is the First Time Since 2012 that a panel in this committee has discussed the federal aviation Marshals Service. So it is clearly important that we do so. I want to thank our witnesses for their participation today. Prior to september 11, the federal air Marshal Service consisted of only 33 fulltime sky marshals. The 9 11 attacks made clear we a greater presence on commercial aircraft to counter the threat of individuals attempting to gain access to a car hit. A cockpit. In the wake of 9 11, the Marshal Service was expanded to the Aviation Transportation security act of 2002. 600 marshals were trained and activated within a month, and thousands more in the months that followed. The federal air Marshal Service as well as federal flight deck officers served as one of the last lines of defense for domestic and international flights. We know threats against our country are constantly evolving and have only increased in the years since 9 11. We must ensure our air Marshal Service is also evolving and maintaining the strength needed to counter these threats and keep passengers safe. That is why we are here today. There are a number of issues of concern with the current state of the federal air Marshal Service. First and foremost, dwindling ranks of the service. There has not been a new federal air Marshal Service class in four years. When you couple this with high attrition and poor retention, it is clear the organization is shrinking dramatically, and raises questions about work for morale. Workforce morale. As the workforce is mingling, so is the number of field offices. Currently, there are 22 nationwide and to scheduled to close in 2016, which will bring us down to 20 field offices within the next year. I understand closures are determined by complex risk analyses and the fact that there tends to be fluctuation in which areas around the country are commercial aviation hubs. But we need to be certain none of this compromises security on commercial flights and ensure marshals are transitioning to openings at other field offices as efficiently as possible. I am eager to hear from assistant administrator allison about the details of these closures, and what measures are in place to help with these transitions, as well as outreach efforts to undertake improve workforce morale. I look forward to hear in greater detail from captain canoll about other layers of security such as federal flight deck officers and enhanced arrears. The selfless pilots who volunteer for this are subjected to intense training and prepare themselves for dangerous threats on commercial aircraft. I am in your to learn about the level of training and how their regimen is evolving to counter current security threats. Mr. Chairman, thank you again for your leadership and for convening this hearing. I look forward to productive dialogue with witnesses and colleagues and yield the balance of my time. Rep. Katko other members of the committee are reminded Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. We have a distinct witness on this important topic. Let me remind you witness the entire written statement will appear in the record. Our first witness is mr. Roderick allison who in may 2014 began serving as the assistant administrator for the office of Law Enforcement, and director of the federal air Marshal Service. Mr. Allison was the tsa assistant administrator for the office of inspection, and supervisory air marshal in charge of the Washington Field Office Current previous to taking his current position. I met with mr. Allison yesterday in advance of this hearing today. If he displays the same candid demeanor he did yesterday, i think we are going to have a very productive hearing. I look forward to hearing from you, sir, and now recognize you to testimony to testify for your five minutes. Roderick good morning, members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear you to test i about the wrong marshals the federal Marshals Service, fans. Fams. We perform our core mission by deploying marshals on u. S. Flag aircraft throughout the world 355 days a year, utilizing a comprehensive concept of operations that aligns with tsas riskbased security strategy. Fams our Law Enforcement officers who receive specialized training to prepare them for the challenges of a difficult working environment. Fams have no backup to call upon. The fams is unique in its ability to remain flexible and rapidly deploy hundreds of Law Enforcement officers in response to specific evolving threats within the transportation domain around the world. In consultation with the department of homeland security, fams completed updated concept of operations incorporating randomness and unpredictability. While the focus remains on the highest risk lights flights we determine uncertainty through potential deployment on any u. S. Carrier flight. A risk by flight methodology is under development which will include Mission Planning based on passenger travel patterns assessed passenger risk, and consideration for Airport Locations with known vulnerabilities. In addition to deploying fams on board aircraft, fams also assigns visible prevention and response, or viper teams to augment security personnel. Vipr teams can be made up of several different components of tsa, working with federal state and local Law Enforcement stakeholders to ensure the safety and security of our transportation systems. The federal air Marshal Service is made up of dedicated professionals whose job demands the highest level of preparedness and integrity. Since becoming fams director in june of 2014, i have implement it several Work Force Engagement initiatives to enhance communication and to promote the highest level of professionalism within the work worse. Over the past year, my Deputy Director and i have conducted more than 50 Office Visits and town hall sessions across the country. I have personally visited each headquarters site on multiple occasions, and 19 of the 22 field offices, to meet with personnel at all levels of the organization, to communicate patients, address concerns, and answer questions. I launched a direct directors award which honors one nonsupervisory employee at each office who demonstrates High Integrity and serves as a role model to their colleagues. I have also initiated a iq campaign where hundreds of employees have received letters of commendation for no worth the college months. These provide a great opportunity to demonstrate my deep appreciation to the workforce for the workforce and highlight the good work of our employees. Fams continues to provide our workforce with the resources and support they need to carry out their mission. As part of this effort fams maintains robust medical including mandatory physical and psychological assistance programs, which are readily available to the workforce and their families. The fams medical Program Section is staffed by fulltime medical professionals who are available to fams personnel at any time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Fams recognizes the value of these programs for our workforce. As our mission is demanding physically and mentally, we will continue to make these and other Employee Assistance programs available to our personnel. Fams recently completed a staffing review to maximize organizational effectiveness and efficiency, and to ensure fams are located in offices positioned in a risk waste manner to cover the riskbased manner to cover the most radical flights. Six field offices have closed or will be closing in the next year. Personnel were reassigned to our most critical offices, which service the highest risk flights. The federal air Marshal Service is a strong and iteris element and provide security is a strong antiterrorist element. We disrupt criminal and terrorist acts within the transportation domain. I appreciate the committee partnership, effort, and support for our critical mission. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to answering your questions. Rep. Katko that is pretty remarkable. I do not think anybody spoke within two seconds of the live minute limit. That is pretty good. If that is part of your organizational skills, we are impressed. Thank you for your testimony. We appreciate you being here and know your time is valuable. I recognize myself for five minutes to ask questions. Lets get right into it. With reinforced cockpit doors on airplanes and more flight deck officers, which are pilots that are armed passenger information collected via secure flight, is the need for the federal air Marshal Service the same, or is it declining . Roderick mr. Chairman, i would tell you if i did not believe in this mission, i would not be in this job. All those things you cited are improvements that have happened within the Aviation Security business over the years. As we like to say, no one element or one layer stands on its own, right . So we do need to have federal marshals on these flights. We need to have that partnership with the flight officer program. We need to work on indoors as you and i discussed yesterday the secondary barriers. Those things will be ongoing. As we get to a place where we are satisfied that those things are in place, and sufficiently mitigate the threats we see, we will start looking elsewhere where we can be active and add value and make a difference. Rep. Katko what additional changes do you feel the air Marshal Service could implement to become more efficient and better riskbased . Roderick i mentioned in my Opening Statement that we are looking at a model of a risk by flight. With that, maybe it sounds a little pretentious, but i like to think we are pretty good at being riskbased as we are today. We are going to really examine critical infrastructure. Flights flying over critical infrastructure. In addition to populous areas. In addition to using passenger information from secure flight. Known travel patterns of ksts, known suspected terrorists. We are moving to a model that better uses Information Available to make better judgments about how we assign our personnel. Rep. Katko any new additions you are planning for the upcoming fiscal year . Roderick with respect to operations . Rep. Katko yes. Roderick we recently amended our concept of operations. That was started by the former director, but i was able to get that over the goal line. But in that construct, what we did was, we really took a look at how we were deploying our federal air marshals. Since 9 11, there were a number of things we were required to do. For instance, mandatory flight coverage levels at dca, looking at longhaul flights, looking at the particular areas of the country and giving them certain priority levels. We have actually readjusted that , and i think it is going to make us more productive, more unpredictable, and we will be able to be seen and have air marshals on flights where we otherwise would not have covered. I would be happy to show that concept of operations with you and the Ranking Member at your convenience. Rep. Katko i appreciate that. You mentioned a secondary door they are talking about. That is obviously something some groups have been interested in with respect to additional airline safety. So when a pilot is coming out of the cockpit for that temporary moment the door is open, to have some sort of barrier there i know now on flights, they have a curtain turned sideways a card turned sideways, and a Flight Attendant is standing behind the cart so somebody cannot get to the cockpit door right away. It is a secondary door in your opinion, something that should be considered western mark or is it necessary should be considered . Or is it necessary, based on your experience . Roderick it is necessary to take a look at to see if it works, if it is effective, if it is something that is going to result in less resources and more protection and security for the flight crews. As you stated, the flight crew does bring out the cart and block the entrance for the pilot to use the facilities. So we are working, and have been for a number of years, with boeing, the faa. I was informed yesterday there are some or and partners who have an interest in this as well. So that work some foreign partners who have interest in this as well. So that work will continue. Rep. Katko there has been concern in the industry about the air Marshal Service working flights hosted the time that the plane close to the time the plane is set to take off, within a 24hour period. Oftentimes if first class is full, whoever is sitting in first class they get bumped out of first class. They cannot be told why. That leads to some consternation. That also leads to some difficult explaining to try to attempt to deal with a passenger who paid for it is class ticket and is no longer able to sit in first class. First of all, have you looked into this issue since we spoke . Roderick i did look into the issue of deadheading. I will get to that in a second. But specifically to your question, mr. Chairman, these young men and women who fly these flights they are having to submit their schedules and their availabilities 60 days in advance. Two months in advance is when we start the scheduling process. As i related to you yesterday, i know more than anybody that what we do is necessary. It is important. At the same time, it does impact the industry to some degree. Over the course of a think it was 2014, june 14 through june 15 the amount of Economic Impact of the federal marshals was 0. 11 percent of the total revenue of the industry. We are sensitive to that. We make all attempts to minimize the disruption to their business. Rep. Katko i guess Going Forward i would ask you perhaps it might be advisable to reach out to some of the airlines and at least examine the issue and make sure you are both on the same page with that. I hear something a little different from them. The bottom line is, we want to make sure the disruption to passenger traffic is as minimal as possible, but also allows you to fulfill your duties Going Forward. I guess planning, planning, planning is the best you can do. To the extent you can reach out of them, it would be a viable. Roderick i will do that. Rep. Katko the chair recognizes the gentlelady ms. Rice. Rep. Rice thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Allison, if you were given a wish list of improvements you think you could make to your agency, what would they be . Roderick the first thing i would put on that wish list in bold letters is the ability to hire. As i go across the country and talk to federal air marshals, the number one question i get is, what is the future of the organization . Not being able to hire has a detrimental effect on the workforce. There is a sort of feeling of dying on the vine. If i was able to hire, i would be able to open up and allow employees to move to places where they would want to go, conceivably. The workforce is getting older right . A lot of people that we hired in the beginning, 9 11, as i told the chairman yesterday they are going to be walking out the door 2020, 2021. I asked the chairman for his support in working through this problem to get to, where do we want to be in five years . That is the number one issue i would put on my wish list, in big, bold letters. I think the other thing that the men and women of the federal marshals would say is, this is a tough, tough job. All of us have flown. We have crossed time zones. We know how tough that is. These men and women do this job and they are exceptional men and women. I cannot tell you how proud i am of the work that they do. It is tough to recognize them for that. And i think over the years, the constant reporting of the misconduct, which is a very small percentage of our workforce and i would submit to you congresswoman that every organization has misconduct. I am not condoning it, because i want to tell you, i am zero tolerance when it comes to that. Everybody has an internal affairs division. But the challenge of leadership is to make sure that our people know what the standards are know what the expectations are and know what they are going to be held to. That starts with me on down, throughout the organization. To your point, the second highlighted bullet would be a little more support and recognition for the tough job that they do. Rep. Rice so, two other questions. You started a thank you campaign to improve morel. Can you explain what that is . To improve morale. Roderick the challenge of any security profession you do your job, nothing happens. It is tough to recognize people for that for that sort of activity right . So what we really did was take a hard look at what our people are doing. We get reports every day of federal air marshals that are providing medical assistance to people on aircraft that are in distress, whether it is oxygen ivies oxygen ivs, are putting on devices, stopping at roadside traffic accidents on the way to the airport, assisting local police at train stations, bus stations. There are a lot of activities that have an indirect effect on the core mission but are commendable activities nonetheless. What my staff does is, as the reports come in, they call those reports. They comb those reports, and we write a thank you letter. I understand you were involved in this activity. Thank you. So far maybe 600 over the year s. 200 this year alone. It is a lowcost way to give a pat on the back. Rep. Rice could not agree more. How do you determine what offices are going to be closed . What analysis do you do to come to the conclusion that it is ok to close this office and redirect people to another one . Roderick i believe maybe two years ago, if not three, the former director embarked upon a study where they looked at the flights that were in those offices that were identified for closure. I think it is important to note that the Airline Industry has undergone major consolidations over the years. In one particular area pittsburgh, cleveland, cincinnati several airlines pulled out of those airports. That had a lot to do with identifying, are these resources would they be better utilized, putting them to some of the larger offices that we have . There was 10 offices that were identified where those people were allowed to go. That was the primary focus or the metric that was used to determine. Quality of flights, to be candid. That was the reason. Rep. Rice thank you. I yield back my time. Rep. Katko thank you, ms. Rice. I want to recognize ms. Rices sentiments about thanking your employees for the great job you do. I was speaking to ms. Rice before the hearing began, and both of us are willing to come out to your offices to provide us with a little bit of additional support. Roderick i appreciate that. That would be much appreciated. I think you would enjoy it area enjoy it. Rep. Katko the chair will recognize other memories of the committee. In accordance to Committee Rules and practices i plan to recognize members who were president at the start of the hearing by seniority of the subcommittee. Those coming in later will be recognized in the order received. The chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. Carter. Rep. Carter thank you. Mr. Allison, thank you for being here. I have a couple questions. I am just inquiring. I am not going to be confrontational, but i need to understand some things. First of all, thank you for what you do, and think all of your members and staff. This is important. We understand and appreciate that. It is my understanding that many countries assess a fee or tax if you will, on airlines whenever we have a passenger from the u. S. Landing in their country. Is that true . You have to understand, i have not traveled much. I said before this committee yesterday i have only been to two countries in my life, and that is one more than i wanted to go to. Im asking you, is that true . Roderick mr. Congressman, i am not aware of that. Rep. Carter what i understand is, the airlines have to support this fee because the federal air marshals do not compensate for it. When they are flying over there it is my understanding the airlines are having to absorb this fee, and that is something i need to understand and need to inquire about. Roderick i will provide you a followup on that point. Rep. Carter thank you. I want to follow a line of questions i believe the chairman of the subcommittee address earlier. That is about air marshals flying first class. It is my understanding and i have heard some Horror Stories to be quite honest with you. In fact, i heard a story that has been communicated to us where there were like six air marshals flying first class, and there were another group on a competing airline that the flight got canceled and they came over and wanted first class its also. All of a sudden, the whole first class cabin was taken up by air marshals. That does not seem right. Can you provide to us how often your employees are flying first class, how often . I will be honest. I flip first class one time, and that was not by choice. That was the only seat they had available. I was with my family, and my three sons got in a about who was going to sit in first class, and i resolved it by sitting there myself. That was the only reason i was flying first class