Transcripts For CSPAN TSA Administrator Others Testifies Before Oversight Reform Committee 20240714

The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time. The full committee during convening to identify, resolve and present vulnerabilities on tsas Security Operations. I know recognize myself for five minutes to give an Opening Statement. Today nearly 20 years since the terrible attacks of september 11, 2001, we are holding this hearing to examine why urgent warnings from independent auditors about security vulnerabilities at the transportation and Security Administration have been languishing for years without being resolved. In 2016 i led a Bipartisan Group of members in asking the Government Accountability office to examine tsas covert Testing Program. This past april, gao issued declassified results of its work. Unfortunately, gao confirmed many of our worst fears. According to gao, nine security vulnerabilities were found in covert tests since 2016, as of september, 2018 none had been formally resolved, end of quote. Not one over the past four years. Gao also found that tsa was not using a risk informed approach, end of quote, to its covert tests. As a result, gao warned that tsa has only limited assurance that it is, quote, targeting the most likely threats. Unfortunately this is part of a larger trend. In addition to failing to implement gaos recommendation, tsa has also failed to address warnings from the Inspector General. As of this month, 36 recommendations made by the Inspector General from 12 reports on Aviation Security remain open and unfulfilled. Several of those are also many years old. I want to thank administrator pekoske for being here. And i support some of the positive steps he is taking, but we need to know why the longstanding vulnerabilities are not being adequately addressed. I thank the witnesses from gao and the Inspector General office for being here and for keeping the focus squarely on these dangers to the flying public. Today we will also examine why the Trump Administration instead of focusing all of their resources on trying to resolve these vulnerabilities is actually gravitating them in front of a weakening Aviation Security by taking tsa out of our nations airports, diverting them to the southern border. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration submitted the 2020 budget request to tsa, for tsa. In that request, the administration warned, and i quote, tsa continues to experience Airline Passenger volume growth at airports nationwide. As a result, the Trump Administration says it needs 700 more screeners at tsa. And it is asking for more funding to hire the screeners, yet at the same time the administration is diverting tsa employees away from their primary responsibilities and sending them to the southern border. We saw several press reports about this a few weeks ago. So the committee sent a letter to tsa to request the exact numbers and locations of the tsa officials who are being diverted. On friday, tsa sent a response to the committee with new information showing the extent of these diversions. According to tsa, they have already diverted nearly 200 employees from airports and headquarters to the southern border, including transportation and Security Officers, supervisors, and inspectors, as well as another 172 federal air marshals. The employees are drawn from more than 50 airports across the country, ranging from small, Regional Airports to largest, busiest airports in the nation. But this is apparently just the beginning. According to the letter on friday, tsa has already approved an additional 294 employees to divert to the southern border. Let me put this quite starkly. On one hand, tsa has dozens of security vulnerabilities that languished for years, but the Trump Administration is asking congress for 700 more tsa screeners to handle huge increases in air travel. Yet on the other hand, the Trump Administration is taking more than 350 critical tsa employees, diverting them away from the primary responsibilities, that is securing our nations airways, and sending them to the southern border. And more may be sent. The administrations actions are not helping Aviation Security, theyre harming it. In fact, in their letter to the committee on friday, tsa admitted that there is, and i quote, a potential increased risk to in flight security, end of quote. I ask unanimous consent this letter be part of the hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. And at this point it seems clear that Congress Needs to step in to ensure that tsa finally addresses the security vulnerabilities and to prevent additional airport workers from being diverted from their primary roles. Today with chairman thompson of the Homeland Security committee i am introducing the covert testing and Risk Mitigation improvement act which would establish standards for covert testing and require tsa to track and report its progress in resolving vulnerabilities as part of its annual budget submission to congress. I look forward to working closely with all of my colleagues to move this legislation as quickly as possible. With that, i now yield to distinguished member Ranking Member mr. Jordan. Thank you. Chairman asked why the administration is sending tsa personnel to the border . Why are they sending tsa personnel to the border . Because theres a crisis. A few months ago in one drug seizure enough fentanyl to kill 150 million americans. He is asking why were sending people down . Because it is a crisis. Whats the democrats response . Speaker of the house says walls are immoral abolish i. C. E. And supplemental waiting of six weeks to address the crisis. Thats the problem. Criticize the administration for trying to do anything and everything they can to deal with the humanitarian crisis on the border. Give me a break. Mr. Chairman, tsa has an Important Mission to keep americans safe, airports in the air. We rely tsa to be one step ahead of those that want to do harm. We learned as you said earlier from gao and Inspector General that tsa can improve, how to evaluate its own security vulnerabilities. I look forward to hearing from administrator pekoske about how tsa can use the work of gao and Inspector General to better secure our country. Aviation security is just one part of securing our home land. The key part is where i started, Border Security. I want to extend my appreciation to men and women of tsa, and all of the dhs components that volunteered to go to the border and help address the crisis. Theres no other word for it. The crisis. Several weeks ago, acting secretary testified to Senate Judiciary committee, identified almost 4800 migrants this year presenting as family units that were determined to be fraudulent. He testified that they uncovered talk about humanitarian crisis, think about this, uncovered child recycling rings, innocent children used multiple times to help different adults gain illegal entry into the country and be released. Also mentioned an example of custom and Border Patrol officials, speaking to a man that confessed to not being the father of the child in his custody. He told officials he paid the mother 80 to take her child so he could gain entry, be released into the country, because he knew under u. S. Law, he would be released into the interior of the United States in 20 days. But for six weeks, there has been a supplemental appropriations bill sitting there that the democrats wont pass. That child was six months old. Acting secretary said in 40 days prior to his testimony 60,000 children entered dhs custody. And were going to criticize the administration for trying to get as many people there as we can to help with the crisis . I want to commend my colleagues from texas, mr. Cloud, mr. Roy, for taking a leadership role, highlighting the emergency on the border. We must get the crisis at the border under control. Seems to me my colleagues in the majority of preoccupied criticizing the president , criticizing the administration. Too preoccupied with trying to decide whether to impeach or not to focus on the problem. Maybe we should focus on the problem, forget about the personalities, and help these kids, help this situation. I urge my colleagues today to do whatever we can, stand up for Strong Border security so we can bring an end to as i said now several times what everyone in this country understands is a crisis. I yield back. Thank you very much. I would like to welcome our witnesses, mr. Charles johnson injure, managing director for Homeland Security and issues at the Government Accountability office. Mr. Donald bumgardner is the Deputy Assistant Inspector General for audits at the u. S. Department of Homeland Security. And the honorable David Pekoske is the administrator of the transportation and Security Administration. If all of you would please rise and raise your right hand. I will swear you in. [swearing oath] let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you, you may be seated. The microphones are very sensitive, gentlemen. Please speak directly into them. Make sure theyre on when you are speaking, of course. Without objection, your written statement will be made part of the record. With that, mr. Johnson, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman cummings, Ranking Member jordan, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address gaos findings from its april, 2019 report on tsas covert Testing Program. My Statement Today will cover three areas. The extent to which theyre risk informed, produced quality information, and have been used to address security vulnerabilities. In addition, i will provide an update on actions tsa has taken in response to recommendations. Before i address these areas, it is important to note that threats to Aviation Security persist and continue to evolve. For example, the Intelligence Community has noted that terrorist organizations now have capabilities to plant explosives in personal Electronic Devices like laptops. Why is risk informed approach important . Risk informed approach not only helps Decision Makers identify and vault the threats that exist but also to develop mitigation plans. Tsa uses its covert tests as a means to do so. There are two units within tsa that undertake this effort to do covert testing. The Inspections Office which looks at a wide spectrum of security vulnerability associated with the Security System and the office or Security Operations office which focuses on the screener performance in terms of Standard Operating Procedures they established in checked baggage and check point screening. As such, these tests based on identified or potential risk. With respect to weather the covert tests are risk informed, good news. Tsa has taken steps to improve this area. Specifically the Inspections Office redesigned covert tests to be more risk informed and quantitative. And has taken additional steps to document its rationale for selecting covert tests. Additionally, the Security Operations office redesigned covert tests to address prior deficiencies identified by ourselves and the Inspector General, and more formally incorporated risk into the process, particularly use of intelligence reporting. With respect to tsas covert test producing quality information, not so good news. While tsas Inspection Office redesigned the process to produce quality information, Security Operations unit has not been able to ensure quality of its tests and covertness of tests in particular. Particularly those performed by tsa, personnel at local airports. As such, we recommended that tsa assess its Security Operations office, covert testing process, to identify opportunities to improve qualities of its tests and as i mentioned particularly consistency and undertaking the tests as well as covertness of the tests. We believe this will improve quality of test results, enhancing tsas ability to address vulnerabilities. Good news. Tsa agreed with our recommendation, estimated they will complete this recommendation, implement it within a month from now, sometime by next month. With respect to use of covert test results to identify vulnerabilities, also not so good news. We found although tsa established a Vulnerability Management process in 2015 to review and address security threats, this process in itself had not resolved any of the nine vulnerabilities submitted to the process by the Inspections Office. According to tsa, this process was set up to ensure cooperation of various tso Program Offices with expertise that could assist in addressing vulnerabilities. Among other things, we noted in the report lack of established time frames and milestones to achieve this, particularly for the office to be assigned the responsibility and to mitigate identified threats, has made it more difficult for tsa to effectively use this process to address those vulnerabilities. As such, we recommended that tsa establish time frames and milestones within steps for security vulnerabilities management process, establish procedures for monitoring progress. Good news is tsa acted and revised the process to meet intent of the recommendations. Overall, although tsa has taken some steps to improve covert Testing Program and to address two of the nine recommendations, or actually four of them, two of them we have closed as implemented, we are in process of looking at the information, five remain to be addressed. We believe sustained management attention will be needed to ensure continued progress toward identified and mitigating security vulnerabilities. This is vital to ensuring the safety of the Aviation Security system. In closing, i would like to personally thank the staff that worked on the review and this committee for the opportunity to testify today on our findings. At this point i am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. Mr. Bumgardner. Chairman cummings, Ranking Member jordan, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss our work on tsa security vulnerabilities and persistent challenges. Tsa has a vital but extremely Difficult Mission to protect the nations Transportation System and ensure freedom of movement for people in commerce. Everyday Security Officers at about 450 airports screen approximately 2 million passengers, 5. 5 million carry on items, 1. 4 million checked bags. This responsibility is complicated by constantly evolving threat of adversaries, willing to use any means to cause harm and destruction. Missing one threat can have catastrophic consequences. In the past we shared concerns about vulnerabilities in tsa operations while also acknowledging tsas challenges in areas of improvement. Our more recent work continues to show tsa needs to strengthen its efforts to address persistent problems. Since 2014 we have audited and inspected various security related aspects of tsa, including passenger and baggage screening operations, precheck, federal air marshall service, and it systems. They issued 24 reports to tsa with 138 recommendations designed to reduce security vulnerabilities in the aviation Transportation System. For example, covert testing tinls to reveal persistent, troubling problems. Since dhs oig inception, we conducted thousands of covert tests. We assessed through covert testing checked baggage screening, passenger screening at check points, and airport access controls. Our findings and conclusions from these tests have been consistent with those of tsas internal testing in these areas. Because covert test results are classified, they cant be discussed here today, but we provided the department, tsa, and our appropriate congressional committees with our classified reports. Our covert testing identified vulnerabilities related to people, processes and procedures, and technology specifically. People often contribute to weaknesses inSecurity Operations due to complacency, failing to think critically. Tsa processes and procedures are vague or open to interpretation, which results in security gaps, technological, sometimes contributed to security weaknesses, even tsa asserts First Priority is to improve security and safeguard the Transportation System. Reducing these vulnerabilities is critical to ensuring threat objects arent carried on board aircraft and unauthorized individuals that want to cause harm cant gain access to the airport secure areas. Another focus of our work relates to tsas precheck initiative. Beginning in 2012, tsa increased use of precheck, allowing expedited screening for nearly half the flying public. In 2014 we concluded tsa needed to modify prechecked screening processes and improve prechecked communication and coordination. Made 22 recommendations in reports, and tsa has taken sufficient action to close 17 of those recommendations. Although tsa has taken steps to implement many of our security related recommendations, it has not fully implemented all of them. Currently 39 of the recommendations remain open. Of the 39, 17 recommendations have been open since the school year 2017 or earlier. These 17 older recommendations generally relate to testing of screening equipment, technological advancements, precheck vetting and screening operations, developing and implementing cross cutting risk based strategy, and implementing formal budget process that uses risk to inform resource allocation. Finally, we recognize and are encouraged by tsa steps toward compliance with recent recommendations. With a commitment to addressing known vulnerabilities, the agency risks compromising safety of the nations Transportation Systems. We will continue to assess tsas performance, identify vulnerabilities, and areas for improvement, and make recommendations that enable tsa to become more efficient and effective safeguarding our Transportation System. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I am happy to answer any questions you or other members of the committee may have. Thank you very much. Chairman cummings, Ranking Member jordan, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss how tsa identifies, resolves, prevents vulnerabilities within our Security Operations. I appreciate oversight and support you provide tsa and constructive, productive relationships tsa has with the Inspector General and the Government Accountability office. I am proud of the 63,000 dedicated men and women i work alongside at tsa. They serve the public with integrity, respect, and commitment. Like this committee, the esteemed colleague next to me and the entire tsa team, we share the same goal. Securing our Transportation Systems against the current threats that we face. When i appeared before the committee in september last year, i expressed how important it is for tsa to be an agile organization. One that can quickly adapt to changing threats, but also one that learns from mistakes and avoids repeating them. Overall, tsa has undertaken significant efforts to address the ig and gao recommendations as quickly as possible. We already submitted to gao requests for closure of four of nine recommendations, included since december 2018 audit on covert testing. The ig issued recommendations since 2014. For the remainder, i am committed to getting them closed as soon as possible. The ig audits in recent years identified vulnerabilities pertaining to screener performance, equipment, procedures. We are progressed in addressing those recommendations by investing in enhanced training and retention programs for front line personnel, by simplifying proed urg guidance, and revising screen detection, accelerating procurement of more effective screening equipment. In the last two years, we revamped the federal air Marshall Services concept of operations to beret line the critical in flight Law Enforcement capability against risk. Were actively working to ensure only trusted travelers access precheck lanes for the ig recommendation and the mandates set forth in the tsa modernization act of 2018. Additionally, they instituted key restructuring changes to improve risk capabilities, covert Testing Program, and ability to address vulnerabilities in a timely manner. Tsa aligned its system wide covert Testing Programs under one program office, consolidating covert Testing Programs under that office will driver rigor and consistency over all of the testing efforts. Tsa consolidated all Operational Risk analysis capabilities which were previously housed in dispar at places. This change critical to ensuring consistent cross cutting Operational Risk methodology that can inform Larger Agency processes, and prioritization of budget resources. We also established the security Vulnerability Management process, svmp, to track and manage vulnerabilities identified by external and internal sources and Agency Mitigation efforts. In response to gao, tsa improved svmp, strengthening oversight and milestones for tracking and mitigating vulnerabilities. To ensure we close vulnerabilities in a timely fashion, i will hold quarterly risk meetings. These meetings help inform tsas covert testing plans, as well as planning in budgeting and processes. Timely closure of recommendations is an area i will continue to focus on. I anticipate tsa will request closure for nearly all recommendations from fiscal 17 and earlier by end of the year. Many of the challenges tsa faces require collaborative process to reach the goal we all share of identifying and closing vulnerabilities. I will continue to work closely with the ig, gao, and congress to assist the agency in continued development of solutions to the challenges that we face. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve, and mr. Chairman, i look forward to your questions. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I field myself five minutes for questions. Administrator pekoske, mr. Bumgardner, mr. Johnson, again, i want to thank you all for being here this morning. The office of Inspector General and Government Accountability office have both identified critical vulnerabilities in our Aviation Security system that have remained unresolved, in some cases for years. Mr. Johnson, the report the gao issued dispatched or warns, and i quote, it is important that tsa make timely progress on formal Mitigation Solutions because in some cases Inspection Findings represent system wide vulnerabilities to commercial aviation that could result in potentially very serious consequences for tsa and the traveling public, end of quote. Is that accurate . Yes, it is, congressman. Similarly, mr. Bumgardner, you title a section of your written testimony, covert testing continues to reveal persistent and troubling problems, end of quote. Then you go on to say that reducing these vulnerabilities is critical to ensuring threat objects are not carried on board aircraft, unauthorized individuals that want to cause harm cannot gain access to airports secure areas. Such actions do cause catastrophic damage resulting in loss of life and property. Is that right . Yes, mr. Chairman. So to me these statements are like flashing red lights. And heres the key question. In your opinion why are the vulnerabilities that could cause catastrophic damage or potentially serious consequences languishing at tsa without being resolved. We need more resources or personnel or new processes or procedures, or new sense of urgency. Any of you, mr. Johnson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. One of the things we noted is that it often took up to somewhere from three, four, seven months for even vulnerabilities to be assigned to someone to take a look at to mitigate. Then they languish in the system for up to in some cases over a year to over three years. Part of the thing that needs to be done is that security Vulnerability Management process the administration mentioned needs better controls in place to ensure there are timelines set, milestones, that there is check in to make sure progress is being made. They were simply assigned there and lack of progress is made. As i mention, none of the nine vulnerabilities identified by the Inspections Office have been resolved through that process. There was one closed, but it was outside that process. And i guess you would term that organization, procedures and sense of urgency, is that a fair statement . It is a fair statement, but it is more so the need to have sustained management attention towards these issues, and as the administrator mentioned, his quarterly meetings and checkins would help in that area. Mr. Bumgardner, did you want to Say Something . I would agree with mr. Johnson on the technology development. It does take time. Theres been some changes in priorities and often times we find theres insufficient evidence to support changes that we recommended. What do you mean by that . Well, if we ask for results oriented changes, we often times will not get the sufficient response from the agency that would close the recommendation. And all of this is happening, you know, with the tso issues and concerns we have with retention and the training and hiring of tso officers, with an ever increasing air travel system which mr. Pekoske mentioned in his statement is scheduled to be very high this summer. Mr. Pekoske, i do from my days with the coast guard, people dont know, used to be the subCommittee Chairman in transportation and coast guard, you were in the coast guard, so i appreciate your leadership. You have been an outstanding leader. And i appreciate that youre making changes in the agencys approach in an effort to resolve these vulnerabilities. I hope that through continued oversight we will see many of those vulnerabilities fully addressed. But i want to know the focus youre bringing to closing these vulnerabilities and improving covert testing processes will not waiver if you leave the agency. And what kind of assurances can we have of that . Mr. Chairman, thank you for your comments, and sir, i am in a five year term as tsa administrator, so i have no intention of leaving the agency. Intend to fully serve out my term, i appreciate congress support. Sir, one of the other things thats important to consider is that it is critical that we have systemic changes, systemic adjustments so we dont repeat what we heard from the ig and gao. To do that as you know, i published a tsa strategy with a lot of input from my tsa work force and from stakeholders. Following that, published administrators intent. These are designed to lay ground work in place to make some structural changes i spoke of in my Opening Statement. So to hit your key areas in terms of what we might need, yes, resources. We need a significant investment of technology. We now have a Capital Investment plan for tsa that lays out the Technology Requirements over the entire future years, Homeland Security plan. Structural plan changes, we are moving covert testing to one office. That makes eminent good sense. Need to have one place that focuses on it. I can assure you we are going to do more covert testing. We already have, over the course of time. Repeatable koefrlt testing. See if we make a change, do another covert test, how has the change been. Has it had the effect we think. The other is process. I think the process one is critical. This requires Senior Leader focus all the time. Thats why i want to have at the administrator level quarterly meetings to look at whats the risk this quarter. Has it changed from what we saw in the past. And secondly, how are we allocating testing resources and internal resources to address vulnerabilities that have been identified. Im going to close by saying this. We, my democratic colleagues and i are joining in introducing the covert testing and Risk Mitigation improvement act this morning. This bill, gentlemen, which is also cosponsored by chairman thompson, chairman of Homeland Security committee, would do two major things. Codify procedures for covert testing and vulnerability mitigation recommended by gao, and two, require tsa to track and report its progress in resolving security vulnerabilities identified through these covert tests as part of its annual budget submission. We need a laser focus on closing security gaps which our enemies could attack us. My legislation is intended to direct attention of tsa and congress to this critical task, and hopefully this will be helpful. With that, i now yield mr. Heinz five minutes for questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. So the title of this hearing today is identifying, resolving and preventing vulnerabilities in tsa Security Operations. Thats a worthy title. Comes with a lot of responsibility. Theres a lot of weight in that title. Overall though i must confess it is a bit concerning to me. I wonder, for example, if my Democrat Friends would be concerned if at the tsa we had no security whatsoever and anyone was able to walk on a plane, if we didnt know who they were, what their intentions were, to go through tsa without any Security Check on get on board, of course they would not want that because we all want aviation safety. And yet that is exactly whats happening on our southern border right now. We have people coming across our border, we dont know who they are, what their intentions are, what their plans are, but we do know there have been thousands of crimes committed, including murder and rape and a host of other things. We know there have been tons of drugs coming across the southern border, yet we have little to no security there whatsoever. I was there myself a few weeks ago and was stunned at whats happening on the southern border is happening. It is inexcusable to me. Whats happening on the southern border is taking place here in the United States, people are freely coming across here, contraband, freely coming across the border. Criminals freely coming across our border. Why are we not having a hearing today on identifying, resolving and preventing vulnerabilities within our southern Border Security operations . And yet the concern is aviation because we all fly. We want to be safe in the air. But does that mean we dont want to be safe in our country . Mr. Pekoske, would you agree with me that being so concerned about Airport Security but concerned about security on our southern border just does not add up . Sir, we need to be concerned with both and, like you, i was just in the southern border about four weeks ago. Saw the situation there. It is dire. And it is a crisis and we need to place focus on it. The chairman mentioned in his opening remarks the assignment of tsa volunteers to the southern border. As are other components of dhs providing volunteers. This is a crisis, and we need to address that crisis. This is a high risk for us as a nation. Border security is National Security. And we need to get at this and get at this in a serious way. What were doing right now is really addressing whats right in front of us, but as we all know in this room, we do need to address the overall Immigration Law system entirely to be able to have better management and better control of our borders. And so i completely agree with both being critically important. Final thing id say, sir, and i think its important to put in context, i will say and ive traveled all around the world, and i think ive got the expertise now to say this. The United States has the most sophisticated and the most advanced Aviation Security system in the world, bar none, within the context of our legal structure and within the context of our Great American culture. The other thing to keep in mind is that we are one of the only Security Systems that does covert testing. Because we want to know where those vulnerabilities are. We want to know where they are before our adversary does, and we want to, to the chairman and Ranking Members point, we want to close them as quickly as we can. Thats what i pledge to focus on. Thank you. We need that same security advancement in the best in the world at our border. How many tsos are currently at the border, do you know . We have under 88 we have under 100 tsos deployed to the southern border. These are all volunteers. And whenever we decide that a volunteer is able to deploy, we take a very careful look at the airport from which he or she is deploying to make sure that we can mitigate the risks at that airport and manage throughput for all the passengers going through. So we are cognizant of that, but i have to balance off the risk at the southern border with the need to keep airports staffed. And the other thing to are those 88, is that going to significantly decrease Aviation Security . No, sir, it will have no effect on Aviation Security. None whatsoever. We have baselines of Aviation Security that we do not go below. Thats been my guidance since the first day i came into this position. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member for hold this important hearing and thank all of you for your dedication and being here today. There was an article recently in the atlantic journal constitution published in may of 2019, and i quote, airlines brought in about 4. 9 billion in baggage fees in 2019 alone. And one airline made a profit of over a billion dollars. So theres an incentive for them to charge for these bags. They are making a lot of money off of it. And it can cost families really hundreds of dollars to check their luggage, so im seeing that these carryon bags are huge. Usually when i fly, they cant even put them on the plane. They have to check them at the door and theyre so overstuffed you cant even put them on top. So id like to ask administrator pekoske, what is the impact of increasing amounts of carryon luggage being moved through the checkpoints, and is this baggage being tightly stuffed more tightly stuffed in the past, and is this a security challenge in any way . Is the standard for carryon luggage in the screening for it the same as the standard for screening of luggage that goes into the belly 00 43 29 is it a security challenge for you now . Or do you see it as a security challenge . Yes, maam. You know, the two factors at play. One is the generally a 4 to 5 year over year increase is passenger travel. An increase volume of passengers, which is a good thing because it demonstrates our economy is doing very, very well. But also to your point, passengers would prefer not to check a bag. They prefer to have the bag in their possession because sometimes they have things they want to keep close by and they also want to exit the airport quickly. We are seeing passengers put more things and also the cost. And also the cost, yes, maam. The technology were deploying at the screened check point is the computer tomography or c. A. T. Scan technology can see in a threedimensional way whats in a carryon bag. It addresses that issue of having a lot of things there. The more things in is it as secure as checking of what goes into the belly of the plane . Once this technology is all deployed, maam, it will be more secure. Wow. Okay. Do Airline Policies that charge increasing amounts for checked bags have any Ripple Effect that impact Aviation Security in any way . No, congresswoman. They dont impact Aviation Security because we inspect every bag to the same standard and ensure we do that whether its a checked bag to checked bag standard or carryon bag to carryon bag standards. And mr. Baumgartner, do you have any thoughts on the impact that increasing amounts of overstuffed baggage has on any of the security vulnerabilities that your team has identified in the checkpoints . Yes, maam. We have noticed in the past as weve done our covert testing that as more travelers bring on more densely packed bags, it slows things down, and there have been some difficulties sort of identifying items in those bags. Okay. Id like to ask administrator pekoske, do you keep records on attempts to violate security through the airport . Every now and then i talk to pilots who say they feel sometimes our enemies are checking our security. They catch them doing certain things. One told me in the lavatory, they literally tried to cut through the lavatory into the cockpit with a knife or a machine of some type. Do you keep records of these, quote, attempts and could you share with us the amount of them and what were doing about it every now and then in the airport and they close it down . And you dont even know why, but i feel they found something, they feel that is a threat to people. Yes, maam. We keep records of all of the attempts to evade security or to in some way, shape or form get through security in a manner that you shouldnt. Every single day, i get a report that highlights all of the security attempts throughout the entire system. We are seeing just anecdotally, im seeing more of them on a daily basis. Part of that is driven by the fact were seeing more passengers but there are more attempts to create security situations both in airports and also on board aircraft. Can you share with us the an estimated amount per year . I cant. That would be just literally off the top of my head, i would say that every day the report i get is several pages long. It talks about every incident that occurs in an airport. We can summarize some of that stuff if youd like. But thats part of our risk evaluation process. We do look at trends of what are we seeing in our own experience happening at the checkpoint. But theres a part of this, too. We dont want to be rearward looking only. Looking at the past. We want to be looking at where we think the threat is going. I would like to see that if you could give it to the chairman, we could all study it. Thank you. Before we go to mr. Meadows, im just curious, mr. Pekoske, how much of this has to do with training . Theres a good deal that has to do with training. Its a combination of training, the procedures i mentioned , making the procedures more understandable, and finally the technology. We put a lot of emphasis on training as you know. We have a tsa academy now that has stood up so every officer goes through this academy in glencoe, georgia. An attempt to standardize the training. We do have a tso, transportation Security Officer career progression plan that financially rewards officers for completing additional training and gaining additional certifications. Thank you. Mr. Meadows . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Pekoske, at what point are we going to have the gao and the Inspector Generals recommendations completed and closed . Sir, we should have all of the recommendations that are earlier than fiscal 17 completed and closed by the end of this calendar year. Thats our goal. Some of the other recommendations that are 17 and more current do take a little more time because they involve, for example, acquisition programs. Theres one technology that were using to better identify a passenger at the first entry point into a screening checkpoint. The ig will close that once we make further progress that acquisition project. Some of it is budget based. So if were looking at these particular and im over here. I know its kind of like the voice of god, but if were looking at some of these recommendations, heres one of the frustrations i have. You talk about Airline Passenger counts going up. You talk about carryons going up and yet much of what tsa has done has not changed the way that you actually screen passengers. And you know, if you want to look at a model of inefficiency, go to reagan right here where every Single Member is judging tsa each and every week that they fly out. And yet, what we find are the standards that are used are standards that many times were put in place 10, 15 years ago. At what point are we going to have a change in terms of trying to make that a more efficient so that we dont get bogged down . Were doing a couple things, sir. One is to focus on making precheck purely precheck. Based on a series of rules, a passenger who is not a precheck registered or global entry of registrant could get precheck on their boarding pass. We are phasing out out over the course of the next several months so the precheck experience should get quite a bit better. We are also prototyping a process where we do assess risk by passenger. And can we provide a different level of screening for passengers we deem low risk but not so when do you implement that . And the reason i say that is ive gone through and gotten random screened in reagan where they do the whole thing for some types of gun powder, i guess, on my hand. And ive been searched in ways that, you know, candidly, i wouldnt recommend any american citizen being searched that way and yet your tsa agents seem to be laughing because they knew i was a member of congress. So at what point are we going to start looking at profiling, and i use that word delicately, where we actually address the people that are most high risk. Thats the goal, sir, is to really focus the resources on where the i know thats the goal. But when we are going to do that . It takes some time. This is not our first rodeo. Weve been here with the chairman, where weve had these same kind of issues over the last seven years. And weve had the same kind of inability to get them done. And it seems like you are a serious guy that you want to get it done, but i guess i am tired of their progress being made and yet were not seeing any progress at our nations airports. Thats one of the reasons we developed the caplan Investment Plan because a lot of this is technology. You mentioned going through and getting a patdown. Nobody likes that. The officers dont like to do it and passengers certainly dont like the invasion of their privacy with a patdown. There is technology throughout that will begin to address that more completely than what we currently have. Thats why we put a Capital Investment plan in. But with that patdown, the new scan where you hold your hands up, that encourages more patdowns. Yes, sir, that is because that particular piece of technology while good at detecting has a higher false alarm rate than we like. So we need to get rid of those . We need to get Something Different there, yes, sir. So im willing to work in a bipartisan way to get you the technology. But heres what i guess we need to see. We need to quit worrying about the 95yearold grandmother thats going through in a wheelchair and you act like shes a terrorist. And start screening individuals from a standpoint that are a higher Risk Assessment. Wouldnt you agree with that . I would provided we always have some level of random selection in that. I get that. But heres the thing. You treat us randomly at reagan very differently than you would at other airports when it comes to even the random screening for gun powder because thats not typical at every single airport, would you agree with that . Yes, sir, id agree. We do a Risk Assessment at each individual airport. The risks at airports are different. Theres a greater risk of me carrying a gun out of reagan than North Carolina . I dont think so. Ill yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. And i just want to thank you for holding this hearing. Unlike my friend on the other side, who indicated his concern with Border Security, i, of course, have the same concern but i remind him that commercial aviation is our hearing today about commercial aviation is about Border Security. And about a very important component of Border Security. But i am my question really has to go with whether or not weve made any progress here or whether were spinning our wheels. Tsa started at a very low point. It didnt have corrective actions. It didnt even have a process to assess whether they were implemented. And so there was a report about ten years ago that identified all of that, indicating it was limited in this is a gao report. That tsa was limited in its ability to do covert to use covert testing results. So, you know, if you got the results, i want you to do something with it. So let us fast forward to 2015, gao report, and it is established the security Vulnerability Management process had submitted nine security had a process. Had submitted nine security vulnerabilities through the covert testing for mitigation, but as of september last year, none had been formally resolved through the process that gsa found that it took seven months to even assign an office to begin mitigation efforts. So im trying to figure out, now that youve made some progress and were still not moving to resolve these vulnerabilities, perhaps i should start with mr. Johnson. Why has gsa so many challenges for this tenyear period in developing a process to use the results of covert tests to improve Aviation Security . They cant use what they find. Why not . Question. Ou for that one of the challenges, they did not establish timelines and milestones to make progress. But thats in addition to the delay in getting them assigned. Do you have those timelines now, mr. Pekoske . We do. So that has been progress in that area. I think the biggest have you seen the result of the timelines . Wed have to go back in and take a look at that. I believe the commitment to have leadership monitor it will help in that area. That was one of the biggest parts of our recommendations. One of the things we hope will get taken care november theof in taken care of in the future. Im pleased to hear there will be the quarterly checkins. That will help. You can see, mr. Pekoske, im the only member not only of this committee but of congress who doesnt have to get on an airplane every week and go back and forth and still i feel vulnerable. So what bothers me is the time it takes that we discover the vulnerabilities. You are on a committee that knows the vulnerabilities, nothing is done about the vulnerabilities, so you wonder, shall i get on this plane but my colleagues dont really have much choice. So i would appreciate those checkins. How often did you say this committee will know progress being made . Well do checkins once every quarter and then a look at risk every year. Could i ask those checkins every quarter be reported to the chairman of this committee . Certainly. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, chairman cummings and Ranking Member jordan and thank all of you all for being here today. And it is nice to see a wvu grad sitting out there. Tsa is the last line of defense in our nations airports to ensure air travel remains safe and reliable for travelers. And its important that tsa have the ability to address all of the vulnerabilities and efficiencies to keep all americans safe. Mr. Johnson, after listening very carefully to your testimony as a managing director to quote one of my good friends from west virginia, get er done. Administrator pekoske, the Government Accountability office found that there are three problem areas that exist in Security Operations when evaluating test results, knowledge deficiency, skill deficiency, and value deficiency. What steps has the tsa taken to these deficiencies . A number of steps, maam. The first one is to try to get the tools into the hands of the officers to do the jobs theyre doing. When you are using a piece of technology we know needs to be replaced, there is Better Technology out there. We need to be fast in getting that technology in their hands. Additionally, we need to do a better job of training our officers. I am ive been in this position now for almost two years. And i am very impressed and very proud to serve with the officers in this agency. They want to do the very best job they can. They understand the gravity of the position they hold. We just need to do a better job and were making progress in this regard of training them and assessing their performance and doing coaching, mentoring and encouraging them for this very important job. Okay. And have you taken steps to ensure the vulnerability owners are assigned to lead mitigation efforts . Yes, maam. Thats the first step. You have got to say to an individual, you are responsible for working us through this and theres a reporting mechimism so we can assess progress along the way. The tsas Mission Statement on their web page states its to protect the nations Transportation Systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce. Our administration under the leadership of President Trump and the dhs has worked tirelessly to address the crisis at our southern border. In may alone, over 144,000 immigrants illegally crossed into the country. I know that Congress Needs to be a partner to the administration to ensure that we address this crisis swiftly in the most humane way possibly. Im really worried about the flow of Illegal Drugs that cross our border every single day into the communities and in many states, illegal fentanyl and heroin have had deadly and devastating effects. In january alone, the u. S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 100 million lethal doses of fentanyl in arizona. What is dhs doing to stop the flow of lethal opioids into the United States . We are very concerned about that same issue. Part of what we are dealing with on the border right now is tracking is the trafficking of humans and the cartels are using that as a replacement for the transport of drugs to some to some degree, but also they are using the transport of humans as a diversion to their ability to get drugs across the border. The solution for susto put the focus on the southwest border. Were sending volunteers from across dhs. Thats why we have a supplemental request on the hill to help us financially get at this problem so that we can free up Border Patrol officers and customs agents to focus across the board on what theyre doing. Wouldnt you say the flow of those opioids is one of the most significant threats to our National Security . Any flow we dont control is a threat to our National Security. Thank you. Mr. Bumgardner, can you discuss some of the wreck and thetations commendations some of the recommendations tsa has resolved . Yes, congresswoman miller. Were concerned about the retaining, hire, and training of tsos with the requisite skills. I believe tsa is working on that as administrator pekoske indicated. Were also concerned with the Screening Technology and i think theres a plan afoot to enhance that. And then updated policies and procedures, something that is near and dear to our heart and most all of our coworkers covert work and other securityrelated work. Theres a move afoot and a lot of those recommendations have been closed. But i would also say that one of the more important issues and im proud to say that this committee and others have held a lot of oversight hearings on tsa and in 2015, we had seven hearings alone. And that also goes a long way to helping us close recommendations. But thats more a work in progress as opposed to a resolution, correct . Yes, maam. Thank you. Mrs. Wassermanschultz. Mr. Pekoske, i have a couple of fairly tough questions for you, and i hope you can be frank since thats the purpose of this hearing. Tsa is currently operating an Aviation Security Training Program to help saudi arabia start an air Marshal Program. This program was approved by former department of Homeland Security administrator john kelly. Last week the u. N. Released an investigation into the murder of u. S. Based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the saudi consulate in istanbul. The report found, and i quote, mr. Khashoggis killing constituted an extrajudicial killing for which the state of the kingdom of saudi arabia is responsible and that there is, quote, credible evidence warranting further investigation of highlevel saudi officials, individual liability, including the crown princes. The Central Intelligence agency reportedly assessed with high confidence that crown prince mohammad bin salman ordered the assassination and the president has refused to provide the statutorily required magnitsky act report regarding who killed mr. Khashoggi. Mr. Pekoske, is tsa still providing Technical Assistance to this program that specifically assists saudi arabia with their air Marshal Program which supports a government complicit in the murder of a u. S. Resident . Maam, we had done some assessments with the saudi government before mr. Khashoggis killing. To the best of my knowledge, since that occurred, we have not done any training. This has all been worked through the state department through an agreement with state but as best i understand, if im wrong on that, well get back to you and correct it, but we havent done any training since that happened. So the program that has been assisting the saudis with their air Marshal Program since the khashoggi murder has been terminated . And theres no activity at all now in assisting the saudi government with their air Marshal Program . I dont know that the program itself has been terminated but i am fairly certain theres been no activity on that program. And as best i recall, we had done assessments but actually had not done we did assessments for what training they might need but had not done any training. Are you still providing Technical Assistance . To the best of my knowledge, no. If you could get back to me for the record, that would be helpful. My next question is focused on the Sexual Harassment allegations that have occurred within tsa. In september of last year, you came before the committee to testify about misconduct and retaliation at tsa and were asked if tsa has a Sexual Harassment problem. You said, and i quote, i believe we have employees that have violated our Sexual Harassment guidelines and those employees should be held accountable. At least one highlevel employee at that time, joel salvatore, had been under investigation for Sexual Harassment. The office of inspection found he had committed misconduct and recommended his termination. He was not terminated. Is anyone still employed in a senior level position at tsa who has been investigated for Sexual Harassment by office of inspection and found to have committed misconduct . To the best of my knowledge, i cannot recall anybody that falls into that category. Mr. Salvatore is still employed by tsa. That decision was made by several administrators prior to my arrival. And it involved agreements that we thought was best not to disturb. So i isnt that something that you could revisit . No, that decision was made, and it was closed at the time. And so i do not believe i can revisit that. You said so you arent aware of any senior level employees that have been investigated for Sexual Harassment by the office of inspection who are still working and found to have committed misconduct the echo misconduct . None . That come to my mind sitting here in this hearing, but i will go back and check the records and get back to you if there are. Okay. You said youre aggressively addressing the problem of Sexual Harassment at tsa. What changes have you taken and what can you share with us . We take aggressive action whenever we have a case where theres confirmed Sexual Harassment. Weve done a lot of training to make sure our employees feel free to be able to report Sexual Harassment because i think open and Honest Communications with our employees is a bedrock of a good functioning organization. What actions that would fit in the definition of aggressively addressing the problem of Sexual Harassment at tsa can you say that you have worked on since you became the acting administrator . Aggressive. There have been no specific cases that ive worked on, but thats not unusual. There would be cases that would be addressed no, no, when youre aggressively addressing a problem, that means you are taking comprehensive action. Right. In a significant way to prevent it from happening. Im not talking about only going after and making sure that you hold accountable individuals who have committed that Sexual Harassment. But ensuring that it doesnt happen anymore and that you cut off the pervasive culture that has allowed it. What have you been doing to aggressively address that as you committed you were doing . Regular communications on any form of employee misconduct to include Sexual Harassment, to include retaliation against whistleblowers. That has been a consistent message of mine. I would also highlight the fact that were focused on Leader Development and making sure that leaders below my level take the same approach to these issues. None of that to me meets the definition of aggressive, and i would look forward to hearing the information that you do not have available to us today for the record. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Mr. Massey. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for having this important hearing. Mr. Pekoske, i want to compliment the tsos at the cvg airport where theyve doubled passenger embarkments in the last five years, but im always met with politeness, professionalism, and efficiency at that airport. I wish that were the case at all of the airports. I wouldnt say that my tests are covert. Im probably recognized 25 of the time. The other 75 of the time, they have no idea who i am and they keep the lines moving, and they are still professional while being friendly. It would be great if dca could follow the lead of cvg, the tsa agents there, where if you go through precheck, you cant even get a gray bin to put your materials in. They insist you dump them all on the belt and let them ride through that machine and hope that it comes out the other end. And i would suggest if we had more consistency in the screening across the airports, the lines would move faster because every time you throw in a kink like were not going to give you a gray bin to put your materials in, that sort of slows things down. In general, i want to thank the tsos. I think youre doing a good job there. Mr. Johnson, i want to give you a chance to expound on something you touched on in your Opening Statement about the covertness of the covert tests. Because unless these are covert tests, we have to question the validity of the information we get back. And as you said, you could overrepresent the performance if the tsos are somehow tipped off that testing is going on. Can you talk about the ways that they could find out or know about the testing is going on and, therefore, sort of subvert the covertness of the covert test . Absolutely. We flesh it out more fully in our statement that weve submitted. This is an area where we have a recommendation were hopeful will be closed relatively soon, i understand a month from now. But we did find cases where there were practices where the covertness was sort of not there and that the screeners were aware that there was a test under way. That was discovered because they were recognized the screening bag, the same screening bag used across locations and airports and theyd use that same bag so theyre familiar with the same bag and familiar with some of the screeners. Its important to note that tsa uses sort of a field Evaluation Team that goes out and does the screening and they also have a headquarters team. We found the rate of success in terms of them catching things was much higher when the folks at the local airports were going out and doing it versus when they sent individuals from the headquarters to check. The rate of success dropped in terms of catching some of the test cases. These people from headquarters would not be in plain clothes. Theyd be there assisting or something with the supervision . They would be individuals that were not known screeners. What we discover is that some cases we looked at, the screeners were aware they were having a test because theyd see the screeners come through. Obviously, by wordofmouth, word would get around. When you send unknown testers that creates a problem in order to catch some of the items being attempted to pass through the screening systems. Are there other ways to could figure out whats going on . One of our recommendations was obviously to address those things we discovered about or the samenown bag screeners, or even the presence of supervisors would tip them off. We made a recommendation that tsa should look at that whole process and assess it and i believe thats something that the administrator has under way to address. Mr. Pekoske, is that something that tsa is addressing . It sure is. Because we want a covert test that is really covert. So what weve done is established a reserve covert testing team thats drawn from people from airports around the country. It is a little harder to figure out who is on this team. We give them some training as to what to do when you are a person running a covert test. For us, the results arent really valid if they know that they are being tested. The other thing we do is have a process called etip which is electronic threat image projection, which does not really involve a person, an officer. We electronically project a threat image as they are screening bags. We assess how well they are at identifying those threats. And thats very systematic and thats very reliable data. Do you agree, mr. Johnson . Do you feel tsa is addressing the covertness issue . We look forward to getting the details and the documentation on that. Trust, but verify. Absolutely. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you for having this hearing. By the way, i am a happy cust customer. This weekend i flew from baltimore to providence for a family wedding and back from providence to baltimore and all of the tsa people we encountered were professional and courteous and treated people with respect. And we thank you for that because that has not always been the case. Barking orders and treating people like cattle is not the way to get compliance. We can be civil and my experience this weekend was big improvement. So thank you. Administrator pekoske, you were confirmed by the senate to serve as the administrator of tsa, is that correct . Yes, sir. But in february of this year, you were tapped to fill in for the vacant position of deputy secretary of Homeland Security. Is that right . It was april 11th. But you were tapped to do that . Yes. And the senior official performing the duties of the so do you have two parttime jobs . I have two jobs, yes, sir. Neither of which is part time. So youre trying to do both. I am doing both positions. Im still the administrator of tsa but i have a very, very strong team at tsa. Yeah, im focused on what you were confirmed for and what youre doing and all that. Confirmed as tsa administrator. Do you have a timeline for when you might return to your fulltime confirmed position at tsa . No, sir. No timeline. I serve at the pleasure of the secretary. And my understanding is that at tsa, acting tsa deputy administrator cogswell is undertaking many of the responsibilities of de facto administrator while youre doing your job at Homeland Security. Is that correct . The daytoday running of the agency is under acting administrator cogswells cognizance with a written agreement between she and i. There are certain things i reserve for decisions myself and certain things ive been asked to be informed before decisions are made. Seems to be a problem in this administration. Mr. Johnson, any views on that . I mean, isnt it at least from a management org chart, isnt it preferable to have mr. Pekoske full time committed to the job he was confirmed for . Ill just refer to some of the past work done looking at highrisk issues. We talked about the dhs staffing issues and their having the right staff in the right place at the right time. Its always good to have someone in a position to be that leader. Whether or not someone acting in a capacity and not acting can do the same job. Ultimately, we would like to see a leader in place that is confirmed or someone in a position fulltime. Agencycially with the that is hardly without problems and challenges. It is a hard job. Really a hard job. 440 airports, 2 million daily passengers screened, 1. 4 million checked bags daily. And the stress of making sure nothing gets through. No bad guy gets through. And attention it seems to me is required and absolutely desirable. To your point, mr. Johnson. , the rankingu member talked about the crisis of the border. Is children crisis die there because of neglect and the conditions under which people are being held. What i guess it seems intuitive that we would use tsa people to go down to the border. What is it they are going to do down there, what is the expertise they bring to the border to protect or securing the border . The administrative what is the expertise tsa personnel braying and is this, given the volume and the challenges you face, does not take away from your mission, doesnt it dilute your ability to do your job . It does not take away at all at this point from our security mission. Relatively small number given the size of tsa, 63,000 people and we have a total of 350 or 400 people assigned to southwest border operations. That percentage cannot affect in my view the provision proposedbout the diversion of 232 million from your budget to border operations, did we give you 232 million extra . Did we make a mistake, we overestimated your budget because you did not need a quarter of a billion dollars a month . Every agency needs the resources they have been appropriated. We have an emergency supplemental for humanitarian person purposes that will address the issues at the southwest border and iron ridge passage of that supplement. My time is up but i would love to give their take on that if you will allow it. The time is expired but they may answer. I think the chair. I thank the chair. It is a complex organization i dont have anything further to add. In terms of obviously the budget ,ecisions are fully, the Agency Congress makes that decision. I would like to know if we had looked at a csa staffing model and there was a shortfall, a gap there in terms of what was needed taste on the staffing model. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The crisis at our southern border, customs and Border Protection, ice and health and Human Services have been overloaded with processing migrants and they have asked, volunteers tofor assist at the border, is that correct . Yes, sir. Is that a process that has taken place before, hurricanes, other national disasters, etc. . And 885 people. Is there an online means by across themployees department can volunteer for services in the field . Yes, sir. And regarding the agents that have volunteered from tsa to ofve an appeal on the Border Protection of our nation suffer take, is that the tsas ability to carry out its mission . It does not. One of the challenges has been noted for tsa is retention. F personnel is that true . It is true. Would you concur that foreign any staticng within environment, if they are driven by their fervor to serve in the field, to speak with their family and say i am volunteering to serve on the border and they are selected, they are allowed to serve on a voluntary basis, would you believe that would help with the retention of that agent or [inaudible] it would help and most of the people we serve sent to the order ask for an extension. Thank you for clarifying that. It has been stated by my colleagues that of the nine phone abilities, none have been formally resolved. Another colleague across the aisle stated nothing is done. Is there a difference between nothing is done and formerly resolved verses addressed or mitigation efforts and progress . Not a, sir, there is single recommendation that has had no action taken towards it. The vast majority of the recommendations have been resolved but not closed. There are only five or six that remain unresolved considering the number of recommendations, it is a small number. Thank you. That of theshows vulnerabilities, one has been closed by a policy change, another eight have been assigned owner. Erability how are they chosen and qualified in the mitigation effort . Phone ability owner is a Senior Executive within tsa whose job includes correcting that vulnerability. It is important to assign an individual by name so there is accountability. You stated earlier that you expect to have these throughilities closed the mitigation process that is ongoing right now by the end of this calendar year . Yes, sir, from those vulnerabilities there has it has been assessed that the quote was , worry air marshals questionable contribution to security. I would challenge that assessment. Because of the ids, improvised explosive devices versus traditionally understood hijacking efforts that the model of federal air marshals would be questionable to Aviation Security. I believe that is a Fair Assessment of their assessment. Per6,000 feet and 575 miles hour, if a welltrained determined terrorist managed to open an emergency exit door on an aircraft, what would happen to that aircraft . It would be catastrophic for the aircraft, sir. In the presses of stopping that attempted effort by someone determined to do so, if a federal air marshal is on a plane as a passenger, would you feel better . I would. Thank you very much. Regardinga question covert tests your include canine teams question mark yes, it does. We test canine teams and the performance of their duties. We completed a test and we are making adjustments and are about to retest. Regarding the canines and the covert test, it means sometimes is there any way to tell the animal there is a covert test going on or does it perform . The animal just performs. I yield. Thank you. I want to thank the witnesses for your help with our work. So i am reading an article from travel magazine. A summer of hell is coming to u. S. Airports and it talks about the fact that on june 1 two labor day we will have to hundred 57 million passengers flying from the u. S. Airports and into u. S. Airports. Have diversion of resources to the southern border. A lag in lapse or s of training up tsa was tsos. We have a problem with the 737 max 8 are there the aircraft will not be available. From what i am hearing here and i have been at this a while, we are in a bad place right now transportation wise, especially with passenger screening and luggage screening in the u. S. Theres nothing youre telling me here today that leads me to believe otherwise. To, went to point back had other hearings on red team red teamsere we had go, socalled red teams and they would try to get through the tsa someners with weapons and of it was classified, they taped 38 caliber weapons on their legs intotuffed small machetes arm cast and walked through. The failure rate of our screeners was horrific. Say a number because that is classified. It was horrific. I am not hearing any changes here. I know you have done 14 different red team reports. I am concerned. I appreciate your acting in this capacity and you are doing your tsa, but i dont think that in this context should be allowed to inspect themselves or to judge their own competent competence. I would caution you all to make sure that we have independent thecies measuring efficiency and effectiveness of our tsa screeners. I am greatly worried were going to have, i dont want anyone to say we saw this coming because we saw this coming. At u. S. Airports is deplorable. Im hearing that the precheck process as well, the lines at precheck our longer than the regular lines because everyone is on precheck. If we have problems with precheck, that is something we need to get at and get added in a hurry. You mentioned in your Opening Statement a couple of times where you tested and the results were not such good news. If i came home with a report card and told my mother it was not such great news, she would want to know much more about that. Know exactly what the details are on the degree of failure that we continue to see in tsa. Have 14 reporte to have done. Why are we having such a problem making sure that people getting on aircraft dont have weapons . What is the problem there . It would seem that technology i was elected on september 11, the day of the attacks so i was here at the birth of the department of Homeland Security. It was a big issue and we still dont have a right. We armored the cockpits, that was good. We still have dangerous cargo and dangerous people getting on car on aircraft on a regular basis and we cant seem to stop them. What is the problem . What is stopping us from doing this . It is perplexing to us, too. As good as the technology is and it does continue to improve, a lot of this comes down to human factors. A tsotioned earlier about shortage and that is a concern in light of the increased travel this summer. Training, policies and procedures, those are always all issues that remain of concern for us and are we paying them are not question mark is that the fact there is big turnover . There is a big turnover in tdo tso ranks. Thank you. Given volunteers are being sent to the border, is there a crisis at the border . Yes, sir. One colleagues ask what tsa would be doing, what their role would be, might i ask you if cbps mission, if their mission is to house and temporarily people in facilities especially when they are not designed for housing. When it be safe to say that their primary mission is to secure the border, not necessarily house people . Yes. Our goal is to free up the officers to make do that mission. Are they overwhelmed . Totally. When did the supplemental come to College Congress . Not been acted on. We had an adult and three children who were found dead at the border two days ago. On friday. In whose custody . They were in Border Patrol custody. They passed away before they came. Border patrol found them so they were in custody. The Border Patrol searched for two days to find everyone else. When they are accused of kids they, are you aware that are given life saving treatment because they are injured or sick . They are medically screened before they come in. Are they in sometimes bad shape after the journey and being abused by cartel cartels . Is it helpful for the task at hand when people say the following, Speaker Pelosi called the situation a fake crisis. Chuck schumer called it a crisis that does not exist. Steny hoyer said there is no crisis at the border. House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman elliot engel called the situation the face a fate crisis. Schultztative wasserman said we do not have a border crisis. It was called a phony border crisis. Represented Sanford Bishop called it a crisis that does not exist. Several called it a nonexistent border crisis. Convio becerra said there is no border crisis. Is that helpful to identifying and establishing that there is in fact a crisis for congress to act appropriately and responsibly to deal with the crisis and provide materials and support and to be responsible in our job to secure the American People and provide for safety and wellbeing of migrant to seek a better life, is it helpful to have those quotes and statements being made . Not only is it not helpful, it is not correct. Coloredu think it is perceptions about what is happening at the border over the last for five months area it has. Has it difficult made it difficult to get resources necessary for everyone to with this crisis . It has and the emergency humanitarian several mental will address those issues. Does that have an impact when you are dealing with tsa and the questions of whether you are sending volunteers to support this because we have not done our job to provide the resources necessary to do the job question mark yes. Thank you. Mr. Jordan. D to thank you. Would a while have prevented the death of the family . I do not know the specifics. It is clear that you mentioned the need for Immigration Reform to fix this broken system. I think that needs to be the focus rather than both sides yelling out there is a crisis. The humanitarian crisis israel is real. The number of children in our becoming ais is Public Health crisis as well. I will take this in a different direction if i may. I want to talk about recommendations. Thatheck is a program enables green card holders to receive screening if they provide documents and fingerprints and are cleared for such after a background check is completed. That is correct. Clear . Familiar with i am. I want you to know for a while, i have been going and i watched the process of clear and realized and went to their website and it says instead of using identification documents, clear uses biometrics, i scanned and fingerprints to confirm identity. Retrievedthe data supposedly for future flight checks. It is in Person Administration and clear path can be used. The cost for residents is 100 annually. They pay a little bit more i believe when they register. This, thiserns about is a private company, correct . It is. They are stepping into doing their version of a pretsa check. No, they are doing Identity Verification but it is not precheck. When they put the information , from what i understand from their website, they are private,say clear is indicating they cannot sell the material or they will not share the material and so forth. What is interesting and this is also for director johnson because i dont know, do they look at the clear Airport Security process or not . This is why it is concerning. The company shut down unexpectedly earlier this year for a day because they socalled ran out of money and no one knows the root cause or how safe the data was during that time. He goes on to say nothing in the policy prohibits a Data Collection company from purchasing clear for its data on its wellheeled clientele. This is concerning because even though and there may be it may be in their contract, they cannot sell or share the data, where does it say that our information is still protected . Can they sell it to another company, can the transfer that tract to another Country Company . This is forprofit companies, private outside companies that are coming in, gathering the data and buy them being there at the airport next to the pretsa line and cutting it, we have given some blessing and credibility to this company to do that process. Thisdivision approves outside contract and what kind of oversight are we having in regards to this process . It is a registered Traveler Company and it was established by congress. That program was implemented as congress had intended. The Clear Organization is not under contract with tsa. It is under contract with individual airports so there is no contractual relationship between tsa and clear. Our relationship is via the airports, through the Airport Security program which we put in place at each airport around the country. Do you see any Security Risk of the data being collected and being cleared, people are being, the clear process they have been using to get expedited into line . We have looked at the precheck program. We have not looked at the clear program. Add,e other thing i would we reviewed clears Data Security protocols and we held them to st standards, we were satisfied their integrity met those standards. If i may, i think it is critical that gao includes this in their review and making sure we hold them accountable. Their residents and the people that are being registered do not know that this is not a Government Agency. They are not told that area they are they think this is an extension of tsa and you probably already know that and they are making money off of our restaurants and we need to make sure their data and information is protected. Thank you very much. Mr. Gives. Gibbs. I fly virtually every week and i have very good experience going through tsa almost 100 of the time. It is good. I want to go here, i have an tsacle and a report that has been violating their own policy in regards to migrants who are released from federal custody and put on flights not having the required documentation and there is a list of 15 Different Things and it only takes one. A drivers license, passport, a issuedg card, cycle a id card, just to name a few of the 15. According to this article, this was documented by several department of Homeland Security officials. I will give you a chance to answer this in a second. I want to relate it to, we talk all the people coming across the border. We apprehended 144,000 in may allegedly people we are catching on these planes, i assume that must be happening, correct . Is it also happening because the system is overwhelmed but there was a 2015 court ruling that mars ice from Holding Families more than 20 days. One of my question questions, we are putting migrants, people who come across the border illegally, putting them on airplanes without documentation, we dont know who they are,lying them all over the u. S. Is that correct . It is not correct. They are flying in the u. S. Usually to reunite with family members are go to other shelters that are throughout the country. Noticeey present is the to appear, a u. S. Government document that provides them notice to appear before a judicial process to further their immigration claim. The notice to appear is not a form of Identity Verification. Their identity is verified by a cbp officer or a immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer when they go through a screening. They get enhanced screening. We have a federal officer that validates their identity and we give them enhanced screening. How many appear . 10 . Vanish into our country. They do not appear. From it Aviation Security standpoint we feel that we are maintaining Aviation Security because we know who they are and they are getting enhanced screening. You are confident that we identified them at the border. What kind of id would they have . How do you know who they are . They go through a thorough interview process with customs or the Border Patrol. Ok. We areconcerning because asking americans to have all these documentation to get on is one thingat that raises a red flag. I feel better youre saying that. Helping of the people to get throughout the country on taxpayer expense, i assume. He would be funded by the u. S. Government. Sometimes funded by a notforprofit organization. 90 do not sure up for the court date. That is a problem. I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Soybeans . I wanted to ask mr. Bumgarner, if you could maybe give your theory as to why it has been so hard for the agency to respond to these recommendations, the deficiencies that have been cited. What jumps out at me when i look that seemsmbers is like an outlier and i dont know is something going on in the culture of the that is preventing them from moving as quickly to address the things that you have reports. Ut in your where is the breakdown here . It doesnt make sense. The things you are speaking to our obviously are of critical importance and i would have thought they would be more progress or compliance in responding to these recommendations. I am asking you to help me presumably,ecause and you can tell me this, you have done these kinds of inquiries and other agencies and so forth. You have seen how agencies can respond, etc. Enlighten me if you can unwind it seems to have been such a problem here. I will take the first stab at that. Departmentwide i would give credit to the hs. Proactive inen trying to address our recommendations we have made at a pretty high response rate, over 70 some percent of the recommendations we made over the last seven or eight years have been addressed or closed is implemented. In this case when we talk about the nine vulnerabilities are issues that toward that management process panel, the breakdown was it took too long to find those toward that management process two and accountability person to take our of and they lingered in the system over three years before action had been taken. Is a tension that we talked about and there is a timeframe for progress, we think there is some promises that will be taken care of. A much are now we are hoping we will be able to look at everything we have made in terms of the covert miss being addressed and later, the rest of the recommendations we made with respect to the tsa operations for Aviation Security we hope those things will be taken care of. We will work with dhs and tsa. You are describing what happened. There was not an assignment and once there was an assignment, things lingered, etc. Why were they lingering that long . In other words, can you trace couple ofto a individuals that had responsibility that did not carry them out and therefore you can isolate the problem there . A opposed to saying it was broad cultural issue in terms of responding . Some of these are complex challenges and issues that need to be addressed. Some may involve acquisition or changing policies and getting retraining staff, some may take more time to get resolved. Any other comments . I retraining staff, would like to provide some perspective. Since toy 14, we have published 24 reports with 136 recommendations. 39 remain open. Like mr. Johnson indicated, some of the reasons for why those recommendations remain open include the technology does take time to develop. There have been some changes in priorities and leadership and oftentimes, we are tough graders, we want to make sure the there is sufficient let me stop you there. I was about to ask you for a grade. Giving it all the fair context you are suggesting here, in terms of the departments response on these sets of issues , would you give, what is the grade that each of you would give to them right now . I understand i am asking you to quantify unfairly but give them a grade. Oure look at recommendations to be closed within a fouryear window. The department has a pretty high rate of closure within that for your window of 76 or so. One of the highest among any of the departments that are out there. About 85ade recommendations or so. Half of those have been closed. Tsae is more progress that can make and there is promising news that the is administrative administrator is paying attention and making things sure things get done. I hesitate to give a grade but i would say this, prior to 2015, the grade would not be high. Since 2015, with the administrator and there is an renewed attention toward our oversight and the willingness to address our recommendations in a timely fashion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I think the crisis at the border is the greatest crisis this country has faced since world risk to ourr as futures republic. How many folks do you have on the border right now . Many folks this tsa have on the border . 349. How many open Border Patrol positions do we have . I dont have that number off the top of my head but we have they told me it was 2000. That sounds about right. President trump a week ago cut a deal with the mexican government. In theu seen any drop per day of people coming across the southern border . We have seen real progress. Nationalstationing guard and other folks at the border and we see a slight drop off. To find slight drop off. If i look at the number of people in custody, we were at a high of almost 20,000 people between Border Patrol, cvp and ice. Today we are somewhere on the order of 12,300. Is good progress. How many people doing have coming across every day . People. E we had 144,000 so far this year, 676,000. Keep track in june . I get a report every month. Muchey dont tell you how came in the last week. I would easily find that out. It would be of interest. With nationsinated other than mexico as far as dealing with this crisis . Guatemala, el salvador, and nicaragua. Where people coming across from . From those three northern countries into mexico. When i was down there they told me there were countries far beyond Central America that are coming in, is that true question mark it is true. That is because the word is out that you can get through the border particularly if you are with the child or family. We are encouraging people to bring a child with them to come across. Recall that a pull factor. A pull factor. 14,000ere told they were and accompanied miners coming across the border in may. How many accompanied miners are coming across . May,d family units in 84,542. Children unaccompanied, 11,000. , and he accompanied . I can get that figure for you. President trump ran saying he would build a wall. You know how many miles of what we have dealt since he became president . We are close to 50 miles of wall. I would add that the wall is important and that it brings folks trying to cross our border into the ports of entry. That is the legal way to enter the country. Your position, have you run into any Border Patrol guards who did not feel we needed a wall . No, sir, when youre on site and walk on the border, everyone will point to the value of having a wall. To make the crossings more discreet. Things have changed since i was down there. As far as customs is concerned, which countries are they coming across from question mark we are people from cuba, some other caribbean nations and some south american nations and some folks from europe occasionally. What customs finds . That is what customs and Border Patrol find. Are different populations, is that true . The folks who come through the order. There is a significant difference in the countries they are catching. Could you radloff the major countries for Border Patrol and customs . For Border Patrol it would be cuba would be one of the larger populations. When i was down there i saw a good number of Cuban Migrants at Border Patrol stations. From the customs perspective, mostly, the northern triangle countries one he to come through the ports of entry. That is the opposite of what i heard when i was down there. Are you sure . No. I can verify. I would check. We were told very few people from Central America. Ok. Is that 50 miles constructed . Mostly in the rio grande valley. There is a lot of wall going there. How many miles were constructed under president clinton and and president a bush question mark i dont know, i dont have that information. Thank you. Let me come back, youre not only the administrator for tsa, your acting deputy secretary. I have worked in dhs in that position since april 11. Total . I was in the coast guard for 33 years and tsa ford two. There is a crisis on the border, is that right . Without a doubt. In one drug seizure can kill americans. Were 144,000. Ns , 676,000ear so far 315. Way above any previous year. Yes, sir. 60,000 kids in 40 days was also happening. This is a crisis and is that all hands on deck . Just like in a hurricane response. Like anything else. Tsa has responded and you said, do any of you want to volunteer and you said 349 have accepted that challenge and are helping. What are they doing . We have federal air marshals providing a Law Enforcement presence. Tsos providing logistic support. This could improve include meal service or general supplies to people and help them with traffic flow. They are there because there is a crisis as we have established but is it because 2000entioned there are openings and Border Patrol right now . Yes. It is hard to fill the positions. Border patrol and customs have real allocated their own resources. Is there a frustration for andlack of the Government Congress dealing with the situation . Why are there 2000 openings Border Patrol and customs have a good success in hiring more people than are leaving those agencies. That reverses the trend that has been going on for years where more people were leaving then coming on board. People see the value of the mission and want to contribute to the security of the country. The asylum lawng help . Immeasurably. Would a wall held . It is helping and will continue. The supplemental would help. The supplemental is critical. How about troops on the border . We have significant support from the department of defense and that has been a big help area to if troops are in the border, would you need to send the 3004090 sa agents . We would need to send fewer. It want to thank you for being here. Thank you for your service. For what those people are doing on the border, we appreciate it, this is a crisis. The fact that the democrats in congress will not bring up the supplemental, i dont get it. I hope they address the problem and deal with the situation. We got to do all of the above, we have to build the Border Security and reform asylum and pass the supplemental to deal thatthe very real crisis is in doubt every single day on our southern border. I thank you for your work and appreciate you being here. I yield back. We have to balance this. You have had a chance to look at this from a tsa perspective and Homeland Security perspective. Is that right . Yes, sir. One plane goes down, weve got a problem. Part of the balance is to make sure we dont compromise our Security Standards and we have not. So you when you look at the things that mr. Johnson has talked about, mr. Bumgardner, they talked about possibly catastrophic consequences and major problems. You dont see it that way . I see their is significant risk and a appreciate their comments and we would have the same position from tsa with their own testing. We are concerned about vulnerabilities and we want to close them as quickly as you can. Sometimes you cannot close them as quickly as you want to. The folks that go down there, how does that work question mark the volunteers question mark you put out a notice . We put out a notice and we give this supervisor of the volunteer the opportunity to approve or disapprove with reason why that volunteer cannot deploy and we worker process of providing the slide and the transportation. Contracts these taking care of these folks . Theres a lot of contracts taking care of these children. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of these folks. Can you comment . Making sure that we provide safe conditions as we can. Do you think that is happening . We are doing everything we can given the facilities and the flow. That is why the request for the supplemental is critically important and where we need to put our resources down there. The strength of this department is we can put capacity to a problem very quickly because we have large agencies that can support operations like this like tsa. In answering answering the Ranking Members question, one of asked ifions about, he we change the asylum laws, with that help and you said yes. Is that right . Yes. How would that help . It would help us improve the flow. One of our challenges is getting migrants throughout the process flows and making sure they have the opportunity to present their case and have it heard by a judge. We would like to speed up that process so we get a definitive answer much more quickly. A fair process. Yes, sir. And so what else do you see with regard to, a lot of people are concerned about these folks down there, babies in diapers that havent been changed for days, no showers, watching something last night when wase a Government Agency telling the court that it is ok for kids not to have a then theh or soap, and idea of having children and cages and things of that nature. All of us, concern would you agree . I would agree completely. We are doing everything we can to make sure we have the right supplies. One of the key issues and some of these facilities, you dont have showero not facilities. What we have done over the past several months is to bring in soft sided facilities which are not hardened facilities but have soft sides for family units and unaccompanied children so they have a better environment within which to process their claims until they get released or get off into the next facility they are going to. We are concerned about the proper treatment and care of all the migrants in our custody. I will tell you when i was down at the border, i could not have been prouder of the men and women who were trying their hardest to be able to provide the right level of care to all the people they had in their custody and all the volunteers there were down there. One of the reasons volunteers raised their hands and agreed to go is because they feel they are making a difference. Critically it is so important to get the funding down there so we can take care of people. This is called a humanitarian crisis on purpose. It is for humanitarian purposes and to go about the process of fixing our legal structure so that we have a more orderly crossings of our border. You said there has been an increase in the number of apprehensions and people trying to cross the border. That. Ve evaluated is about . U think that opportunity. People see the opportunity in the u. S. And want to take it manage of it. Why now . Will yout, i sound like you were saying there was a significant increase. When did you start seeing the increase . At the end of last calendar year and it has increased throughout this calendar year. One of the key reasons is families and individual children, it is well known. This is largely cartel driven. If you get across the border you will likely be released in the u. S. You have a notice to appear but the rates are low. What people are seeing is there is an opportunity because they can flow across. That is why it is important we speed our process along so we dont have to have a notice to appear. We can hold people in custody until they can appear but it has to be within a reasonable time. Why do you think it is happening now . They fear the opportunity to get across and assimilate. They did not see it before . I dont think they may have. This is a money making enterprise. I have several questions. I do too. I want to ask you about the shutdown, shifting a little bit here. In march of this year you released a report entitled tsa needs to improve efforts to and training supervisors and officers. When the Government Shutdown from december 2018 through tsos were9, required to come to work but not paid. Your report was released in march of this year. Do they evaluate the effectiveness of the shutdown on the work force and what did you find . It did not. The fieldwork on that had been done. We did notice and during the shutdown that the number of sick outs went out. We were concerned about that and we were considering going in and conducting work on that when the shutdown ended. Fortunately, and i think the administrator would agree, we were in between spring break and after christmas so the long lines were not terribly bad at that point. With the increased number of sick outs, we were concerned about traveler safety, no question. Thatwould therefore i while we had more officers calling out, they were not necessarily sick. We had a number of officers who could not get to work. They could not afford childcare. It was a tradeoff between do i eat or pay the money to get to work . What we saw at the end of the shutdown is we had 92, 90 3 of officers coming to work which is remarkable given with the get paid. Do any of the employees have to resort to using foot stamps and for banks and other services to take care of their families . Yes, sir, they did. We had a number of committees that rod food and help them out. Officers who made more money brought things to help out. There was a significant show of support and appreciation for the value they provide. What affected this have on screener performance if any . We saw no change. I would submit that performance might have been higher. Think of this dynamic. You have more leaders in the workforce doing screening so youve got more seasoned folks doing screening. That is always better. When you are being positively reinforced by about every passenger who comes, thanks for working, i know it is a difficult circumstance, that is motivational. I traveled around airports where officers were helping officers out. It brought the organization together like i dont think we have seen before. Are there tsa employees who face longterm financial consequences because of the shutdown question mark i am not aware of anyone who has longterm consequences. I am not saying there arent any folks in that category but we did pay everyone. Ofone lost pay as a result the shutdown. , because i have a twoyear appropriation, i could use money from last fiscal year to pay people in fiscal 19 and we exercise that authority to the maximum extent we could. To the great credit of the officer office of management and budget, they helped us execute on that. I was able to put out on us money to recognize the circumstances people were dealing with and thank them for what they were doing. How does the attrition rate during the first half of this year compare to the rates seen in previous years and what increases in attrition seen in the months after the shutdown . Were looking at that data. We had to catch up on the personnel transactions that were not able to be processed. We are seeing a slight increase in attrition. I dont know what that is attributed to. The economy gets better, our rage rates do not our wage rates do not increase. Thank you. Senator graham has proposed you apply for asylum before you get country your in the are coming from or mexico. Do you support the legislation . I do. It makes a lot of sense to me. How about the simple thing that drudgesus put more on the border. We need to increase that cycle time. They can be there and you can keep Families Together but keep them until there is some kind of due process and adjudication process with the judge overseeing all that and making a decision. Yes, sir. The chairman asked about the increase that we have seen. I would argue a couple things, all the incentives are there. Things we terrible are seeing happening where children are using their way to get into the country. All incentives are there but it might also be that maybe the bad guys understand this administration is serious about addressing the problem and fixing it. Could that be part of why you see the increase as well because they know a solution is coming and would love for us to get there sooner rather than later. F we get help maybe we could might that be a reason for the dramatic increase . That is logical. The cartels are looking at opportunity. They have a closing window and to drive it faster. The other thing i understand is the cartels are making it making as much money and Human Trafficking as they are in drug trafficking. This has been an economic incentive. , you haveution is said this already. Wall, that isity the solution. Coupled with the legislation which says apply before you get to the border and more judges so we can keep Families Together and adjudicate while they are there. , strongld ask for that support from the government of mexico and ensuring folks are stopped at their border before they come to ours. Everything we discussed, everything you agree to is as common sense as it gets. The vast majority of people understand that. Areonly ones who do not democrats in congress. That is the fundamental problem. Much that get it so to deal with weeks the humanitarian crisis to help these people in a shortterm way. That is the problem. For your work and for you coming here in stating the truth in such a way. Ghtforward and plain i yelled back. I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Letter froming a the American Federation of Government Employees without objection, so ordered. To enter into the piece the New York Times dated june 20 4, 2019 titled, there is no excuse for mistreating children at the border. Without objection, so ordered. I want to thank all of you for being here. Situationere is a here where they has to be balance. We have to look for the flying public. At the same time i can concerns with the border. I think many members on both sides, i assume are concerned. Much, not only about not only about the border, and hopefully some kind of reasonable legislation with regard to Immigration Reform, comprehensive, that is, but also concerned about the way our children are treated, these children are treated. You, but i can tell you the way these children are treated does not reflect american values, and thats very unfortunate. Will get toy we some type of resolution. We can go in circles and circles and not and i am convinced we can do more than one thing at one time, but clearly, like i said, if one plane goes down, we are in trouble. You, mr. T to thank johnson and mr. Bumgarner. We will just have to keep working at this, because i think there is an urgency in both. Laces flying public, the reports ive testingh regard to gives me a lot of concern, and im glad you did not get into the numbers, because i think that is the type of information that does not necessarily need to be in the public, but they concern me and should concern all of us. I think that concern is thereened when we learned were recommendations that, for whatever reason, had not been addressed as fast as we would have liked. So, we will continue to look at this issue and look at the issues that have been raised here today overall. But again, i want to thank you. Let me just say without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit written questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response. I would simply ask that our witnesses properly respond as. Ast as you possibly can with that, this hearing is adjourned. [gavel] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer the reviews are in for cspans the president spoke. Book. President s from the new york journal of makes athe president s fast and engrossing read. Read how historians rank the best and worst chief executives, from George Washington to barack obama. Read the challenges they faced and the legacies theyve left behind. Is nowesidents available as a hardcover or ebook today. On tuesday, the house passed an emergency spending bill to provide 4. 5 billion in humanitarian assistance at the u. S. Southern border. The measure includes 2. 9 billion for health and Human Services to care for unaccompanied minors crossing the border. The white house has said that President Trump intends to veto the bill should it make it to its desk. It is possible the senate could take action this week on its own version of a bill to address the situation at the border. Wednesday is the annual congressional baseball game between republicans and democrats. The event raises money each year for washington, d. C. , area charities. Our coverage begins 20 minutes before the first pitch, at 6 45 p. M. Eastern, on cspan2. You can also listen to the live playbyplay on the cspan radio app. Bestowed themp medal of honor on the iraq war first living recipient, Army Veteran David bella via. He was honored for his lifesaving actions in the battle known as the second battle of fallujah back in 2004. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me as we mark the ceremony in prayer. The lord is my light and salvation in whom i shall fear. The lord is the stronghold of my life and who mouth shall be afraid