Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20140728

Is, if we are better at providing highquality and timely care, thats going to affect veterans coming to the v. A. They will come to us more if they can get care more timely. So having a bottomup planning approach and working with our Medical Center leadership and our Network Leadership to give us a bottom up operating plan of what their financial requirement is in the out years will also help us be better prepared to adjust for where were succeeding and when we succeed. And someone said that weve given the v. A. Everything they have requested. Now, i guess institutional memory should be important because i remember in 2007 and 2008, it was the first time the veterans were able to get the budget that they requested for budgeting. That was under president barack obama. I know im the only one that remembers that, but you know, its important to remember how you got where you are. As we move forward. You need to remember that many of us talk the talk, but we didnt walk the walk or roll the roll, so i think the walk or roe role. I think thats important for us to remember how we got where we are. And v. A. , yes, were having problems but were not to the point that we need to destroy the system, and i feel very strongly about that, and i dont want to be the only one saying that the v. A. Shouldnt i mean, i think we should work with Community Partners and Community Stakeholders and how do you feel about that . We have Teaching Hospitals that we should partner with. We could share equipment, but i still want v. A. To be in charge. Yes, maam. As i travel around and visit v. A. Medical you just returned Foreign Policy grainsville . Yes, maam. And after Medical Center after Medical Center im impressed with the academic affiliations we have with local partners in the communities and all the benefits, all the many benefits, the extraordinary care thats being allowed to be made available for veterans, the expert staff, clinical staff that were able to recruit in part because of those because of those strong affiliations. Its one of our opportunities to continue to pursue. Thank you very much and thank you for your service. Yes, maam. I yeel the balance of my time, sir. You got 42 seconds. Dr. Rowe, you are recognized. Thanks very much, mr. Chairman and thank you, mr. Secretary for being here today and thank you for your service in this tough time. I agree with your Opening Statement. Ive said this in the very beginning. One of the problems the v. A. Has that it did have was lost of trust, and i think ms. Brown brought up the point a minute ago that a previous secretary and ive said this the very beginning, what the mow toe should be of the v. A. Is we work for the veterans. I dont wok for the v. A. I work for the veterans. That cultural change will help. One of the things im just not sure about having more people is going to solve the problem because when i came on this committee five and a half years ago, there were quarter of a Million People that work for the v. A. , 250,000 people and the number i saw in your testimony is 341,000. Thats more people that work for the v. A. Than any city in my district. Its huge, and im just not convinced in getting bigger is going to solve the problem. I think Getting Better will solve the problem and getting more efficient will solve the problem, but i dont think getting larger may make the problem worse. I honestly believe that. And when you see an office go from 800 people to 11,000 thats mind boggling to me, that that many more people could be needed when you dont have that many more employees. So i think i think you are looking internally. I truly believe that. A question i have is you mentioned accountability, has anyone been held accountable yet and terminated . There were three actions that were announced dealing with phoenix back about two months ago. Theres an additional individual thats been placed an executive manager who has been placed on a leave of absence. Has anybody that doesnt have a job that had a job . There is its called being fired. I understand what being fired means and im learning the hard way how you do that in the federal government. And so tougher. It starts when when you create this massive base of information thats documented. We just got i got the end of june, i got the first results from the ig, finally released on one location. A thousand pages of transcripts of sworn testimony and in the midst of all of that, there still wasnt all the information needed so we had to dispatch additional investigators to go take additional testimony. We reviewed all of that. We pull email traffic, and then we go through the process of i have to delegate authority for a proposing official and a deciding official and they have to review all the information. There are two things going on right now in the accountability space. Let me interrupt you because my time is short. Youve just made my point. When you were in the private sector, did you have to go through a thousand pages and do all this to fire somebody . No. The answer is no, you didnt. So creating more inefficiencies in there, i think more people making this bigger, before we trim it down and make it better is not the right direction, and i want to very briefly, i dont have a lot of time left, but were going to have to try to have make decisions, Big Decisions in the next week or so that involve a lot of money, the taxpayers money and its 17 billi billion. Ive asked every time do you have enough money to carry out your mission. How will i know that this is enough money . Because ive voted for every single budget. Thats one of things im never apologize for up here is to spend money on our receipt veterans. I absolutely would never do that. We would not have this country the way that it is, the way i enjoy and grown up if it were not for the veterans of this nation. Thats not an issue, but i dont want to take the money that hard working people including veterans go out and pay taxes and not spend it wisely. So can you tell me how this 17 billion and thats 17,000 million dollars, where im from, thats a lot of money. A lot of money where im from too. How is it going to be spent and can i know is that it will be spent wisely and would it be better to not take some of that money, but to veterans who want to, if a veteran says i would like to go see my doctor outside, just let that veteran do that, would that not be cheaper, the infrastructure is already out there, the hospital is already out there. We had those folks out there a week and a half ago today who expressed the desire to do that, and they had the capacity to do that. Would it be more easier and more efficient to just do that . One of points made earlier was the fact that veterans are pleased with the care they go, once you get it, its hard to get it. I agree they are pleased with the care they get in the private sector for the most part. The other thing thats been interesting to me is weve been working down these lists and we call veterans who have been waiting out for care, we ask them do you want us to refer you to community . Sometimes the answer is yes. But oftentimes the answer is no. I want to wait. I had a sergeant in my office this week. But he call the v. A. To cancel his appointment. He was open hold for two hours. Two hours. He walk around his office doing his job, and then later, when he was when he had an appointment, you all have done something, ill tell you at that because he said he got eight different phone calls from eight diven people about his appointment. Now, is that efficient or is that inefficient . It doesnt sound very efficient to me, sir. I yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, is there a storage of doctors at the v. A. And if so, what areas are the shortages in . I would say the short direct answer is, yes, there are shortages and there are shortages in primary care and Specialty Care and Mental Health all three. Mental health is a big percentage of the shortage. I heard theres a problem referring people to specialists. What are the v. A. s most successful recruitment tools and does the v. A. Need stronger tools for recruitment . I think we have a number of very strong improvement tools. One of the areas where we have done a lot of work is in surgery. The Surgery Program has actually made significant use of infomatics to look at practice, process and to identify deficiencies. That program runs nationally and is able to actually support both at the regional level, recruitment one of the areas that had come up before, would we look to have a Tuition Reimbursement and other kinds of authorities like that provided and i think looking at costs, those are valuable, and i think we need to look at extending those. Recruitment is that kind of recruitment, Tuition Reimbursement, presupposes that theres a supply thats adequate to recruit from. We know that doctors are more likely to stay in practice in a place where they completed graduate and medical School Education. Gmes seem like one of the best recruitment tools the hospitals have. Is the v. A. Ewing gmes effectively. I think we are. Where we have developed a strong academic affiliate, we have a good pipeline of quality providers who want to work in the v. A. They understand our mission. They love our mission and they come to work for us. Would you welcome funding to expand the v. A. s gme program. I know the v. A. Has normally been 10 to 12 of graduate School Education, with medicare and medicaid have been taking 98 . Weve been frozen since 1996. I think that is contributing to a storage of doctors generally. I have to look at that. Conceptually, he would support t but i need to look at the details. Do you think if we were to increase the number of graduate medical School Education slots at the v. A. I think so. Would the current fee basis system, has the lack of interoperable between the electronic records between the v. A. And nonv. A. Been a problem . Is the requirement that we have, we have the responsibility to maintain continuity and coordination of care. It has, congressman takano. I think in some of our contract options, we have the ability to Exchange Electronic data. Thats written into the contract. Heres the thing. I think manufacture many of us support the idea of nonv. A. Access, given our emergency situation, both public and private, we support that. A lot of us on the democratic side. But the concern about the solution thats the focal point of the funding, is the continuity . We are looking alt one of major contracts we have today to look at further making the data that we share back and forth computable. Today it is not computable. When we have individual authorizations for fee care, it will come sometimes in paper and we scan it. So we need more interoperability to make outsourcing for feasible. The interim ig said in the long run the best efficiencies for the v. A. Are going to be own its own doctors and to keep care within its system. No system really, whether you are private or public, wants to outsource of out network care. Theres usually a huge charge to go out of network. I think the v. A. Has same sort of situation. In this emergency situation, we want to make sure that there is couldnntinuity of care. We think in terms of extraordinary geography, technology and demand. Clearly in a period rhine of extraordinary demand that were dealing with as we accelerate care to veterans waiting too long. Extraordinary geography, theres going to be communities where we cant justify building. Were going to have to provide timely and appropriate care for those veterans. There are going to be occasions where very highly specialized procedures that were going to want to refer them out. We want to maybe set the parameters so it really is possible and really does work. Correct. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Florez. In your testimony, you said, quote, we will work hard to earn your trust, unquote, we being the v. A. And your trust being the trust of congress. Your background and my background are fairly similar. We are both c level organizations in private sector organizations. You as chief Financial Officer and me as chief financial and executive officer. In those positions, we were reporting to boards and was responsible for the organizations. Lets say you are the ceo of a organization that has caused funding levels to be higher than were actually used, and those funds were reprogrammed to other purposes without letting the board know, and then you have a Resource Management system that accordingly to your own system is not accurate so in light of that what do you think the boards reaction would be if you go to it and say i need a whole bunch more money, and im only going to give you three pages to explain it . So thats so the first part of the question. The second part is wouldnt it have been much more wise to come and say we need a small amount and were going to many could back to you in a few months and show you what a great job we did with this small amount and then say in light of that we would like to make a larger request because were on the the right track . So thats my first question. Well, i think the sense is that we needed to provide, as the Conference Committee was considering other appropriations, we needed to provide our best estimate of the requirements to meet the current demand. You turned those requirements into a request. And i dont think that was wise. I think it would have been a lot smarter to koom back to us say this is the down payment we need and if we are successful in turning this around and putting Veterans Health care first, then were going to come back for you and ask for x, y, z, but you asked for the whole enchilada at one time. Thats caused a lot of folks to look at that. Lets go into a little bit more granular information. In the Health Care Model that the v. A. Uses, its call the enrolling health care projection model. That takes into consideration a number of components, projected number of enrollees, workload, unit costs for providing the services, in fiscal 11 and 12 the v. A. Used that for the sources for Health Care Budget estimates. In 2014, it expanded the use to develop cost estimates beyond that. Over the years, gao has identify many problems with that since its not a very trustworthy product so thats an issue, and now the administration is asking 17. 6 billion, which is an unwise thing to ask. Here are my questions, you can answer these supplementally hoel before the end of the day. Number one was the chcpm used to clear out the current background lock from the v. A. , why did the ehcph failed to effect the demand on the system, and is there a way it can be adjusted to incorporate wait times . Should we continue to advance appropriate v. A. Health care funding if clearly the method used to predict the funding needed to far in advance is not working . As i said earlier in my testimony, the v. A. Overestimated and then used the funds for other purposes without talking to congress or its board, so the model just goes all over the place. Now you are saying that it needs 16 17. 6 billion. Did you use that . Indirectly. We used unit costs that were derived from the model but we look at appointment wait time and used the data that we had for veterans waiting for care greater than 30 days. Thats different from the model. Everything else was starting looking at the data that we had at the time. Do you know why the ehcpm failed to pringt these estimates in the past . I dont know that it did fail to predict it. I would have to go look at the details the facts say it did fail. Get back to us on that as well as my third question. I yield back. Thank you, very much. Ms. Titus, you are recognized for five minutes. Ms. Titus, you are recognized. Excuse me, mr. Chairman. Well, i think we all agree that the purpose of these hearings and of your proposed reforms is to increase service to our veterans and to their families. These are services that they have deserved and i thank you, mr. Secretary, for being here and all that you propose to make that happen. We have heard of all the many problems and if these problems exist generally for veterans, i think that problems are perhaps even worse for our lgbt and Women Veterans and thats where i would like to address my concerns. I will ask you, mr. Secretary, do you believe that veterans and their spouses should have equal access to federal benefits through the v. A. Regardless of their current state of residency . Yes, maam, i do. Well, i thank you for that answer and i ask you this because last month the v. A. Announced that your agency has exhausted all avenues in the wake of the decision by the Supreme Court in windsor versus the u. S. That struck down doma for giving benefits to our lgbt veterans. Unless congress acts, those veterans who live in states who dont recognize their marriages would be denied access to their earned benefits, is that correct . Thats correct, yes, maam. Thats most unfortunate. Because of that, i recognize that need and after the Supreme Court decision, i introduced hr 2529, thats a very simple bill that would correct that language problem in the statute. We had a hearing on that last march. Nobody came forward to oppose it. We had vsos speaking in favor of it. Nobody is working against it and i will ask you would you support our efforts here in congress to make that change so all our veterans who have all worn the uniform, senkd the United States, could have access to those benefits . Maam, im not familiar with the legislation specifically, but my own policy decisions at the department have been to provide equal benefits to all veterans to the maximum extent permitted by the law. And i thank you for that and our veterans do too. Im sure. As for women, i would like to ask you about that. Some of the recent reports have highlighted some very disturbing statistics about the low quality of care that our Women Veterans face and they are less likely to seek out care. They are often called our silent veterans. But when they do, weve found that the v. A. Served 390,000 female vets last year, yet nearly one in four of the v. A. Hospitals does not have a permanent gynecologist on staff, and one out of every two female veterans receive medication that could was determined could have caused birth defects, even though they are at an age where they might want to have children. These are unacceptable statistics and they really address the question of quality of care. I sent a letter along with 50 of my colleague here in the house asking that this be addressed. I know youve been busy. I havent heard back from you, but i wonder if you could speak to that this morning. Well, i owe you an answer, first of all. Apologies and well get you one. We are quite frankly playing catch up. The growth rate for women rad kael outstrips the overall number of veterans coming to the v. A. For care. We are doing things training existing providers, hiring additional providers, as well as i know what a big deal it is every time were able to cut the ribbon on a womens Medical Center, i always get invited. So its a really big deal. Were playing catch up and weve got work to do that. I appreciate that. I thank you for your answers because sometimes were looking at this in the big picture and we forget there are certain veterans who are perhaps being overlooked and i want our improvement of services to go for all of our veterans because they have all served and sacrifice the as have their families so thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you very much, ms. Titus. It looks like dr. Benachec. Thank you your story of coming in the interim like this and trying to pick up the pieces of a system thats obviously been under a lot of stress is admirable and i appreciate what you are doing. I have a couple of quick questions. Yes, sir. That i hope youll be able to help me with. First of all, ij want to address the personal issue. You know the cbok in Traverse City michigan has been scheduled to be increased in size for years. The money is in your department and all it needs is a signature to make that happen. My district has been waiting for this for years and the money has been appropriated and its in the budget, but, you know, weve been trying to get this to happen for a long time, so i hope you can fix that. Well dig into that one. Well, ive been trying to get this to happen for a long time. I got to tell you when im out in the feel, i run in all kinds of instances where before i leave the room. I appreciate that you are out there yourself seeing whats happening on the ground because, you know, my problem with management is that when somebody is sitting back behind their desk and lynning to their subordinates tell them how things are, thats when trouble happens and i think thats what happened in the past frankly here. Now the question that we brought up and some of the members brought it up earlier what does the secretary need to do his job . You mentioned how difficult it is to remove people. So what would your recommendations be to what powers should the secretary have that he doesnt have now to make sure that change happens . Thats not its not an easy question to answer. Ive said repeatedly, i will use whatever authority ive got and use it to the maximum extent that i can to hold people accountable. There are different proposals out there about granting Additional Authority to the secretary and if those and if those are provided, then well use them. We recognize that to the extent that those are targeted solely at the department of veterans affairs, that has an impact over time. You are explaining a lot. But you are not giving me an answer. What do you need to make this happen better . You know, somebody asked a question earlier is that how it work in the private sector . I tell you, lets work like we do in the private sector, but that ignores a century of lets make a step forward. What would be the number one thing that you would recommend to make it easier for the secretary to do his job and promote accountability and action . Well, i think the flexibility to expedite personnel actions, that would be a big deal. Let me ask another question, and that is were trying to get the patients off waiting lists and into the private sector. So, you know, my experience with the v. A. Is its very difficult to make that happen because theres like so much paperwork that the veterans have to go through. What have you done in this emergency situation to make it easier for that veteran actually to get out into the private sector and make it happen and the guys get paid and it all is happening quickly . Now, what have you actually done to make this happen . Its a good question. Congressman benishek, one of things weve done. Weve created these new tools. It helps us to oomt the documentation of the referral so that it occurs a little bit faster but what it also allows us to do for the first time we get to look at that referral through all of its stages and we get to manage to it, so we get to look at when was the referral created, when was it authorized, did we sit on it too long before rewe authorized. When was the schedule scheduled, how much time passed . When was it delivered, and when was it returned. We still have work to do. What exactly are you doing to get these people off the waiting list and into the private sector . Its phone calls to veterans asking them if they would like to be seen in the private sector, if they would and we can coordinate with pc 3. Were using the pc 3 partners. Its not in place for the most part. Not fully, but where it is, pc 3 will coordinate the appointments for us. If they know a provider, they will work with their own provider, if they dont, we will work with providers we have a relationship with. Its a scripted process. We still have a lot of work to do to get that done wrong. We need to look at that process from a veterans perspective, is it easy to understand and follow through. We have work to do that. Thank you. Dr. Reese, you are recognized. Excuse me, ms. Kirkpatrick, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary, thank you for being here today. On monday i was out on the Navajo Nation in my district and talking with lots of folks. Many of them live in areas with no cell phone coverage and broad band coverage. I know one of your goals is to expand telemedicine. In your budget, do you have money for expanding broad band infrastructure in those areas where we have veterans who have no access . I think its one of the things well have to look at. In the supplemental requests we did have Additional Support for it to include hardware and band width for expanded care but i think we need to look at that specifically. I dont want to give you a false answer. I would love to be part of that conversation as we continue on because its going to be so critical to getting them the care they need. My other question is is for the secretary. I mean, you know, the Inspector Generals reports have been very valuable to this committee in trying to unravel the problems at the v. A. And come up with Real Solutions and just would like to know what you have done, what you have put in place since the interim report from the Inspector General in may. There were a series of recommendations and findings in the report. Many of them had to do with looking at the 1,700 veterans that they had turned up in their process. We have reached out to every single one of them. Appointments for a thousand veterans have been scheduled as a result of that particular process. There were recommendations in the report about producing the new enrollee appointment request report. Producing that at the medical level and producing that out. Thats happening. The near list has gone from 64,000, it was 2,100 the last time i looked, which is going to be the bottom of that. Phillip, other items that im not remembering, it seems like there were one or two others. Yeah. Each one of them became a specific action plan. Weve worked on them. Weve i think closed them. Weve implemented their recommendations in the interim. Ive got it. There was also a recommendation regarding reviewing wait lists nationwide which obviously we do. Were producing them and publing them. Weve vig rosily produced every single one of them. I visited with a doctor at flagstaff Medical Center and they had entered into a contract with the v. A. To treat local veterans and they are very happy and pleased to do that. With that, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Dr. Winstrop, you are recognized. Thank you mr. Chairman and mr. Secretary for being here today and for your many years of service to our country in many ways. Lets take the assumption that the goal of the v. A. Is to see all those that are eligible for care as soon as possible and provide quality care. And that i think should be the assumption there. But what i find is that the motivational factors that are really need to accomplish this that and achieve that on a regular basis and comply with human nature dont really exist. In other words, the incentives arent necessarily there that would exist in the private sector, et cetera. And im curious how su propose in this mass bureaucracy that were dealing with, how do we create an environment where truly seeing the veteran patient is an asset rather than a liability to the system. Interesting way to frame the issue. As i mentioned in my Opening Statement, i i continue to believe when i go out to the field, it was in phoenix several weeks ago and visited with a roomful of employees, and you know, that is clearly our most troubled location, faced with what i have characterized as leadership failure, mismanagement and yet person and person raised their habed hand and talked about the things they had to overcome in order to be able to take care of their veterans. I still find everywhere i go the vast majority of people care deeply about the veterans that were serving and i would tell you if we didnt have that, i wouldnt have anything to reach in and grab hold of. Being able to reach in there and grab ahold of the fact that they care, they want to do the right thing is the absolute is a critical, critical element of what were doing. I would tell you other structural things and i alluded to it in my Opening Statement. Ive got situations where quality of care at a Medical Center is declining and Medical Center directors are getting top box scores on their evaluations, and that was what prompted my direction to say were going to overhaul the standard performance contract for Medical Center directors and visiting directors because were not going to have a contract where their result isnt aligned with the Patient Outcomes that were delivering. I think its going to take some of those kind of structural changes as well to ensure we got people focused on veterans. The last thing on this point, were so focused on wait times and we think about how we gauge timeliness of access in the future, i think the centerpiece of that is going to be a much more robust focus on patient satisfaction. I think that helps us recenter back on the veteran that were serving and not looking at wait times and the 700 other metrics that we got people trying to and those type of responses should be the driving force to whether someone gets a bonus or how they are compensated. Yes. And Inspector General complied to us as money over the last decade has increased, it led to more layers of administrative aspects rather than actual care and that really is a concern. As you know, i had a meeting this morning with several members on measuring productivity and efficiency which we have done a couple of times with some of the doctors here. I think were going in the right direction. I think there are some things missing, when you evaluate on rvus, what were able to look at is how much were paying the doctor per rvu. For example, if you have an old Physical Plant, youve got to take a look at how much you are spending for productivity in rvus in a plant thats costing you out of this world. You may be better closing that entire facility and putting everything in the community in that particular spot. Were not measuring that. Those are the type of things we have to measure as well. When you talk about outsourcing and saying it costs, maybe it doesnt cost more if your Physical Plant is costing you so much more. Those are Business Decisions and thats got to be the approach. We cant assume that where we are is the best place to be always. So im going to continue to work with that group and with you, and hopefully we can see these types of changes and i appreciate with that im out of time and i yield back. Thank you. Thank you, ms. Brownley you are recognized for five months. Mr. Secretary, the way i understand your proposal of the 17. 6 billion is predominantly for additional space, additional personnel, professionals, and some money for i. T. , and i certainly agree that in term of facilities and personnel, theres a need. My cboc in ox nard, california has you stated in your testimony has had double digit increases each year in the last couple of years. And not much has been done over the last couple of years, i will add. I think what i have learned through all of the hearings that weve had that the care for veterans, once they get in the system, is pretty good. Its accessing the system is where we have seen its truly broken. When i see the i. T. Proposal, it kerps me. You did american off the shelf products that you are looking at. Off the Shelf Technology that you are looking at. I really want to know, we got to fix the access part of this and i dont want to vest more money into a broken system. I want to invest money into new technologies and innovation and getting the v. A. Into the 21st century much like the private sector is and the tools that they have to access a Health Care System. So if you can just comment on that, please. First of all, i will say the majority of the i. T. Resources as i understand the proposal here are associated with the activation of the facilities, so its the i. T. Infrom a structure that we need as we activate facilities and bring on additional clinical staff. There are a number of things under way to really take us into the 21st century here. Part of it is the purchase of the commercial off the shelf scheduling system which is not included here. Its already provided within the core funding. There are other thing we were talking earlier about, interoperablity for purchase care. Anything else to add, phillip . I would add a couple of items relative to i. T. Part of it is we have a capital request in there. Were requesting 12 to 13 million square feet for lease space, but we have to outfit to i. T. To make it useful, pcs, networks, telecomes. So thats built into it. Its not all just Raw Development work. Its what you need to make use of the space you get and to actually connect the staff you are hiring. You need i. T. To make that happen. So thats part of the request. So mr. Secretary, then, in terms of off the Shelf Solutions that you are speaking of, whats the time frame in that . What are we looking at . Sure. There are actually three or four different initiatives kind of parallel initiatives on the scheduling front. We have already let a contract to deal with some of the motion challenging aspects of the current system, and were expecting those to begin to be fielded within the next six to twelve months. The timeline for the purchase of the commercial off the shelf system is still a bit up in the air based upon the contracting approach that were going to have to pursue there, but i think 2016 is probably the best Case Scenario for the introduction of that particular system. Does that sound right, phillip . And so thats one of reasons were going ahead to make the investments and fixes to the existing system so we dont wait two years to have that improved functionality. Thank you. And very quickly in your opening comments as well, you talk about the vba and the improvements there. We also learned in our hearings that weve had a 2,000 increase in the appeals with regards to benefits, so when you add that together, to me, it gives me pause in terms of believing that weve made the improvement and if you could just briefly comment on that. Sure, glad to. There has been this laser sharp focus on the disability claims backlog. I perceive that walking in the door the morning of my third day at v. A. I was over at the white house talking about the backlog and vbms. So this laser sharp focus on the backlog, weve not been focused as we needed to do on nonrating claims and on appeals and on our fiduciary claims and thats what were really talking about doing here, particularly with appeals, where the majority, 90 of the number of appeals that are in process sit in vba. Weve allocated Additional Resources, thank you very much to congresss support to the board of veterans appeals which is helping us and we using some technology there to make them more efficient but we have work to do in the vba side to be able to provide more timely decisions. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Hulscamp you are recognized. I appreciate the opportunity to question the acting secretary and i want to bring attention first to a very famous publication, life magazine, may 22nd, 1970, i presume you are somewhat familiar with this publication, and also the photo that gained much attention across the country of again, may, 1970, in which the v. A. Was found to have abused the trust and neglected our veterans, and mr. Gibson, i think we sit here today and thats the same topic. How are we going to restore the trust to our American Veterans and to the American People and what ive heard from you today so far has been that we will spend, give you another 17. 6 billion, somehow that will restore that trust and i dont think that does that for my constituents, certainly not for mir veterans and i know there are some very specific questions i would like to ask you. First of all, have all secret waiting lists been eliminated and identified . To the best of my knowledge, yes, they have. Youve identified at least identified those on the electronic waiting lists but my understanding there were 18 different schemes identified internally, you are absolutely certain that every one of those waiting lists have been identified. I dont know where that 18 comes from. That comes from the oig report. It came from your department. The ig is in 80 locations right now and im not privy so what they are fighting. Thats why i say to the best of my knowledge, they have been uncovered. But until the reviews have been done, i cant tell you. How do we restore that trust if we dont know the extent of the problem . I think you start where you are. You start by spending money. No, you start where you are. You start by articulating expectations, but how were going to operate. You start by getting veterans off of wait lists and into clinics. You start by fixing the chronic scheduling problems that exist within the organization. How do we know were achieving progress . What weve heard and im sure you are aware of numerous employees from the v. A. Have come before this committee and identified fake data presented to this committee, and you come in here and present da it and say how were making progress . How do we restore trust that we can actually believe the da that were presenting to the committee . I will tell you when i directed all the Medical Center directors and visiting directors to go out and spend time in each of their clinic and engage with their schedulers, people have asked me, gee, that doesnt sound much like of a check and balance u. S. Because they are in the inside. The real moesks behind that direction was for them to be out there on the ground and to take ownership for the quality of health care thats being delivered, including the timeliness of the health care the whistle blowers that i hear from, im shot on time im short on time. Were saying that hasnt changed. Were coming behind that with a comprehensive audit from all the organizations. We need to restore that trust. Has anyone lost their job for retaliating no, there is not. There are two whistleblower referrals that have come from the office of special counsel. Tuesday morning, i will have investigators on the ground pursuing those. How many ongoing investigations are currently under way for investigating these retaliation complaints . The number is 70 or something. The number is huge. Were going to hear about two and the other 68 are still ongoing. These are ongoing at the office of special counsel. Im waiting for the office of special counsel to provide me the results of their investigation. I cant what are you doing about it . What we heard from whistle blowers let me describe what we heard from whistle blowers. They said we get an email once a year that says we have a right to whistle blow and then we are faced retaliation. Im hearing this still going on today. I have no doubt that it is. I can articulate over and over again the expectation that were not going to tolerate that behavior but until ive got a set of facts that i can act on, i cant take the action. I cant take the personnel action. And so nobody is more anxious than i am to have that opportunity. Thats why in fact this morning i checked again, have we gotten anything from the office of special counsel, the answer was yes, we just got two. Tuesday morning, well have investigators on the ground. I requested in the last meeting, following the last meeting, information of contacts between the whistleblower here that have contacted the chief of staff of the president s. I dont believe we received that information. Your department can look into that. You have access to the information. You just need to call mr. Nabors, that hasnt been looked into or responded to. These are very serious allegations, mr. Secretary. I presume were going to have a new second in a couple of weekends, but to come in and say were going to restore the trust but we havent addressed the whistleblower problems because thats somebody elses jobs no, its not. Its my job. Ij cant action until ive got the results of the investigation. From the iog. Or the office of special counsel. One or the other. Have you issued any new statements to the v. A. System the information about whistle blowers . Yes. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you secretary for your hard work. Before i begin, i want to recognize a friend of all of ours, nancy brown park shes the National President of American Legion womens auxilia auxiliary, shes visiting. Thank you for being here and thank you for all your hard work. [ applause ] recently, my office has really done an incredible, detailed, thorough investigation of the different issues that face our veterans, not only when i started office last summer, when we held community forums, stakeholder analysis, research, but also key stakeholder interviews, we underwent that again in light of this crisis. We have a veterans Advisory Board that is just top notch. We conducted surveys. We did more interviews and had multiple meetings with the v. A. And v. A. Administration. And we recently conducted this envelope survey of veterans in my district to assess their satisfaction with v. A. Health care. Our world means a world of difference to our veterans. We approach this with the spirit of partnerships with solutions. And we found, im going to give you some information, we understand theres some selection bias here. Nevertheless, they tell a story. We found that the vast major of my district veterans who responded said they waited more than 60 days. Of course, these are individuals who are upset and who are willing to conduct this survey. More troubling, when asked what vast majority again said, people who care. And weve heard that on multiple occasions. We also heard theres a culture where the v. A. System believes that perhaps its about them. We need to change that culture to make at this more High Performance veteran centered culture. The v. A. Exists to honor, respect, and give dignity and care for our veterans who have put their lives at risk. The veterans do not exist to serve the v. A. Health care system. That is very important for that sentiment to penetrate every level of the v. A. Health care system. Now my question to you is what is the plan for a systemwide cultural change that will create a culture of High Performance veteran centered system . I think as you look at culture change in an organization, the critical ingredient in all of my experience is leadership. Part of that has to do with arctic lighting expectations and Holding People accountable for their behavior. Were working hard to could the first part. Were working hard to get ready to do the second part, and were anxious to do the second part as well because quite frankly i think thats where we begin to get real traction. I would also tell you on the leadership part, i agree with you completely. I think we need there is a fundamental shift in culture that has to happen. One of the things that i talk about an awful lot internally is ownership really at all levels and were talking about leaders not at top of the organization, but at all levels. Taking ownership for issues that are getting in way in caring for veterans. Its really about taking ownership and understanding that, you know, my job as i said earlier, my job is to create the conditions for them to successfully take care of veterans. I believe that is very important. That leads to a culture of accountability which we absolutely need. However, we need a veteran centered culture. So what are you being held accountable for . What are the snushlized institutionalized things being done . It can be done in a lot of different ways that focuses all of our eyes, our accountability, everything we do, strive for and exist even in our High Performance, is always answer the questions through the lens of the veterans. Agree. Thank you. I yield back my time. Thank you very much, mr. Ruiz. Colonel cook, you are recognized, sir are for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Secretary. I appreciate you being here. Were talking about trust and confidence and i will be very honest with you. Ive lost a lot of trust and confidence in the v. A. You know, when i was in a platoon, i felt very confident with the troops that i had, the company, the company commander, trust and confidence, battalion, all the way up there, and im trying to, you know, not let the events of the past influence my judgment many about three months ago, i called one of the v. A. S. Im not going to call as congressman cook. Im not going to call as colonel cook. I said hey, this is paul cook. Im on file in there. I just want i want to get an appointment. I couldnt even past the switchboard. Okay . Called the v. A. , the Regional Office and told them about that. But i didnt theres part of me that wanted to go to war, if you will, but theres part of me that my office, they do a great job handling the veterans and i didnt want to endanger other cases that are on file. So anyway, i said to myself, okay, cook, what are you going to do . You are a dumb marine. So i said all right, heres whats going to happen. Im going to walk into a v. A. And im going to try and get an appointment. Im going to bring my i. D. Card. I probably will not show them first. Ij want to give them my drivers license. They are going to look at it. Right away they are going to see im older than dirt. But it will have my Social Security number on there, and what i want to know from you guys, if you can, what five questions should i have answered right then and there so i can go forward with the process . Because if i think those questions are working, im going to spread that through every veteran that, hey, you go in the v. A. , make sure you have blah, blah, blah, blah, and you ask these questions. Because im going to say if they cant answer those questions, then we have a problem and we have to address it and ill come back to you and here we go again. Sorry. Its a long question, i guess. I think to get care in a v. A. , you should ask one question. Am i enrolled . If you are enrolled, you should be getting care. The second questions would be what kind of care you would want. If you are not enrolled, the second question, how do i do that . I would like to get an appointment. Just the next one. I would like to see the primary care provider, this provider, thats it. You shouldnt be asking any other questions. So two questions. Or three questions. Yes, sir. Okay. I got acouple of questions. Ig. How many of the ig visits are unannounced . Im sorry, how many ig visits . Are unannounced. I would say the large majority. They dont know in advance that they are okay. Oftentimes they are responding to a hot line call or Something Like that. I dont even know where the igs i mentioned this before about the principle. This thing about managing by walking around. Sometimes you walk into a battalion or what have you, you dont like to do that, when you have evidence that theres something going on with a unit. I walk in one time. I found a live mortar in place with the safety pin off. Unbelievable, and yet when you come in like that, particularly if you are worried about an organization, based upon the statistics that have gone out there, so i dont know. Im kind of excited about you being here. You answered your question. I still dont understand gra granul granularity, and its the third time ive heard it in committee the last two days. It took me a while to understand pseudomonas, and other bacteria. Were focused on it. Its about that culture of the military and we can never forget that. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Owe rork you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me begin for thank youing for being here and amazing done youve done in two months as the acting secretary. Youve been incredibly responsive, youve been transparent, and i believe you have defined a vision for excellence even in the first two minutes of your Opening Statement and my hope is that as we have a new secretary for the v. A. , that you will still be part of this organization at the very highest level, continuing that very aggressive, ambitious push toward excellence and accountability and changing this culture that all of us have been working on and talking about for so many months and in some cases years now. Let me quickly switch to el paso and i rls its real lies its parochial. You visited 15 facilities. El paso was one of them. A command center was set up there within the last month. That shows us that you are taking this issue seriously, but it also shows us that we have a problem in el paso. The Access Rankings that we saw from the vha showed in june showed out of 151 facilities, we were dead last, absolute worse for establish veterans for Mental Health care appointments, and second worse for speciality care. You in your some of your comments while you were in el paso talked about problems with the capacity of the facility that we have, the quality of the facility that we have. I would love for you right now to set about the timeo im going to help you with a full Service Veterans hospital. Im not going to ask you to make a commitment that you cannot follow through on. Will you work with me to ensure we can uncrease capacity and improve the quality and care in el paso and similarly poorly performing facilities in this country . I absolutely will. El paso has grown almost 20 in the last three years. Its located in a medically under served market. Weve got challenges as it relates to space and scope of services that were providing organically in that particular location. And challenges in some instances in which youve helped us with in terms of attracting clinicians to work there. I told you friday i was going to call a psychologist who we were trying to recruit to el paso. When i was sworn in january of 2013, we had 19 1 2 vacancies, in el paso. As of last month, its the same. Ive been making recruitment calls. I spoke to a wonderful psychologist yesterday. A leader in pstd care. I learned because we are a clin being she will be a gs 13 most likely. That would be the pay scale. If they were coming to a hospital, she would be a gs 14. I cannot blame her or anyone who would make a decision based on what they will be able to earn in a position given the fact that they are coming into a historically under served area. Its another piece of the case im making that we need a full Service Hospital in el paso. The chairman and Ranking Member raised a great panel last week. We talked about pstd and the need to do a better job of taking care of these Service Members when they come back, and the parents of daniel summers, dr. And mrs. Summers also provided a potential solution or at least a suggestion for us to explore and that was in kind of picking up on something that dr. Rowe said how we communicate with Community Care and private care, could the vha become a similar of excellence for warrelated injuries for survivors of ptsd, of tbi, of muscular skeletal injuries, and have Community Care for all other services . Im not endorsing the idea, but i would love to get your thoughts and perhaps mr. Matkovskys thoughts. The first part question, should we become a center of excellence around a lot of those practice areas, i would tell you we either are or should be. Those are instances where we need to have deep knowledge and expertise, but also exceptional capacity to be able to meet the needs of Service Members there. How that fits into a revised model of v. A. Care delivery, you know, i dont know that im ready to give you a view on that, but clearly in those particular areas and as i learned from my friends at pba, the things that v. A. Has developed deep specialties are absolutely vital to our veterans. As i yield back, i ask that we continue to Work Together to explore this concept. Perhaps the v. A. Cannot be everything to all veterans and maybe we should focus on centers of excellence. With that, i yield back to the chair. Thank you, mr. O rourk. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to take a second and let you know why im stymied by this request for 17 billion because ij want to take you back how this started on the committee. Im from the state of indiana. We have 6. 2 million hoos yers that live in the state of indiana. We have a half a million veterans out of 6. 2 Million People. Our state is passionate and they are freedom fighters. We love the military. We embrace the v. A. In the state of indiana. We have the fourth Largest National guard in the nation, a little state in the midwest, behind california and texas. We love we are patriots in our state, so i am passionate about this issue because i believe that when our little state, a half a Million People answer the call and they heard a promise from this government, and ive sat here for 18 months with all of my fellow freshman on this committee and i still have for you today the original questions i asked when these hearings began because weve never got an answer from the v. A. And all we wanted to know, all i wanted to know was what is the status of my state . Whats happening . With the clinics in my state. Ive gone to several hospitals in my state. I have a hospital thats not even a fully functioning hospital. They dont even have an icu, so if you are a have the ran that comes in, you are going to be looked at in the er and shipped across the street to a private facility and taxpayers are paying for blood. I went to another facility that this 2 3 beds empty. They showed up on the list of 122 original audits that the v. A. Had additional questions from and the ceo personally told me hes never heard a word. Nobody has ever checked with him. Theres been no check. Nobody has been fired. They are still harassing whistle blowers. Theres been no checks. We dont know the status of our states. We cant get the answers to the questions that we started with, and i guess the question i want to ask you, but im almost mortified to hear your answer is when will we know the status of our states . Ive asked those questions from day one, im sure. When are we going to hear the status of our states and please dont tell up to counsel general and its up to aig and everybody is cryptic and anonymous. Myself and one of my fears will be conducting eighthour briefings to one of the committees. Well be sending that data out to the field as well. What we provide to you we provide to the facilities and the networks themselves. Perfect. So monday and wednesday. Yea because thats been a huge concern. My second question goes back to representative brownleys. We sat here on many hearings on i. T. And your i. T. , according to the hearings that weve had has been a disaster. Theres been many breaches. The gentleman that was in charge of i. T. Sat there and i said to him do you have enough money to do what you need to do to protect our va and to protect our veterans and to upgrade the systems that you need . Yes, maam. We find out during a subsequent hearing that and 17 billion request, that we have allocated long before i got here, this committee has consistently faithfully allocated all the money the v. A. I. T. Department has asked for and then we find out a revelation in one of these hearings that they are using 1985 scheduling software. Thats one of the most shocking revelations that i heard. Where the billions of dollars, where did they go in this giant v. A. . They obviously werent addressing i. T. And when you come to us and ask for 17 billion and nobody can answer the question why were using antiquated equipment, the i. T. At the v. A. Is a disaster, what is the answer to the question of how can we possibly trust you now even for another billion just for i. T. When all that money has been unaccounted for and the revelation under oath was were using 1985 software. I think that is shocking and i think the american taxpayers deserve an answer as to where their money go and how can they trust you with another 17 billion or just 1 billion in i. T. Upgrade . Either of you. I was listening for a question there. Any question is how can the American People trust you for more money, een a billion . Be glad to give you a lay down of the work that i. T. Does on an annual basis, the projects that are undertaken, the systems that are both maintained and developed, and the functionality thats delivered. So i guess mr. Chairman if i can indulge one final question. I guess the information we heard that day from the. I. T. Was incorrect. It cannot have been correct information for us to find out under a hearing that were using 1985 outdated sced ewing software, when he simply sat there to see we need no more money, were compliant, were fine. Thank you very much. The informing he gave us wasnt true, correct . I think he gave you a honest answer. I think what you heard was the result of an organization thats managing to a budget as opposed to an organization thats managing to requirements. I would tell you one of things we need is a scheduling system. Weve got it built into our budget in 2015 and 2016. According to your professional, it was built into the budget for years and we were funding it and we were trusting that it was used for the allocation that was requested. There was a highly reported failed Development Effort that occurred back years ago, where v. A. Invested a substantial amount of money into a scheduling system and it wasnt able to deliver and i would tell you in the years since that time, starting in 2010, when v. A. Developed the project management accountability system and i would refer to you and ill make sure that we get you a copy of the recent report, where seven different departments were look at and the progress they have had in i. T. , v. A. Was the only one of the seven departments that passed the grade with gao. I appreciate it. The other question lots of if that guy who is in charge of your imple t. Got a bonus, im curious for the information that hes provided for the lack of adequate resources that you have. I want to know if he got a bonus. We actually were going to have an oversight hearing this week in regards to i. T. We were not able to do it because the person who is responsible for i. T. Is out of the country on a long planned Family Vacation and so we canceled in hopes that he will be able to attend. Mr. Waltz, you are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I for one am thankful and grateful that this nation still produces citizens like yourself. Ive had the privilege of working with you in other capacities and your commitment is unquestioned and i think when you started out, mr. Secretary, when you talk about, i agree with you on this, this is one of our greatest opportunities to make lasting improvement. What we do possibly within the next weeks and months will have decades long implications. Thats important why we get it right. Not just get it done. They are hand in hand. Ive been advocating whats been missing is a priorities being set. What im hearing and i think what you are hearing the concern on this is this nation is committed to getting it right and providing the resources but we also have the commitment to ask that every dollar be spent in a wise manner, and they are not exclusive. I want to clarify when we talk about the private sector, lets be clear, eight out of ten wizes businesses fail out in the private sector. This over simplification and the government is going to get it right, that clouds it, it takes us away from the mission is, theres best practices there are things that are out there. I would ask you this and this is what i would like to get your take on, mr. Secretary. I have the privilege of representing the number one hospital in the nation in the mayo clinic and ive watched and ive looked at and i understand how mayo has done this and one of the things that mayo has always of course been focused on is the patient first, just like were talking about the Veterans First but systems analysis from the very beginning over a hundred years ago has been at the mantra of what they have done and these things as far as bald ridge criteria and performance drives what they do. It starts with leadership and it ends with results and so my question is in mayo they have a quality academy, the levels correspond to six sigma. Mayo was founded on battlefield medicine. They are deeply ingrained into battlefield medicine. They have partners with you. They are asking what they can do. My question is when the under secretary sat here, she talked about certification. If they can come back and answer where this is from. What are you suggesting or what can be done in the vha to ensure a bald ridge type mayo six sigma type performance so then we know if we give you the money how its going to be implemented . Interestingly enough, when we did a review of scheduling practice ses and access practices we invited folks from may yo to come and brief us. When we look at water Safety Practices in the v. A. , we invited mayo to come. I think one of things we need to look at, i agree with your characterization, we should look at it as a system and look at our entire Health Care System as a system, not just focusing on a metric here, a metric there, but looking at concepts like throughput, being veteran centric, how do we measure, manage, assess that. I think over the next couple of months were going to take a look at some of our productivity work that weve done. Weve briefed dr. Wenstrep on that. Does this work . Can we deploy it . Test it, measure it, use the principles of measurement for the long term sustainablity, there used to be these academies that weve let erode. We have to invest in them to succeed. Thats what we want to hear. This corresponds and it stems from there. This is an opportunity to build the hybrid. The core mission of the v. A. Needs to remain intact. There are certainly positive lessons out there. We heard last week that offered up positive suggestions. There was a great one offered up from indiana. He knows on any given day they are only using 79 of their capacity. Lets tap that other 21. So mr. Secretary. I was going to say i was in st. Louis on tuesday and had the opportunity to visit our Training Academy on and on that side of the business and cited that as an internal best practice that we need to import into the vha, because we dont have the kind of Talent Development and succession planning inside of vha that you would find in a private sector. The older members here will remember this, the crisis out at our sem terrys out at arlington and others, and the focus thats been put on there. We can do this, but if we miss this opportunity or dont rise to the occasion, then shame on all of us. So i yield back. Mr. Runyan, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. Im going to throw out a couple of receipt tory kal questions and some an nal you didnt see. I want to throw it out there and see if you can respond why someone would even ask, is v. A. Too big to fail . I mean, thats something that weve dealt with in other sectors in the last decade. I think its a legitimate question. And when we talk about trust and processes, how are we going to get there . As representative flores said earlier and you follow up answering mr. Hulskamp question about process. Your quote was you need a set of facts to act on. That can be done in a budgetary process. Ill use the analogy. Your girlfriend broke up with you, you made up the next day but you didnt ask her to marry her that day. The legitimate processes of gaining trust over time, and to go to that, and i love the fact that you brought up manage to requirements. Theres eight members on this committee that serve on armed services. And mr. Wals brought up quad drinal defense review. They tweak the requirements to make the budget. They dont lay the whole thing out to congress and allow us to say at some point were going to have to prioritize what were going to do theres only so much to go around. We have to know whats out there. When were dealing with a crisis like this and i ask the question to under secretary last week, i said when were attacking Something Like the claims backlog, thats a category of claims. Now, when you do your analysis to say we need this much money to solve this problem, are we going all the way back into everything from i know it changed on a daily basis, could you do it by a quarterly basis or biannual basis to say to eliminate all of the claims in whether its death benefits, bur yals, education, you know, pension, all that kind of stuff, is that even possible to move the overlay of what were making definitions of putting claims in piles to say do you have an idea of even what that number is v. A. Wide . Because youve alluded to it on several patient aspects, but in an overall claims, because when we continue to were only going to ask for this much because i put this overlay on it, what is the overall big picture . What is that requirement to eliminate this once and for all . I dont think these questions really get asked and or answered on a regular basis. And you are talking about on the claims side on the benefits side . Im not sure. Just to boil the whole thing down. Lets just say claims. Every single one of them that is sitting on a desk in an r. O. Somewhere, what is that number and what is that fiscal number that goes to eliminate that . You talk a lot about modeling and all that. Your models you are using filters and layers to actuate the numbers that come out of those models. What is the big picture . Is the crisis bigger than we i think were realizing its bigger than we thought it was a year ago, but can we did at point push all this back and really say we really got to step back and take a look at this and realize that this is a bigger problem and we really need to dive into this deep . I think as it relates to both to the claims side of the the benefits side of the business, if you will, and the health care side of the business, part of what you are seeing is this regular weekly publication of detailed information, not just about the disability claims, but also now detailed information about all the nonrating claims buckets, so that people have that complete picture. The same thing on wait times. You know, up until six weeks ago, we werent pushing detailed wait time information out on every single location. Care quality and Patient Safety information out on every single location. So that were creating that kind of openness and transparency so that people can understand the magnitude of the problem. I sit here and say its 641,000 veterans that got appointments that are more than 30 days than they wanted to be seen. My time run out and ive experienced this in my four years in congress, as you build trust and we say were going to do it one step at a time i dont think theres anybody on this committee that would have a problem you tackling 10 million at a time. I dont think they would and make sure we get it right and have that set of facts that we can act on as you said. So with that, ill yield back, chairman. Ms. Can you sayd cuss ter, thank you for taking on this extraordinary task. I want to echo the comments of my colleagues. I think youll find that this is one of the very rare bipartisan committees that where we strife to Work Together. I want to mention on the issues of ethics of accountability. What my concern is while i wholeheartedly believe that we naed to do every possible thing to ensure that our veterans get the care that they deserve, i have a hard time addressing the funding request before we get into how the v. A. Is going to fix this underlying systemic of integrity and in particular the testimony that weve heard here about this scandal of people receiving bonuses based upon manipulated data, frankly, lack of truthfulness, truthiness if you call it. Honesty and integrity that not only the veterans deserve but frankly the american taxpayer deserves and so if you could address, before we get into the additional funding, how do you intend to restore that level of integ grit throughout this system and what will be the actions taken for deceit and failure to abide by basic, basic issues of integrity . Yes, maam. When the president told me he was going to tap me to be the acting second, dont expect me to behave like acting is in front of the job title and i have tried not to do that consistently. We have moved out on every front that we can conceivably move out on, so its been a process of working not sequentially on attacking different issues but working across a much broader front at the same time. Working to get veterans off of wait lists and fix scheduling issues and simultaneously working to build the processes so that we can hold people accountable for willful misconduct and management negligence when it arises. As we went through this process, i perceived the need for additional expertise in that area which is why i went and recruited lee bradley and with secretary hagels strong support to come return to the department of veterans affairs. We have built underneath a Cross Functional Team of Senior Leaders across the organization. Part of the challenge were going through right now is just what it takes in the federal government to pursue personnel actions to have them done in a way that you at least hope its going to stand up in an appeal. The other challenge that were working through right now is really the recalibration of the departments yardstick if you will. That behavior that looks like this which in the past might not have had any accountability action associated with it as all, at all, may in the future be a deemed appropriate for removal from federal service or for a very extended period of suspension. So what weve done and as we have now, i mentioned earlier, gotten the first of these cases in from the ig, are now exercising that process. Following due process, but also managing through this reset that has to happen, this recalibration that has to happen toen sure that appropriate accountability actions are taken for the wrongdoing thats been identified. If theres anything that we can do in our capacity in congress, i know that including passing a bill to give you the authority to literally fire employees because i think that is the only thing thats going to bring this integrity back, and ij want to say for the record i had a tremendous honor this week. My constituent, Sergeant Ryan pitts received the president ial med dal of honor and i was there with at the ceremony and with his wife and his son, and when he was inducted in the hall the fame at the pentagon. I was very interested in his comments this morning on National Television when asked about his own care at the v. A. , that the care he has received in New Hampshire is has been very high quality. But i want to say for the record that every veteran deserves that care, and my time is coming up, but i do want to say that i hope you will pursue best practices because i think we have some exemplary care in New Hampshire and i would like to see that throughout the country. So thank you on that i yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Second, i apologize. Some members are going to have to depart to go to a Conference Committee meeting over in the Visitors Center which is at 12 00 noon. We tried everywhere we could to find a time that was agreeable for everybody, but im going to turn the chair over to to someone else at this time. Thank you for your service and candor and i look forward to continuing to work with you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i appreciate that. I recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Secretary, thank you for your service to our country. Mr. Second, are you aware of this incident that occurred on monday in orange county, florida, facility, where a marine, a veteran was actually waited for three hours for care, did not receive that care, and then he was subsequently locked into a facility during closing time, so it was inadvertent obviously . What are we going to do about this . This is accountability. Are you investigating this, will the people and straight tors be held accountable . All i know about it is what i read in the clippings this morning. It will be an object of intensive review to investigate what happened. Can you report back to me mr. Secretary with regard to that. Yes, sir, will do. I mean its outrageous as far as im concerned. You have directed that an independent external audit of v. A. Practices perform. What do you expect it to reveal . Has a contract been awarded and how long do you anticipate this to go on and then i have a couple of other questions. The contract has not been awarded yet which is why im in a position to be able to reveal the entity that we are working wi with. I believe once its announced the reaction will be they must be pretty serious about making sure this gets done right. Quite frankly it doesnt tell us anything that we dont already know. I hope it confirms that we now have in place are scheduling practices that are aligned to our policies. I think to some of the earlier questions that were asked about the need for some verification, were publishing wait time valid every two weeks, is it valid data and for one of issues is for us to look at the scheduling practicing, have independent review, determine that they are sound practices aligned with our policy and therefore weve got Credible Data for external consumption as well as for our own internal actions. What is the expected costs of the audit . I dont have a number for you. Ill take that for the record. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Again, with regard to the bonuses, have any bonuses been reskinned rescinded so far due to willful misconduct or negligence management . Can you answer that question . I will give you the best answer as i know it. There were some bonuses that were rescinded recently that were associated with administrative error. The law allows us to do that. Where there is a something is learned after the end of the performance period and after the performance contract has been officially the Performance Review has been officially approved, we dont legally have the ability to go back and change that performance evaluation and, therefore, claw back that particular bonus. We do have the ability to go and reduce salary and take other actions which would be the typical actions upon some subsequent learning of some subsequent information that affected performance during a performance period. Okay. Last question. I understand that you implemented a hiring freeze for the vha, Central Office, and visiting offices with the exception of socalled critical positions to be approved by you in a case by case manner. What would you consider a critical position for a vha Central Office and visiting offices . For example, we currently have four vacant visin director positions and if we were where we had the right person identified to step into that those key leadership roles, i would be prepared to grant an exception for that personnel action. Have you granted an exception so far . I have not for that purpose. There is one employee i granted an exception for, where he had already been given an offer and he agreed to an offer, and had already started to relocate. I did that. This is roughly 3,000 people that surprised the vzn Central Office relationship. There are other staff that are associated with those particular areas, such as call centers. We have thousands of people that work in our call centers in vha and those would not be positions because they are providing that would be subject to the hiring freeze because they are providing direct service to veterans. How long will the hiring freeze be in effect . Dont know. You cant anticipate how long, huh . You know, the real purpose of that hiring freeze was to very directly here was to basically send a shot across the bow of the bureaucracy to say weve got to get ourselves refocused here on delivering the support that the front line needs, the people who are taking care of veterans day in and day out. Thats really the purpose behind that particular freeze. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And i have ms. Mccloud. You are recognized for five minutes, maam. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you, mr. Acting second for being here. However being near the end, all of questions have been asked, so rather than be redundant, i yield my time. You are finished. Thank you very much. I apologize. Thank you. Ill recognize mr. Fitzpatrick for five minutes. I also thank the chairman, and thank the acting secretary for your time here today. I know that we all honor and appreciate your service. It hasnt been said here today about your time at the uso which was a real turn around, a great success, Great American story. Yes, sir. And i want to thank you for that. We sense that. We saw that in philadelphia with the uso organization there. We all hope that you can bring that enthusiasm and success and bring it back to the organization at the v. A. , it desperately needs it and your leadership there and echo some of the comments of my previous colleagues who said that we hope that you stick around the v. A. I plan to. The v. A. , its a stool with three legs, and we have the Health Administration here, we have the benefits administration, the third is the semester semesterry administration, and as mr. Walz, it hasnt been without his its issues. Coming from bucks county, we have a national sem teary. So the veteran community, the families of military and the bigger communities is left with a very positive view of the Veterans Administration because of the semester ry administratin there in the community. Not so much with the benefits administration. Mr. Secretary, im sure you are familiar with the hearing last week. There was a whistleblower from philadelphia, an outstanding employee, very dedicated employee, who is a whistleblower for her work, providing direct Outstanding Service to veterans, and Indirect Service by going to her managers by pointing out flaws in the system. Shes pointed out backlog and delays, thes pointed out duplicative payments that should be recalled. Shes been vilified. I know that you were in philadelphia a couple of weeks ago. My staff really appreciated your time and commitment in going there, but based on what you saw in philadelphia, and based on what you heard and what you now know, and i would ask what is the plan, what are the action steps to turn around the Philadelphia Office which would apply to many of the other r. O. S across the country . Thats a great question, congressman. I think were back to the earlier point of leadership. We have one of our most capable and experienced Senior Leaders that is in the process of relocating to take over that troubled location and i would expect in the wake of her arrival to see steady improvement. I have as i go out to visit Medical Centers, i make a point of visiting Regional Offices in the communities and there are a number of those that i visited fairly recently that not that long ago were not necessarily distinguishing themselves for a variety of reasons in terms of the timeliness or the accuracy of the work that they were doing or some other challenges and problems. And yet find address we get new leadership there on the ground, the right kind of leadership, that we see a very strong recovery and improvement and thats what im looking for in philadelphia and expecting. Its a vital location for us. There needs to be a complete change in culture and theres been a lot of discussion about the number of 17. 6 billion. How many billion dollars does it take to fix a broken culture within the v. A. . I would say as i was alluding to earlier, this is not a onestage effort. This is not something either that we feel like veterans expect us to tackle some of these problems in sequence because if we did, we would be three years before we got veterans off of wait lists, the way they need to be gotten off of wait lists, so there are things were doing to get veterans off wait lists to fix scheduling practices, to address cultural issues, to enforce accountability, and along with that, part of that is identifying and quantifying the resources we believe that we need over the next several of years in order to meet timely delivery. In my remaining time here, i want to get to the issue of the goal to eliminate the backlog. I think you said you have an intent to eliminate that backlog. By 2015. Its an audacious goal, i find it hard to believe based on our own investigations where you have middle managers where they can produce reports and send them up to the change of command to say based upon these metrics, weve met the goal, which is a hollow victory which is no victory at all, we may look like we met the goal, but theres still hundreds of thousands of veterans still waiting for care. We make steady progress. Thats one particular goal that doesnt necessarily lend itself to the most frequent and accurate measurement, but there is steady progress being made in reducing the number of veterans that are living on the streets and ill tell you and ill say it again right now, i believe that we will eliminate the disability claims backlog in 2015. I think were on track do that, notwithstanding the challenges weve got at a number of our Regional Offices. Weve got work to do. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Fitzpatrick. If there are no further questions, you are now all that may also include the information of americans. Although that cannot be the purpose. What the amendment said was, if you want to serve that database for americans, you should get a warrant. Not that you cannot get the information, get a warrant. The premise of the. Com act is to make sure that when the its lastlinquishes control oversight over the domain names, that we know what we are getting ourselves into. Democratic representative and republican representative, eastern on8 00 p. M. The communicators on cspan two. It will force the president to follow the Health Care Law as passed by congress. Kevin mccarthy and democratic whip discussed the house schedule for a bout 30 minutes. Speaker, on monday the house will meet at noon for morning hour and at 2 00 p. M. For legislative business. Untilwill be suspended 6 30 p. M. On tuesday and wednesday, the house will meet at 10 a. M. On thursday, the house will meet at 9 00 a. M. For legislative business. Last buzz of the week are expected no later than 3 00 a. M. Votes are no expected. Mr. Speaker, the house will consider a few suspensions next week. In addition, the house will consider a package of bills to consider transparency within the endangered species act. Included in this package are hr the 20th century endangered species transparency act, hr 4316, the endangered species transparency recovery act. Hr 4317, the state, tribal, and local species transparency and recovery act. 4318, the endangered species litigation reasonableness act. The house will also consider House Resolution 670 six, which provides for authority to initiate litigation for actions by the president nsistent with t under the constitution of the United States. Finally, mr. Speaker, members are advised that the house will may also consider legislation to deal with the ongoing crisis on the border. I thank the gentleman and yield back. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for that information. As the gentleman knows full well, we have 3 1 2 days next week. Have i guess nine full days and three half days scheduled in september. And the first couple weeks in october, assuming that we meet in that last week of september. Is the gentleman theres been some rumors, members have been asking me about, whether or not there is serious consideration being given to not using the last week of the scheduled in september, does that have any credence . I yield to my friend. Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. Currently there has been no changes to the schedule. I yield back. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman. In any event, as the gentleman knows there are there is a very short period of time we have left before the election, and there is a lot of very substantive work that, in my view, still needs to be done and we feel very strongly about on this side of the aisle. The gentleman posits that we have four endangered species bills on the floor. Very frankly they probably could all be done by suspension on monday, but i understand they are going to be under a rule. In addition to that, we have legislation which is designed to authorize a suit against the president of the United States or trying to do things when we cant get the congress to act on them. So that there can be some Movement Forward on behalf of the American People. Does the gentleman believe theres any possibility of bringing up comprehensive Immigration Reform either a comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that the majority supports, individual bills passed out of committee, border security, which has passed out on a bipartisan way out of your committee here on this side of the house, on this side of the capitol, or legislation which we believe would have had a direct effect on the crisis to which the gentleman refers may be addressed next week. Its not scheduled. I understand that the majority Leaders Party is divided on the issue of what ought to be done to meet this crisis, but there s no doubt, mr. Leader, that there are going to be Additional Resources necessary to meet the challenge that we are confronting now. The administration has requested, as the gentleman knows, some 3. 7 billion. The senate, as i understand it, is suggesting 2. 7 billion. Part of that, of course, is to meet the needs of fighting wildfires. In the senate bill theres also money for iron dome, to beef up iron dome in israel. But we dont have any language, if language is contemplated, so im hopeful that language will not be included in any effort that is made next week on meeting this you refer to it as crisis, whether you refer to it as crisis, challenge, whatever, we know that resources are needed. Everybody seems to agree on that. Unfortunately we have not had that bill on the floor now so we can get it over to the senate and get it to the president before we leave. We are at risk, in my view, mr. Leader, of leaving here without addressing this issue. Furthermore, last week as the gentleman knows i suggested that if we included legislative language on that bill, it would be almost impossible to get to the administration the resources it needs to comply with the law and to meet the challenge that has been presented. Does the gentleman have any expectation that we will either consider a competitive immigration bill, which comprehensive immigration bill, which. A. , has resources, senate passed, we have a bill here, as the gentleman knows, we introduced many, many months ago, which is a bipartisan bill, all the provisions have been supported in a bipartisan fashion, some in the senate, some here in the House Committee unanimously, does the gentleman have any belief either, a, that we will consider next week a clean funding bill at such level as is necessary, at least until the end of the fiscal year . And or some comprehensive immigration bills which will meet the issue and establish a process, the lack of which clearly is causing people to take actions which we do not approve of and not agree with, but are manifesting the frustration that a broken system remains broken. I yield to my friend. Mr. Mccarthy i thank my friend. Members should be possible for consideration for legislation to address the ongoing border crisis. The rules committee will announce a hearing on the measure to determine the process by which the bill will be brought before the house and i yield back. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for his response. Does the gentleman contemplate that that legislation, that bill will include substantive changes in law or will simply be restricted to Additional Resources necessary to meet the crisis that confronts this country . Nd i yield to my friend. Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. As i said earlier that you should be prepared for a possible consideration, and once the timing is finalized, the rules committee will announce a hearing on the measure to determine the process by which the bill will be brought before the house and i yield back. Mr. Hoyer i understand the process will come from the rules committee. Is the gentleman telling me the text of language there is no text, mr. Leader. E have seen no text to apparently amend legislation which was adopted overwhelmingly by this house, signed by president bush. We need resources today, and well certainly need them next week and were going to go on a fiveweek recess, work period, at which point in time well come back here and meet for a very brief period of time and we dont have any text in this very substantive, very consequential area of the law which is was adopted overwhelmingly and we have no text. Understand the process the rules committee. There have been no hearings, no debate in committee, no subcommittee, no full Committee Hearings on any legislation. And as i suggested to you last week, mr. Majority leader, if you put legislation on there inevitably, you and i know that legislation will not pass within the time frame necessary to meet the crisis. So the responsible thing, i suggest to my friend, the majority leader, mr. Speaker, is to do provide the resources necessary to meet the hallenge right now and then if substantive changes in the law are needed and hearings show that to be the case and hearings further show what substantive changes ought to be made and can be considered in a thoughtful, effective fashion, then we can move forward at some point in time, perhaps as soon as september on that legislation. But to do otherwise will put at great risk the ability of the administration and this country to respond consistent with the law that we passed and was signed by president bush. I yield to my friend if he wants to comment further. Mr. Mccarthy well, i thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentlemans passion for crisis just as we have on this side. You know, since we have taken the majority, you know in the pledge to america that we post bills for the threeday process. So as i mentioned, in the schedule announcement for next week, members should be prepared for possible legislation to address the ongoing border crisis. Once the timing is finalized, the rules committee will announce a hearing on the measure to determine the process by which the bill will be brought before the house. And i yield back. Mr. Hoyer i thank, mr. Speaker, the majority leader for that information. And im glad that he brought up the processes that will be followed and i want to quote to him something Speaker Boehner said on january 5, 2011, when he took the gavel. Quote, but you will always have the right to robust debate in open process that allows you to represent your constituents, to make your case, offer alternatives and be heard. Now, the gentleman has told me now three times that the rules Committee Hearing is going to be open and theyll decide the process under which a bill is going to be considered. Apparently, im presuming the gentleman doesnt know what the substance that that process will affect. I dont know the substance. I dont know any language that is being proposed. No member on our side of the aisle maybe members on your side of the aisle know what language is being proposed so what youre apparently telling me is well have the rules Committee Solely for the purposes of learning what substantive changes are suggested in the law. And i suggest to the majority leader, mr. Speaker, that if that is the case, we will not be able to thoughtfully debate, we will not be able to have a process thats open, we will not have a process which allows us to make our case or offer alternatives or be heard. And i would predict, as has happened 67 times to date, there will be a closed rule. One of my staffers suggested that open rules ought to be included in the endangered species bills were considering, because they seem to be an endangered species were do so many closed rules. Mr. Speaker, i ask the leader to please report if were going to consider, as i think we should consider, a supplemental next week which gives our country the resources to meet the crisis to which you referred, we possibly would consider, its our responsibility to consider it, its our responsibility to give the resources. We passed the law which is being implemented by the administration. We passed it overwhelmingly sponsored by a gentleman that spoke on the floor just a short time ago to prevent human trafficking. A number of bills we passed this week on human trafficking, they were unanimously passed. That bill that was passed overwhelmingly was also about human trafficking, and i tell my friend, we need the resources. It is the responsibility of the Majority Party and the Minority Party to join together, to give the administration the necessary resources to respond to carrying out the law that we passed. If we want to change that law, that is also our responsibility. But i tell my friend, it cannot be done in the time frame that is available to us. We have delayed this so long that there is no time, and the gentleman keeps responding to me that the rules committee will decide the process. The rules committee normally does not decide the substance of legislation. It decides the process under which we will consider substance. Authorizing committees, as my friend so well knows, decide the substance of that legislation, but we will have no opportunity to see that apparently until either perhaps this weekend at the earliest or next week. That does not give us time to debate it, and it certainly, and everybody knows, does not give time to go to the senate, be debated. I think theyll disagree perhaps on the language that suggested. I dont know what it is, but there is high probability of disagreement. Conference will have to occur, and then it will have to get to the president and both the senate and the house are leaving next week for their district work period. I would urge the majority leader to make every effort with his party to bring what i think ought to be responsibly our obligation, a bill which provides the resources necessary. And we may differ on that number, but the resources necessary to carry out the responsibilities to implement the law that we passed. And if the gentleman wants to respond further ill yield. If not ill go on. Mr. Leader and mr. Speaker, id ask the leader, we have five appropriation bills which have not been brought to the floor. The ag bill was on the floor. It was pulled. It has not been brought back. The laborhealthhuman services bill, the interior bill, the foreign ops bill has not been brought to the floor. Nor has the gentleman indicated it was going to be brought any of those will be brought to the floor next week. Can the gentleman tell me whether or not there is any plan to bring those bills to the floor in the three weeks that we will be back in september . And i yield to the majority leader, mr. Speaker. Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. I know we originated this for the schedule for next week. As the gentleman knows, the house passed seven of the 12 Appropriations Bills in an open process. To the fact that even one of your members, congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee, has had 50 more amendments offered on this floor than the entire republican conference in the senate for the last year. Were very proud of the open process that we have brought back to the floor. While the house is not scheduled to consider a regular appropriations bill next week, as the gentleman knows, as i stated already the house may consider a supplemental appropriation request next week. And i yield back. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman, mr. Speaker, but thats, of course, does not give me any clarity in terms of the Appropriations Bills. The supplemental appropriations bill is not part of those bills although obviously health and man services being under pressure. They need resources. The supplemental is to give them those resources. But i ask the gentleman, are there any plans this is a scheduling conference. Its just not, from my view, limited to next week because were not going to be here for five weeks thereafter and members want to know what they should anticipate as substantive is substantively going to be on the agenda in the three short weeks we will have essentially before the election so that i cant tell from the gentlemans answer, mr. Speaker, whether or not any of those five appropriation bills i know seven have passed whether any of those five bills are intended to be brought to the floor. And i yield to the majority leader. Mr. Mccarthy well, i thank the gentleman for yielding. The gentleman initiated inquiring for the schedule of next week. As i said earlier, the schedule for next week we do not have anything considered in the regular appropriation process. But you could possibly have a supplemental appropriation next week. Nd i yield back. Mr. Hoyer maybe i should print that out and ill read it, mr. Speaker. We have an Exportimport Bank that is going to expire very shortly. Its of great concern to many people on both sides of the aisle. There are 41 the republican members, mr. Speaker, have signed a letter urging that this be brought to the floor. Its a very timely issue, critical issue for the competitiveness of our country. It has been twisting in the wind for this entire year. I worked with, mr. Speaker, with the leaders predecessor to see whether or not we could get this bill to the floor. I ask my friend i know what the schedule is next week so he doesnt need to repeat that to me. I thank that very much. Does the majority leader have any idea whether were going to consider Exportimport Bank before the election, and i yield my friend such time as he needs . Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. As my friend, the gentleman, knows this is in regards to the schedule for next week and its not scheduled for next week. Any consideration of it coming up, we will notify you and i yield back. Mr. Hoyer mr. Speaker, im not going to ask the majority leader any more questions because im not going to get any answers. The American People have a right to those answers. The American People need to know what transparency, which was going to be brought to this body, frankly, by the young guns and right to debate, right to anticipate, right to participate, but the answer i get is its not scheduled for next week. Mr. Speaker, i know it is not scheduled for next week. Critical legislation was not scheduled last week, the week before that, the week before that, the week before that, the week before that and every week before that. Critical legislation supported by the overwhelming majority of the American People. And i am simply inquiring of the majority leader, is there any contemplation of bringing that legislation to the floor before this congress leaves for the election so the American People who are going to either reelect this congress or seek new leadership have an opportunity on which to make an informed decision which, of course, is what the speaker said we would have. Certainly have equal consideration for the American People as well so they have the right to robust debate an open process and allows them to understand what were doing. I regret that the majority leader in Critical Issues like Exportimport Bank which relate to the competitiveness of this country, like make it in america legislation that we defeated last week on suspension, which we agreed upon. The majority leader voted for it. I voted for it. I presume and ill ask him anyway i said i wasnt going to ask you is there any contemplation of bringing that bill, which got 260 votes on this floor, back to the floor under a rule which provides, again, for americas determining whether or not we can find additional rare earth so necessary to be competitive in International Markets . And id ask my friend if i know its not on the schedule, so he doesnt have to repeat that litany to me because i get it. Ive heard it now four, five or six times. I get it. Its not on the schedule for next week. So the question i ask, is there any contemplation of bringing that bill, which has 260 people who voted for it, back to the floor under a rule so we can provide for a better opportunity to make it in america and to be competitive internationally . And i yield to my friend. Mr. Mccarthy as the gentleman knows this colloquy is always based on the schedule for next week. As the gentleman raise the raised the question. He very knows we did agree on that bill as we did on quite a few. As of today there are 333 bills that have passed this house that get stuck in the senate. Of those 333 bills, 40 are jobs bills. We know we linger in a very tough economy. The gentleman voted for a few of those 40 bills. So let me repeat, the 40 jobs bills is still stuck in the senate. We want to encourage Economic Growth and innovation. We can ensure robust american sector and put americans back to work. As the gentleman knows as we sat down to lunch, we want to Work Together on that. As of right now it is not scheduled for next week. It was on this week. Unfortunately it did not pass. I would look forward to continuing working with the gentleman and hopefully we could Work Together to make that senate move on those 40 jobs bills and those 333 bills that the American Public would like to see move forward. I yield back. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for his comments. Mr. Speaker, the majority leader and i have worked together. We have sat down for lunch. We agree on the bill that i mentioned, mr. Swalwells bill, o try to make america more competitive by producing more rare earth here in this country. So essential in the Electronics Industry and other places. I cant control the senate, mr. Speaker. The majority leader cannot control the senate. What the majority leader and i can do is control what we do. Here in this house, to which we were elected. We can control either urging or in the majority leaders case and as a former majority leader of this house i can tell you, i could put a bill on the floor if i thought it was important for the American People and for the best interest of our country. I think Exportimport Bank falls in that category, minimum wage falls in that cat gorery, comprehensive immigration compall falls in that category. Comprehensive immigration falls in that category. I think the swalwell bill falls in that category. We cannot control what the senate does. But we can control what we do. And we can move in as responsible fashion, which the American People, mr. Speaker, expect us to do. And not blame some outside group, whether its the administration or the United States senate, for our lack of addressing important issues. Tria is an important bill, mr. Speaker. Its not on the schedule. I presume if i ask the majority leader what about tria, he would tell me its not on the schedule next week. That would not come as a news flash to me, mr. Speaker, because hes told me that now seven times. I believe if the house is going to act in a collegial manner and constructive manner, in a manner that the American People want them to october, we will Exchange Information not just on whats next week. Theres not much on next week, mr. Speaker. I know that. Theres in my opinion, mr. Speaker, a political bill to sue the president of the United States. The American People dont think thats a very good idea. Thats on the calendar. So we are using the few short minutes that we have available to do the peoples business on four bills, with the endangered species, to send a message that we could pass, and frankly, a very short period of time. Monday night, on the dangerous species. We are filling time. We are treading water, mr. Speaker. I will conclude with this. You have put the possibility that we are going to have a bill on the floor next week dealing with the crisis, your word, at the border. When will we see text of that legislation that might possibly be on the floor . I yield to the majority leader. Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate his concern in the crisis. Its just not my word, its the american word. If it was not a crisis, we would not have three president s from Central American countries here in America Today to talk about the crisis. We would not have three president s that are asking to reunite their children with the family in their country. If there was not a crisis, would you not have a task force that was introduced by this speaker on this side to address it. If there was not a crisis, you wouldnt even have members on your side of the aisle partnering with their senator from another party sitting in the senate to address the crisis. Many members of this house have gone there to see the crisis. Some in the administration have not. This house is committed to addressing it. As soon as its available. We take great pride of changing this house as the majority leader knows, he cares about the institution. But when the majority changed over here, one of the number one things we said we would do is a threeday process. As you would know in importance so people can read the bill. Because too many times have i thousandsis floor for of pages coming out at 2 00 a. M. And vopetted on in that day. We and voted on that day. We have made a commitment to the American People and we have kept that commitment. Just as well keep our commitment well end this crisis no matter what it takes. This house will act. I thank the gentleman for ielding. Mr. Hoyer when its available. That was the answer to my question. We dont know when it will be available, what it will be, and whether it will be considered because the majority leader tells me, mr. Speaker, that it may be on the floor. We know that it hasnt gone to committee. We know that theres no subCommittee Hearing thats been held. We know that theres no Committee Hearing thats been held. The gentleman talks about thousands of pages. We can get into that debate at some other time. I know which he refers to. A bill that had literally more consideration than any other bill i have seen considered by the congress of the United States, the Affordable Care act, which is having, in my view, a very positive effect. We dont need to debate that today. But i would tell the majority leader if the crisis was going to be addressed, the first step is having the resources necessary to carry out the law. Then if the law needs to be changed, deciding how it should be changed, having debate on that, bring it to this floor out of committee, and considering that legislation. There are differences of opinion on that. I recognize that. The gentleman has pointed that out. That would be the way to do it. Thats the regular order of which you spoke and you promised. Mr. Speaker, i hope that that could be followed. There are many of us who believe its not being followed. And thats to the denigration of not only this body but the American Peoples ability to see what we are doing, how we are doing it, when we are doing it. Unless the gentleman has something further to say, i yield back the balance of my we talked with a capitol Hill Reporter about the week ahead. Joining us is a political reporter for the washington post. Out of that meeting, what did we hear from republicans in terms of their plan . We heard from the republicans this morning that they are likely to pursue a bill that is much smaller. The president requested 3. 7 billion. This bill would be less than 1 billion. This is something that would have specific controls on how the money could be spent and how it could be used. What we are seeing a lot of space between republicans and democrats on this issue, republicans want to see the money used to speed up deportations of many of these children. Democrats has been adverse to anything that they described is inhumane, anything that ships these children back. We want more due process to figure out whether they should be figured out to sent out are not. What are some of the politics behind the much smaller number by republicans . The president requested money larger than what he was going to get, which was a political play to begin with. On top of that, boehner and the other leadership has to try to craft some type of bill where they can keep the republican votes in line, so there are members in the house that will not support any kind of appropriation to the president. By limiting the amount of money they will give this the president or appropriate to the president and adding controls to it, i think the speaker and the leadership think they might be able to keep their republicans in line, because some believe that additional appropriations are needed, but the issue is Many Republican lawmakers feel uneasy about giving that much money to the president that they distrust. You tweeted after pelosis briefing that she said it would be a mistake to do Immigration Law and an appropriations bill. Seems like no chance to deal a tweak to the 2008 law. A lot of this has dependent on the issue of the 2008 law, which says that children coming from Central American countries are treated differently than those coming from mexico or canada. What republicans are arguing is we should immediately ship these children to south america, and eliminate the question to the southern border. Democrats have called this inhumane. They said we should not package a change of law into an appropriations bill. Two weeks ago, leader pelosi had made it seem like she would be open to a change in now, but that idea, the cold water was dumped on that day, and she said that would be a mistake to pack up that type of change into an appropriations bill. What i took that to mean was any little semblance of a chance of then passing something soon on this i thought kind of went out the window. Democratic votes are not going to be there on a package that changes the law. It is unlikely we will see the senate agreed to anything the republicans in the house passed. And other issues, they are likely to vote on the confirmation of the new v. A. Secretary. How do the two bills stand . They are very likely to be passed very easily. There has never been a secretary that has not been confirmed unanimously. We all thought it was then moving on a little bit, but yesterday mr. Sanders came out upset. It seemed there was a lot of discord there. The theme on the hill has been do not expect anything to get done. On issues, v. A. , highway trust fund, so right now we see these versions of their bills working their way through committee, but theres so much distance on how exactly you address these issues that no one seems optimistic that we will see them, and we will certainly not see this done before the recess, and there are questions when you get back in september whether anything will get them. Lets go back to the house. On the lawsuit republicans and the House Speaker want to bring against obama, where does that stand . It could very likely get a vote next week. It has moved on out of committee. It could very well get a vote next week. The question will be how well the president how the republicans want to set it on the calendar. It is a question of whether they want to do it before the recess or after. We are not sure exactly when we will see the vote. Boehners caucus is in line on this. Are they doing this because they have no vote on impeachment effort . Theres no indication. There have not been serious calls from many serious politicians about this. Most of the ideas and discussion of impeachment have come from former lawmakers or other conservative talking heads and not members of the gop congressional allegation. That is worth noting. I do not believe the speaker is interested in pursuing impeachment for the president of the United States, at least not right now. Theres an argument in the debate about whether this lawsuit is a standin. Republicans in the leadership would argue it is not and it is something that have legitimate concern about the use of authority, and thought this was the right way to do it. One interesting to note it is both impeachment and the lawsuit are mobilizing tools for democrats. Theyve been raising money and had been polling battleground states that the lawsuit encourages voters that are likely to vote and that turnout. Democrats are very happy to talk about these because they think it will help them in 2014. Thanks for the update. Thank you. Q a, next. Live at 7 00, your calls and comments on washington journal per. U. S. Erry talking about india relations at the center for american progress. You can watch the secretarys remarks life beginning at 1 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan 3. Michele flournoy, the media has been reporting that this is one of the worst times since world war ii. To you agree . I do. An incredibly volatile security environment with a proliferation of threats. In asia, we see more aggressive chinese behavior that has been undermining the rulesbased order. You have what is going on in ukraine, particularly russias continuing meddling. You have a middle east that seems to be on fire, whether it is the Syrian Civil War or the insurgency in iraq or what is happening between israel and the palestinians in gaza. Its s an extremely challenging time. The two major times you spent in the government, what years . I was in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1998 and again for president obama from 2009 to 2012. You were either Deputy Assistant secretary or undersecretary of defense. What is the difference . Now you are the ceo of the organization you founded, center for new american security. What is the difference if you are in the government or in a think tank . In government, you are dealing with attorneys, you are focused on the day. Part of my responsibilities was