I wonder why air marshals have to fly first class. Roderick mr. Congressman, i cannot elaborate in an open hearing about our tactical seating. I would be happy to discuss with you in private and answer any question you might have. I will assure you that as i stated before, our impact on the Aviation Industry we view it as a partnership. As a matter of practice, those things are managed to a very high degree. I look forward to having a private conversation with you in a closed setting, and i will give you the full path or a full plethora of information to where we sit and why we sit there. Rep. Carter i certainly respect that. I understand there are probably situations where you would. It seems to me you would need the whole first class family first class cabin. Roderick i would agree with you. Rep. Carter i suspect you would. I imagine this is sensitive in light of the fact we have made so much progress on the doors, the cabin doors, to where they are secure, that the real target is going to be around the wings and the fuel tanks. That is where we really ought to have the agents or the marshals. Am i correct in that . Roderick sir, when you get to the notion of the evolving threat, as the chairman stated every day in tsa, we start our day with intelligence briefings. I do not have to tell you gentlemen, the threat to this country has never been higher. There is certainly an argument that is debatable. Has the threat involved . Or have our adversaries chosen additional message methods to cause us harm . That does not mean the old ones went away, and we cannot ignore them. We are not sitting around waiting for the last threat. We are watching for that. But we are also looking for the new threat. We have got our eye on that. We are looking at ieds on aircraft and the potential to do so. Christmas day 2009, i was at home, preparing dinner with my mother. I got the call from this guy who does about this guy who tried to light his underwear on her. We were not on that flight, but we were on the one just before that. If there is an incident on an aircraft i am very confident that our folks are going to respond regardless of where they are on that aircraft. Wherever that incident is, we are going to respond to it. Rep. Carter you see where i am going with this. I give you the benefit of the doubt. But just please lets make sure we are taking care of this. And again, thank you for your work and for what you do. Rep. Katko the chair now recognizes mr. Walker from North Carolina for five minutes. Rep. Walker mr. Allison, thank you for being here with us today. It is a privilege to get to put a face with a title. My question is, as a matter of policy, do federal air marshals flight out of one airport to their home . And are there incidents were a federal air marshal needs to lie and offduty commute to an airport before on assignment begins . Can you give me a backdrop on how that plays out . Roderick the chairman mention that to me yesterday, and i have not heard that. We are looking through industry engagement to get more information. As a matter of policy, that is not something we do. That is not something we have ever done. As long as i am director, that is not something we will do. I do not see a need to do that. Rep. Walker but you are looking into the reports we here . You are taking a look at that . Roderick yes, sir. I want you to understand i have been fairly busy over the last year. My strategy Going Forward is to really start looking out and having more conversations with the airline industry, airline ceos. Some of the Law Enforcement association groups, and things like that. More discussion. But i am going to look into that and make sure that is happening. It needs to be reported. There is misuse of physician and it should not be happening. Rep. Walker in your position we come from different backgrounds, ministry, law business. A general manager does not necessarily have every specific position, but as an overseer his job is to Pay Attention. Are you so busy with the day today are you able to get caught up as far as the Different Things going on . Or are you yourself overwhelmed with specific tasks that you should be a come pushing . A couple should . Roderick accomplishing . Roderick i am not overwhelmed because i have a great staff. If i need to immerse myself in daytoday business every day, i have the wrong staff. I have a great staff. I am not immersed in the daytoday business to the degree that i am blinded and do not see things i need to focus on. As i stated in my opening statement, getting out in a out in the field and talking to employees about what is going on and using information from outside the organization i have a perspective. Rep. Walker i appreciate the confidence with which you answered. I know we cannot discuss this openly, but as far as percentage of flights, i would like to follow up with you. What sort of physical and psychological evaluations are conducted to maintain rural air marshal stability . You feel good about that, the mission. You talked about burnout stress stretching out budgets. You feel the guys are in Good Condition to be doing the job is to mark the job . Roderick that is a constant monitoring. It is one of those things where you shoot for perfection. You aim for perfection, knowing you will never get there. We do have a mandatory physical for everyone, myself included, for all the potential personnel. Once a year, you get a physical. In the physical, there is psychological screening. You have to answer questions about what you have experienced or maybe not experienced. Physical fitness, you know we have a pretty good physical fitness program. It is not mandatory. It is mandatory to participate but we cannot remove people from service because they cannot do 20 pushups. It is mandatory participation. We provide a number of exercises and alternative exercises for you to participate. To the root of your question are we watching our personnel and do we give you give them avenues for assistance . Absolutely. Rep. Walker a 20 pushups rule in congress, we might end up pretty quick ourselves. I am married to a, Nurse Practitioner a trauma Nurse Practitioner, flies a helicopter, works in from a one. If there was an accident, wo rks in trauma one. If there was an accident, she would be the first one out. I know with pilots maybe their hours have expired. Can you talk about the protocol if they are off duty, yet a situation arises . Roderick i would assure you that any of our personnel that the something in their presence, they are going to react, and they do every time. That happens quite a bit and was the interest is behind the thank you letters. Was the impetus behind the thank you letters. Rep. Carter the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey for five minutes of questions. Rep. Payne my goodness, time is everything. Good morning. Lets see. So, mr. Allison, could you detail for us thoughts on the future of the federal air Marshal Service . Roderick how do i see the future of the federal Marshals Service . Rep. Payne yes. Roderick i see a viable Counterterrorism Force that supports the tenor terrorism efforts of this government. We may be smaller and leaner and i know budget dollars are tight and we need to do our part. But i will assure you that the threats that we a snail that we face now unfortunately may be with us for a little bit. We are costs only looking for ways that we are adding that value, assessing the threats watching the intelligence making sure that we are operating in line with the u. S. Government counterterrorism efforts, led by the fbi, looking at the secure flight data, as we talked about earlier, and making sure that we are wellpositioned within the Aviation Industry to thwart any threat, along with the ffdo program. The Office Closures where we are now, we are situated with 80 of the traveling public where we are in line as we speak today. That is a pretty powerful sort of statement. Rep. Payne you know, when the Committee Last held a hearing on fams, in the 112th congress, they examined allegations of discrimination cronyism, among other issues within the workforce. Detail for us the state of the workforce today, but the practices were what practices were put in place to address these concerns, and also, what is the attrition and retention rate of the federal air marshals . Roderick as we sit here today the attrition rate is 6 . It was 5 at the end of last year. It is 6 at this point. To your point about the ig report i testified at that hearing. I was Deputy Director back then. It is important to note there were allegations of discrimination and retaliation. They found none. They did highlight that there was a rift between the workforce and the leadership. A lot of that came from how we were stood up. The workforce was hired and then leadership was brought in. I will pay you today as we sit here, 92 of the leadership is from within the rank and file of the organization. The congressman, the ranking member, talked about pre9 11. I was a f. A. M. In 1998. I left and came back. That was part of the issue between the workforce and the leadership. So what do we do about it . Clearly there was a need to enhance the communication within the organization. Provide more transparency, more opportunities with respect to groundbased assignments, more transparency and objective mess to the transportation process. There were a number of workforce initiatives that were put in place right after that. And then since my return, i have sort of up the ante, so to speak, on some of the communication efforts, making sure i am more visible to the workforce. I was sharing with the chairman then i am out once a month, and i will continue to do that. Rep. Walker rep. Payne thank you. You are saying allegations of discrimination are unfounded . Roderick they had no widespread discrimination but they did highlight that perception of that was sort of prevalent. Rep. Payne i only have try five seconds left, so in the interest of time, i only have 25 seconds left, so i will yield back. Rep. Carter the chair recognizes rep. Katko the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. Rep. Ratcliffe i appreciate you convening this subcommittee hearing so we can do the work we have focused on in terms of making our airports and airlines safer. Director allison, i thank you for being here today. One of the rules we have here is to make sure that our airlines are as safe as possible. At a cost of nearly 800 million a year to sustain the federal air Marshal Service, we obviously need to look closely at its viability and effectiveness. I appreciate you being here to answer some questions. We have had some gaps and issues with respect to airport and Airline Security here at the subcommittee. We have convened hearings. We had the former acting tsa administrator here, melvin carraway, back in april, talking about improper screening of employees. Back in june, we had the Inspector General talking about the fact that tsa failed to identify three airline employees that had connections to terrorism. We had issues with Airline Security we need to address. When want to focus we need to focus on your Agency Efforts the air Marshal Service. One of the things that happened back in april there were reports that a nonduty air marshal left a loaded pistol in a bathroom at Newark Liberty international airport. I want to ask you about that incident in particular. Can you give us some background about your investigation into that particular incident . Roderick sure. So, whenever there is an allegation of misconduct, the allegation is referred to the office of inspection. They do the investigation. The former administrator set up an office of responsibility. That incident, like any other incident was investigated and referred to the office of professional responsibility, and i think there is discipline pending. Rep. Ratcliffe it bakes the question that one became publicized because of how the pistol was recovered. To the extent you are able to answer this question, are there less public breaches a protocol like that that have occurred and that have been a particular problem for you . Roderick you have mistakes and you have misconduct. You have, as you stated, breaches of article. Protocol. The number of incidents we have to deal with in that realm it happens. As i told the chairman yesterday, people who engage in this activity, they dont confess and they dont wear tshirts. You have to find them. What we do is and the size the standards is emphasize the rules, emphasize the standards and deal with people who engaged in egregious misconduct. You do not get an infinite number of lights at the apple, right . Bites at the apple right . I think this young man made a mistake and it is probably going to cost him. Rep. Ratcliffe i am, by way of background, a former terrorism prosecutor myself. I certainly understand the threat that that issue poses to our country generally. And specifically to air safety. Obviously, i believe in the core mission. But i would like to understand if it is possible for you to talk about when you look at the cost of maintaining this service, can you give us any idea how many onboard threats have been minimized or ameliorated by the federal air Marshal Service . Roderick sure. Mr. Congressman, let me answer your question this way. In the aftermath of 9 11, when those holdings were smoldering d. C. , and to gone, the world trade center, we were removing the wreckage from pennsylvania and burying 3000 of our countrymen we were asked to stand at the air Marshal Service to make sure that never happened again. And it has not. I would like to take credit for that, but i really cannot. It really goes to the effort of the counterterrorism apparatus this country has put in place. We are a part of that apparatus and together as a country, we have thwarted a lot of terrorist attacks. Some that we were involved with, and many more we were not. I can tell you, it is known all over the world that we have enteral air marshals on these air act. Aircrafts. That we have federal marshals on these aircraft. That is something everyone knows about. I believe in some mall way, that probably is why we have not had something in this country since then. I know that was not your direct question, but that is my thought. Rep. Ratcliffe again, thanks for being here and thanks for the work you do. I will yield back. Rep. Katko a quick follow question from the chair, and then we will take a brief recess and go to the second panel. You mention something with miss rice i wanted to follow up on briefly. There has been a hiring freeze i take it, at the federal Marshals Service . Roderick yes, sir. Our last class was 2011. At the time, we ramped up i think to the tune of 400 or 500 federal marshals. That was the last class we have had. Rep. Katko overall, not much hiring in the last two years . Roderick no, sir. Rep. Katko 800 million budget to read budget. If you are not having additional higher since then and the budget has made relatively static, what are you doing with the extra money . I know there is attrition. You are losing marshals. What is happening with the additional money . Roderick there are no additional funds. The budget is planned in accordance with attrition. Rep. Katko all right. Do you have sufficient funding moving forward, to have another class . Do think another class is required or needs additional ending . Funding . Roderick this year, from the reports i have seen, probably not this year. We are going to make another run for next year. We will submit here through the department to the congress a comprehensive report on what i believe we believe as in a part as a department that the federal marshals should be. That is coming up very soon. Rep. Katko two quick questions then i will be done. Actually, just one question, moving forward. There has been some discussion by in Law Enforcement circles that if other Law Enforcement personnel are on the flights, whether it is necessary to also have the enteral air marshal on those flights. Are you familiar with that suggestion . And how do you think it would work . Roderick yes, sir. When we first stood up the organization, we took a hard look at that. It relied on as getting the travel data and being able to plan towards it. We do our scheduling to minimize disruption to the airlines. It starts 60 days in advance. So there are a lot of times when we have other Law Enforcement people who are traveling and made the reservations may be days before. So we do not have the ability to look and plan around that. On a strategic level, we did look at that, with respect to places where we see a large number of Law Enforcement officers and trusted travelers. We reduced our coverage levels there. But individually by flight, it is sort of challenging. Rep. Katko very last question, i promise. That is, what percentage of the overall population of employees of the enteral air Marshal Service actually are air marshals in the air as opposed to administration aspect that is on the ground . Roderick the number four air marshals the overwhelming majority i do not have a percentage for you. I will get you one. Flying federal marshals or direct support, meaning they work in the office, they do the operations, they do the training. When you go back to the operations center, we have federal marshals there. We have enteral marshals on the joint vulnerability assessments. Our Mission Support staff, we are very lean in that respect. Rep. Katko if you can get as those percentages, that would be great. I want to thank the witness for his testimony. Very helpful. We have a second panel coming up in a few moments. But the members of the committee may have additional questions. We will ask you to respond to these in writing if you would, mr. Allison. The hearing record will be open for an additional 10 days. Without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned or a very brief we recess. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2