Agency. However since then, there have been no responses from the department. Despite repeated followup inquiries from the requester. On january 27th of this year, 15 months after the initial request, i sent you a letter asking for prompt action on the request, and to keep me informed on the response that would be forthcoming. Despite additional inquiries, the only answer i received so far is, were working on it. Its now been 20 months. Almost two years since their simple initial request under the freedom of information act, and five months since my letter inquiring about the status of that request. Is this the treasury standard for expedited treatment . Congressman, in general, our performance on foia is better than that. Im not familiar with the specifics, im happy to look into it. You know, its just hard to believe that theres some reason the department is ill have to look into the matter and get back to you. Stonewalling that one. Another matter, id like to bring your attention. The fiscal year 2012 Financial Services appropriations bill included report language directly to the secretary of treasury, to submit a report to congress, regarding the potential risk to the u. S. Financial markets and economy posed by financial terrorism in Economic Warfare. I subsequently met with treasury assistant fitz pain in august of 2012 and was told the treasury would work on that. The report language also included in fiscal year 13 and 14 appropriation bills, in july of 2013, my staff sent nearly a half dozen emails to the appropriate treasury staffer for a status update. Those emails went unanswered. Finally, in fiscal year 15, that became public law. The actual bill language was included to the same effect. The secretary of the treasury, in consultation with the appropriate agencies, departments, bureaus and commissions that had expertise in terrorism and complex financial house of representatives in the senate, committees of Financial Service not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this act on warfare and financial terrorism. Congress has thought the issue was important enough that it has included language as far back as fiscal year 2012. The department isnt giving this matter the same attention. I was hoping you could provide us some information about your progress on the report. As the secretary provided this report to the relevant committees in congress, given the department has had knowledge of this issue for over three years, i would have thought the department would have prepared to meet that 90 day threshold set by congress. When can we expect the report . Ill have to check on the report the area of Economic Warfare and terrorism, theres no agency in any government of the world that does a bit more effective job of treasury. Im happy to defend the record we have here, we really are the Global Leaders making progress in this area. I think its an area of great bipartisan consensus. Just doing the report as the law requires would be a great way to boast or toast what youre doing, if you would just i will check on the report. Im quite familiar with what were doing. It takes a great deal of my attention and the worlds attention. I just the report ill have to check on. So will you have someone get to me in the next week on these issues . About the foyeria request . We dont have to wait another two years for that one . And let me know the stats of this report within the next two weeks . Would that be too much . Well get back to you. I heard you say yes a little while ago to somebody on the other side, i was hoping we could get the word yes twice in three hours, can we expect that maybe in a week . I dont know the status of the issues are, well get back to you promptly. Time of the gentleman has expired. The chair now recognizes gentleman from texas. Mr. Green, Ranking Member of our oversight investigative subcommittee. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank the Ranking Member, i thank the witness for appearing today. Mr. Secretary in your annual report you cite some concerns about Cyber Security. Ironically yesterday the subcommittee on oversight and investigations held a hearing on the Cyber Security styled, global perspective on Cyber Threats. One of the things that we took away, or i did, from this hearing is that there appears to be clear and convincing evidence that Cyber Threats and attacks pose a clear and present danger to our Financial System. And im pleased to see that you have addressed this, and you need additional assistance pursuant to what im reading. You indicate that you would like for congress to provide the financial regulators with the authority to oversee third party vendors. And i believe i have some sense of why, but i think that the record should reflect your thoughts on why this is so important. Congressman, this issue of Cyber Security is it obviously a new issue, its gone right to the top of the worry list, and priority list that we have. As i talk to ceos, its the top issue that many of them have. The challenges are many. It is hard to protect a system, its hard to have individuals in the system. Operate in a way that makes it as safe as possible. I think the Financial Sector is at the lead, and we have a lot of work to do in the Financial Sector. Theres many other areas where the exposure is even greater and some of them overlap i mentioned earlier the connection between your utilities. If your power and phones are not there, its difficult to run a financial institution. Its very much in the mind of the regulators and the industry. The more tools we have to Work Together the more likely we are to be successful. A threat that shows up in one place. If you know about it, you can look for it, as opposed to being blindsided by it. Were making progress, were there is much better sharing of information than there was. But i dont think we are where we need to go the passage of legislation to enable the greater sharing of information would be very helpful. I want to concur with you, the witnesses who appeared yesterday all indicated that you are at the top of the game, as it were. That youre doing better than most. I dont take much comfort in that, though. They didnt say there was absolute security. And i understand this, my concerns have to do with the need for authority. What would you have us do immediately to give you this authority. Its in broad terms here, are there specifics you can call to our attention . The Cyber Security legislation thats pending would take down some of the barriers for sharing of information and collaboration in the private sector. Getting that in place, would be quite helpful. Were doing things now on a voluntary basis where theres risks the firms have to balance, which would be very much at ease if the legislation were to pass. We have executive orders. That go as far as executive orders can. I would be happy to follow up with you on more specific issues in the financial space, that could be helpful. Thank you. And finally, this you have indicated that you believe that you should be allowed to coordinate a National Plan as it were, to deal with these responses to Cyber Threats. And youd like to coordinate this with law enforcement, homeland security, as well as regulators. How far along are we with this concept of your having this opportunity to coordinate a nation plan . Well, were obviously within the federal government, we collaborate quite a lot, dhs plays the lead on Cyber Security, ill tell you, in the financial space we have a regular meeting by amongst the agencies that work most closely together. And were looking at what we can do to be more prepared and obviously that gives us the ability to reach out and more effectively and develop a plan thank you for your service, and i yield back. Time of the gentleman has expired. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from south carolina, thank you. Mr. Lew in october you went to the Senate Finance committee and had a hearing concerning prioritization of payments, you told them at the time that the systems are automated to pay, because for 224 years, policy of congress has been to pay our bills. You went on to say it wouldnt be easy to pay some things and not others, in may of 2014, you gave this chairman a letter saying something slightly different, you said, if the debt limit were not raised and assuming treasury had sufficient cash on hand, the systems would be technologically capable of making principle and Interest Payments while the treasury was not making other payments, end quote. When did you come to learn that new york fed was technologically capable of making payments set forth in your letter to the chairman of may 2014 . Congressman, i dont remember the exact date. I can tell you the statement i made at the senate in october sdwur the statement to this committee is consistent. What i said in october 2013 is that we make tens of millions ofthe statement to this committee is consistent. What i said in october 2013 is that we make tens of millions of payments and we dont have the capacity to pick and choose among all of them, i didnt address the question of, is it a technical capacity to pay principle and interest. I did indicate that we do have the technical capacity, it would be terrible thing to do, you would be defaulting on something else, a medicare payment or on a veterans payment or something else. The only solution is to raise the debt limit and not put any president in the position where they have to make the decision do they pay one thing but not the other . That was a really good answer the first three times i asked it, i asked you that same question, sir, in may of 2014, and you told me you would have to check. When you came back in march of 2015, you told me you had checked but you had forgotten it, and you didnt remember it on that day, but you would look into it again. I sent you a set of written questions and asked you the exact same question. I got two pages with no answer in it. Im not going to ask you any more questions mr. Lew. I feel like ive given you enough opportunities to answer that question. When did you know . Its an answer you should know. If you dont know, you should be able to go back and look it up. In fact one time you told me you did go back and look it up, and you knew it, but forgot it before you got here. Mr. Lynch asked you whether you thought your answers to this committee were disdainful. You said, no, you thought they were reverent. I kept waiting for the laughter after that. Ive asked you some really serious questions, weve asked you some really serious questions. The other questions i asked you, not the first time, this is not an empty question mr. Lew. Were not trying to make you look bad. We are interested in answering the questions because of the market turmoil always raises its head as we come up against the debt ceiling. In addition to the question i asked you about when you knew, i also asked you, i said in the event we reached the debt limit and exhaust extraordinary measures and congress does not raise the debt limit can the Treasury Department continue to make principal and Interest Payments on the debt . Youve had, by the way, six months to answer these questions. I also would ask you, we commit, in the event we reach the debt limit and exhaust extraordinary measures, the treasury will continue to make principle and Interest Payments on the debt. You didnt answer that either. What are wreeto imply from your refusal for a year and a half to these questions . Well no, i let you go until you stopped. In fact i was even go to go until i had a minute and a half left. You had your chance, my turn. We are interested in asking these questions, because we are concerned about what happens in the markets. We would hope that the secretary of the treasury of the United States would be just as concerned. Your name is on the money mr. Lew. We have given you a chance to calm the markets. Youve refused to do so. Weve given you a chance to give this committee an answer, you refuse to do so. Number one, you dont want us to know the information we ask for because its harmful to you or the administration. And the other implication, is that the answers regarding payments, are not being given to us because you want the chaos. You think its preferable to you and your administration, this administration to have the chaos, it will help you achieve politically what you want to achieve. Im done asking mr. Lew. When the chaos comes, it will not be on the shoulders of the people on this committee, it will be on you. Youve had a chance to calm the markets and refuse to do so. No, sir not on my time. The time of the gentleman has expired. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from minnesota, mr. Ellison. Id like to thank the chair and the Ranking Member for the time. And id actually like to thank you, mr. Secretary for answering some of the written questions id give you. I know its not easy doing that. Youre busy doing a lot of things. You did give us some answers and they were answers that we can use, i want to extend my thanks and appreciation for that. As you know youre probably going to get a question from me about suomalia. I know youre shocked. What id like to ask you is, if you have any information on the bill that we passed last year into law. In was a bill we passed last year that was called the money improvement act. The goal of the bill was to improve oversight of nondepository financial institutions, now that the law is in place, all well supervising the Money Services businesses. I just want to know what you know, and if you dont know anything, i understand, because i didnt tell you i was going to ask you that. If you do know, i would be happy to get a report. Congressman, thank you. As weve discussed many times, this issue is a very important one. And were concerned about the problems that families are having in making payments. Were working on the implementation of the legislation, and im happy to get back to you with a more detailed response on the status of the implementation. Were more broadly working on this issue of how to deal with remittances in somalia. As i think you know, were involved with the world bank to develop solutions to the problem. And that really means building up some capacity in the somali Financial System. Right now, theres not a real Financial System to engage with. We have had meetings at a senior level in somalia, the political level at the central bank level. I know that our undersecretary will be traveling to your district to have some meetings on this issue. Well, i appreciate that. And i just want to say again, im four square with the administrations effort to stop terrorist financing on a task force to help achieve that. On the other hand we can get so successful at that effort we close off all the money. That i think would be unfortunate. Because it would serve the interests of el shabaab and terrorists over there, to see the collapsing of the somali economy. Which depends on the remittances to the degree of 40 . I would like to talk with you more about the implementation of that program. I know that you all are doing some Technical Assistance to somalia. I talk with political leaders there, and try to give them my best perspective on how they can improve their system. Could you talk a little bit about the work that you all are doing on that Technical Assistance area . And what sort of message that youd like them to receive in order to develop that solid Banking System that i think theyre going to need. Theres not an easy answer to that question. Its hard to exaggerate how little theyre starting with in terms of building a functioning Financial System. Terms of building a functioning and the tragedy is, that there are legitimate transactions like family remittances that should be able to go forward, its very hard to know that the money isnt going to go into hands that will do real harm. Trying to figure out how to build that system is why were working with the world bank. We cant go into somalia the way we go into some countries because of the security conditions. We have people coming out of somalia into other countries for training. Its not the most efficient way to do it. Our people are great when they can go in and work with people side by side. We just cant do that in somalia. Were trying to do it offsite, to help them build the skills. Its going to take. Its a process, its not something you can just hand over and have a functioning system. Theyre trying, were going to work with them, and we have to be creative finding the ways to start that building process. I want to urge you on behalf of the people who live in minnesota and many other parts of this country. Were actually going to start a somali caucus because we have constituents who live in both districts and definitely want to see them see that country get stable and strong and not be a haven or an attractive nuisance for bad people. We try to do our part, and we hope you will continue to push with that Technical Assistance. We will do so, and we will continue to work with you and try to find a solution to this. The time of the gentleman has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee, mr. Fincher. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you for being here today. Im going to go back to an issue you and i talked about a few months ago, liquidity. Recent comments from larry somers, former treasury secretary under president clinton and later served as an adviser in the white house. He recently warned regulatory authorities have made a mistake, when they look at each institution and that said youll be safer if you withdraw from the markets a bit. And forgot if all institutions withdraw from the markets a bit, the markets will be less liquid. The markets will be less safe and that will in the end hurt all the institutions. I think there is real issue there, frankly, a lot of the effort thats going into