In the global economy. He is partnering with ceos to put the longterm unemployed back to work. He is pushing for investment in our infrastructure so that people can get jobs rebuilding roads and upgrading ports. He is taking these and other actions to ensure that our nation is a place, as he said, where honest work is plentiful and communities are supported. Where prosperity is widely shared and opportunity is for all. If we do this, then families will be in the position to escape the threat of foreclosure or to buy their first home. I ask you to support the president s agenda in this year of action. I also ask you to make your voices heard about other efforts we are taking to give more families the opportunity to strengthen their financial future. Literally just a few thousand dollars can make a huge difference in helping americans get a house they can afford or rent decent affordable housing. That is why the Affordable Care act is so important to all of us in the housing community. First, americans who already have insurance have the chance to reduce their monthly costs, freeing up resources for housing or other important needs. Second, for those who are uninsured, we all know that a sudden surge in medical costs can lead to families missing payments, losing their homes, going bankrupt. With coverage, they dont have to carry this anxiety. That is why it is great news for nahrep and our entire nation that nine million americans have signed up for private Health Insurance or medicaid coverage. To keep this momentum going, i ask all of you to help us get those you know, who dont have insurance, covered by march 31. It is good for them, good for our Housing Market, and it is good for our entire economy. Another effort i want to mention that is good for all of us, including our pocketbooks, is Immigration Reform. [applause] this is a top priority of the president s, and that is why he is called for action again during his state of the union address. I want to say this is personal to me. As the son of an immigrant who was born and grew up in latin america and south america, english is his second language by the way, we all must be committed to this effort. Not only is it the right thing to do, not only is it the right moral course, it makes Good Business sense as well. Creating a new pool of millions of potential homeowners and pumping hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and income and spending into our u. S. Economy. Lets speak up and stand up to get this done once and for all. [applause] thank you. All of these efforts i have talked about on Immigration Reform, health care, on help to grow jobs, all of these will go a long way in helping to prepare more families to buy a home. You also know that is just one part of the equation. The second part is ensuring that when these families are ready to buy that they have access to the credit they need to get that first home. We can all agree that before the crisis, credit was too easy to get. But now, it is too hard to get for too Many American families. The Federal Reserve did a study recently that showed from 2007 to 2012, mortgage lending to borrowers with Credit Scores over 780 fell by a third. Loans to those with scores between 620 and 680 fell 90 . Clearly, action is needed, which is why weve been working in a variety of ways to get credit to those who are ready to own. One way is by simplifying the Regulatory Environment for lenders. Case in point is the qualified Residential Mortgage rule which we finalized in december. It is the result of six federal agencies, including hud, coming together to make the qualified Residential Mortgage equal to the qualified mortgage in order to simplify the Mortgage Origination process. This is a direct result of the feedback we received from all of you and so many others since our first proposal in 2011. By doing this, by aligning these two rules, we are avoiding greater complexity and most importantly, we are avoiding overly restrictive down payment requirements that could serve only to exclude creditworthy borrowers. Some of the critics say this is a dilution of the rule. You know the Consumer Financial protection bureaus qm rule is a very strong measure. I am confident that it will help protect families from being victimized in the future and i am confident that our actions to align qrm and qm have found the right balance between responsibility and opportunity moving forward. Another way we want to ensure credit is available for low and middle income families is by strengthening the federal Housing Administration for the longterm. Fha historically has been a beacon of hope and opportunity for underserved communities. During the housing crisis, it helped keep the dream of homeownership alive for families by providing muchneeded liquidity to the nations Mortgage Finance markets. You may have heard mark zandi say that it werent for fha, the Housing Market wouldve completely shut down. You know that fha is enormously important to the Hispanic Community. 610,000 hispanic households have purchased a home using an fha guaranteed mortgage since president obama took office. In 2012 alone, 55 of hispanic homebuyers used fha. We want to make sure that future generations have the same opportunity by ensuring fha is strong for years to come. That is why we have strengthened underwriting standards and our portfolio resulting in dramatic improvements. Our Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund has gained 15 billion in value over the last year. We now anticipate that the fund will return to the required two percent capital reserve ratio in 2015, that is two years sooner than we projected just a year earlier. To build on this progress, we will continue to execute policies that reduce losses, increase recoveries on troubled legacy loans. We will look for innovative ways to get credit to those ready to buy and ensure these transactions have the best possible chance to succeed. Through our homeowners armed with knowledge or hawk initiative, we are working to embed housing counseling throughout the fha origination and servicing process. Through updated manual underwriting guidance and our back to work initiative, we are ensuring that lenders look at the whole financial picture when underwriting a loan. This helps those who may have experienced damage credit due to crisis but are fundamentally creditworthy borrowers to be considered for mortgage. Fha continues to fulfill its mission of helping open the doors to homeownership for a wide variety of qualified borrowers. It has been critical to our housing recovery and to our overall market. Sales are up, starts are up, confidence is up. I also know that none of us is content. Just think about what would happen if our Housing Market were to collapse again. It would undermine all the progress that we have made, particularly in the Hispanic Community. That is why we have to ensure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again by reforming our Housing Finance system. Naturally, that will require action from congress and you heard the president just last tuesday night, call on congress to move forward on Housing Finance reform. I also know what many of you or maybe all of you are probably thinking. With all that has happened in washington in recent years, what makes Shaun Donovan crazy enough to think that we can get a bill through congress . What i would ask you to remember is that housing has always been an area of Common Ground in our country. President truman and senator taft worked together on the housing act of 1949. Ed brooks and Walter Mondale worked together to produce landmark legislation decades later. Last year, we saw bipartisan progress in congress on this issue. It is time for everyone to come together and make Housing Finance reform a reality. Last august, the president outlined a series of principles that he believes should be at the core of our Housing Finance system. Three of which i want to focus on today. The first is that private Capital Needs to be at the center of our system. We all know that our Current Conditions where the federal government guarantees more than 80 of mortgages in this country is simply unsustainable. The risks and rewards of mortgage lending have historically been in the hands of the private sector and need to be in the future. How do we structure reform to attract back private capital . To start with, we should put private capital in a first loss position so that we can ensure that taxpayers are never again on the hook for bad loans and bailouts. That means winding down fannie mae and freddie mac in their current form. As the president said, for too long the model was heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. We can change this by making a smooth transition of all their assets, their loans, their people, and their infrastructure as part of governments new limited and targeted role. As we make this transition, we know we have to pay very close attention to how we do it so we dont disrupt the credit market in the short term so that recovery can continue. Second, the Government Role needs to be very explicit, clear, and defined, as opposed to before when it was just implicit, where nobody really understood what government would do in the face of a crisis. This requires that new entities pay for the Government Insurance similar to the way banks pay for fdic deposit insurance. One of the benefits of that in addition to making the guarantee solid and clear is that it also allows us to expand a Housing Trust fund and our Capital Magnet Fund so that we support dramatically more affordable housing. We need to ensure, we need to come together to ensure that reform yields a fund of more than 5 billion a year that could help to support down payment assistance and a range of other goals. This will be good for the Hispanic Community and for the nation as well. A third principle of reform that was outlined by the president is ensuring access to safe, responsible financing like the 30year fixed rate mortgage. Lets remember that as we talk about the Important Role the federal government should take, there will be those who say, the federal government gets involved, we will have another crisis again. We need to have a purely private market. The president disagrees. He believes that that guarantee is a fundamental part of our future that has to in a safe, explicit way that follows the principles i have just outlined, but is there to make sure that those who have too often been left out of our system can take those first steps to homeownership. That means maintaining the 30year mortgage. It also means shaping a competitive marketplace that will ensure that no family, no community is left behind that will ensure that Community Banks and small lenders have the same access to capital as big banks. All of that is part of shaping the system that is not only safe for taxpayers, but that builds opportunity in the way the president is focused on. Let me just say, six years after the financial collapse, it is time to get this critical step done. We must move Housing Finance reform through our congress this year. We know that the Senate Banking committee thank you. [applause] we know that the Senate Banking committee is working on bipartisan reform as we speak. We expect to see a bill in the next few weeks. We need to work with the committee, with the entire senate, and with the house as well, to keep the momentum going so that we can get legislative action as early as possible this year. This is an election year. The longer we go, the later it gets, the more difficult it will be to get this reform done and help make sure we have a rocksolid foundation that will build the homeowners of future generations. Make no mistake, it will not be easy. You know, nothing about our housing come back has been easy. I also know that nahrep does not back down from a challenge. In good times and bad times, you fight for progress and opportunity. Over the course of this conference, you will hear a lot of ideas about what we need to do next to continue this fight. But to use the ernie reyes quote once again ideas are great, but they dont mean a darn thing without some action behind them. So lets act together. Lets act to support the president s 2014 agenda to create jobs and expand opportunity for all. Lets act to get more people covered with Affordable Health care so that they can secure their financial futures. Lets act to get Immigration Reform done once and for all. [applause] lets not stop there. Lets act to increase access to credit for responsible families. [applause] lets act to reform the Housing Finance system to make sure that we dont have a crisis like we had ever again, but to make sure the doors of opportunity are open for the future. In short, lets act in partnership to shape a fairer and more prosperous Housing Market and nation. We have a great opportunity to do big things this year. Lets answer that call for action. Thank you. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, Shaun Donovan. [applause] according to the constitution of the country the only then, we will not be represented americanism will be converted into true evangelism. Retiring into a quiet life, another religious leader was beginning to borrow from his teachings to create an interracial collective community. Jones replicated joneswarren represented many of the claims of father divine. To jamesather divine jones. American history tv this weekend on cspan three. The new cspan. Org website makes it easy for you to find and watch all of cspans extensive coverage of official washington. But for on our home page. Each day, you will find comprehensive coverage of house and senate debates, committee hearings, events with the president and members of his cabinet, press briefings from the white house and the pentagon. Less selected Supreme Court oral argument and appearances by the justices. Watch live or on your own schedule. Federal focus on www. Cspan. Org. To keep tabs and what is happening in the white house, the courts, and congress. With loretto in washington becoming the first with colorado and washington becoming the first two bank states to legalize marijuana, there was a hearing held. It was notbama said more harmful than alcohol and illegal hearing do you legalization to go forward. They faced a range of criticism from both sides of the aisle. This is one hour and 45 minutes. Welcome everyone and sorry for a late start. We did have votes that delayed the beginning of this hearing. Go ahead and proceed. Let me start the order of business. We will hear statements from members as they return from boats votes. We will also include their statements in the record. Us witness,it Esther Michael botticelli. E is joining us we will hear from that witness and then members will be able to question the witness. Usually the chair gets a couple of extra minutes in introductory statements. I will go ahead and get started as we have other members joining us. Our Ranking Member of the committee has joined us i would also like to ask unanimous are calling that from oregon be permitted to participate without objection. Severalprocedure other members will ask unanimous consent as well we go through the members that sit on the committee and then defer to you in Opening Statements and questioning. As members or turn we will begin that process. L begin that process. Mr. Issa likes us to remind folks why we are here, why we do what we do and our Mission Statement which is simple. Taxpayers sent us here to oversee taxpayer dollars, programs, how theyre expended. Congress both authorizes and appropriates laws but its the oversight function is extremely important and it keeps us focused on our responsibility to making certain that programs work, that taxpayer dollars are wisely spent, that washington and the people who represent the hard working americans who do have, again, accountability of their government, so its an important responsibility. Today, the focus of todays hearing is really going to focus on where we are on some of our federal drug laws, policy and enforcement. As most of you know, theres a growing disparity between what our laws say at the federal level, now our laws at the local and state level, complete opposites in some cases. And various officials from the president of the United States to Administration Officials going in different direction on the question of legalization of marijuana. As most of you also know, 20 states, the District Of Columbia, have taken steps to legalize marijuana for medical purposes and 2012 colorado and washington legalized marijuana at the state level for Recreational Use. The only problem with this is we do have conflicting federal statutes. I asked the staff to pull out federal statutes and these are actually the federal statutes