Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20151217

Make up a normal person. Appreciate you bringing those issues to us. Separateperry did planned parenthood funding from medicaid funding. But i can tell you is that there was a departure from using medicaid funding at planned parenthood. Texas set up a separate fund which they used state moneys four. From all appearances the last legislative session and seem to be working quite well. It has been in the process. I will yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Collins we have long conversation before hand a lot of these issues. This is going to start on the path that we need to go. These are things that will get fixed as we go. I dont think the amendment of someone the rest into their sexual orientation. Ive heard that argument but i dont buy into it and it is very good the you brought it before us. Im happy to sit here for four hours listen to it. I think that that is a comment well said, we will stay here all day all night whatever it takes. Your support for you believe in and your representation of people back home. We respect each of you. Especially when we have an omelette the threeday rule, to get some these issues out on the table. For theple of questions gentleman from southWest Virginia. As far as the stream protection role. Your focus is on the coal industry. Thattrapolation dozen impact lots of other mining activities around the country . I believe it certainly does. It doesnt immediately it will certainly do so within a short hearing of time. It is impossible to find a mining situation to the underground what you dont have some water in the mind. The key is to make sure youre not polluting the water. That is a concern. There is no way this country can move completely away from coal. Said, this islier going to have a dramatic impact on any goods that may need to be manufactured with the use of coal. Which course electricity is one of ourbased fuels. Very much needed in periods of severe cold as we saw two winters ago. When Natural Gas Prices spiked. I think over hundred dollars in the northeast per thousand cubic feet. Available. It doesnt have to go through pipeline. It can be waiting to be called upon to be used. It is an important fuel source for the United States. Seems that there is an effort to put the immediate completely eliminated. E it. They could be a huge detriment to the Mining Industry as a whole. I appreciate you pointing out out. Even in the state like ours where we depend on hydropower, we do get coal by cable. It will impact all the soul of the country. Mr. Martian mr. Mulvaney, thank you for raising your points. I didnt see in the amendment the section youre talking about as far as our state department influencing other governments. The examples i gave her a little broader than the actual narrow language of the amendment. The amendment speak specifically to the United Nations. Realm of uslarger trying to do this overseas. I raise it because you raise it. I like to make one last comment. I made yield myself a minute. The issue brought up, the issue, i so much appreciate because i think two parts of this, i was in argentina lets say two years ago and i watch our ambassador lecture the argentinians about job growth and job creation and what they needed to do from our state department. Meanwhile always happening here washe United States threatened he in opposition to what we were telling other people to do. Currently there is a system that exists on a bipartisan bicameral appropriators, when they become aware of something that may be exactly what mr. Mcgovern was talking about, it would be a very difficult issue that we should properly make sure that this country new we were not going to fund, it should come back through the congress to. Have under thers foreign account the ability to withhold money. And set an official Going Forward and holding these governments accountable on their own. It should come from the people who gave the money. A part of working with you. Is there anything further from any member of this committee . I want to thank all three of you. Ifnk you for your time today you see mr. Meadows tell them what you get whatever he sent this now closes the hearing the omnibus and tax extenders bill. With the committee grant a rule providing for consideration of the Senate Amendment on military construction and veterans affairs. The rule makes an order of motion to make appropriations to designate and hit her in the Senate Amendment. Amendment number one consisting of the text of the committee print. The rule provides one hour debate on the house amendment equally divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking minority member of the committee on appropriations. The rule waives all points of order against consideration. Questions will be divided between the two house amendments. That amendment shall be engrossed as an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Section five provides that the chair the committee may insert into the congressional record and any time during the remainder the first session such material as he may deem explanatory of the Senate Amendment in the motion. The speaker made a sense dispense with the reading of the journal of the previous day. Chair may at any time to clear the house adjourned. The speaker may appoint members to perform the duties of the chair for the duration of the debate. They shall not constitute calendar days for the purpose of the war powers resolution. Thank you very much. Ou have now heard the motion is there an amendment or discussion . I move the committee make in the Cyber Security act of 2015. Thank you very much. The vote will now be on the mcgovern amendment. It. Nose have the gentleman asks for roll call though mr. X no mr. would all know mr. Burgess know mr. Stivers know mr. Collins knowmr. Burns mr. Newhouse i. Slaughter ms. Slaughter mcgovern i mr. Hastings mr. Tuesdays, nine days. Themotion is not agreed to vote will now be on the motion from the gentleman. The eyes have it. Mr. Governor, do you seek a rollcall vote . Ms. Slaughter you seek a rollcall vote . Yes i do. I mr. Cole i mr. What i mr. Burgess i mr. Stivers i was to collins i mr. Burns i mr. Newhouse i ms. Slaughter no mr. No mr. Chairman i. 98 is, two days. Two nays. S, agreed to. Is re i want to thank all the members. I want to thank cspan for being here i know your listeners are very interested in what is going on. This ends the committee hearing. We will have mr. Cole who represent the committee. Good luck server. Ir. Mr. Mcgovern will represent the democrats. Merry christmas to each and every one of you. This ends the hearing. House to vote friday on spending bill. Bill howbus spending did it come together. On the house side the new speaker really delegated the responsibility to hal rogers of kentucky. Was negotiating with his democratic counterparts for weeks really. Starting with leading these listening sessions trying to get support from the rankandfile. Embership they really whittle that list down. Lowey kicks it wherethe leadership level was expected that paul ryan and the other leaders would close the deal. It took a little bit longer than we expected. It does look like they will get it done by friday. At the speakers news about what you asked a successful vote looks like. He wont say. He says members will vote how they want to vote. What youre hearing about how the gop conference will vote . Scott wong we are hearing a little bit of opposition from nancy pelosi and the other democrats coming out of their meeting. They are concerned about one yearsion that lifts the 40 ban on crude oil exports. Another provision that they had hoped would be in the package was a provision helping puerto rico and that deals with its debt crisis. We are hearing some grumblings from both sides. But it hasnt been as pronounced as perhaps previous spending packages have been. At least on the republican side. Paul ryan has been reaching out to members starting really from the moment he became speaker. Memberso incorporate ideas and trying to get a buyin from the rankandfile. I asked him today were successful vote would look like. He wouldnt say specific numbers. Some lawmakers are saying that they could get over a hundred votes for the omnibus spending bill which would be better than some of the past bills. Predicted that they get a majority of the majority. Be about a hundred and 24 votes. That would be a very strong vote for speaker ryan. They will vote on that on friday. On thursday they are taking on these tax extenders and tax cuts. Speaker ryan actually pointed to the tax extender package as a big win for republicans. It would extend a number of tax breaks for businesses and corporations and individuals and even farmers. They would make many of those tax breaks permanent. Roughly 650 billion over 10 years. A significant amount of money. Abouticans are very happy this package. Most of them probably will supported in the house. Democrats whorom have complained as recently as this morning that these tax breaks tend to favor corporations more than they favor workingclass families. Paul ryan has used his interview yesterday to talk. Bout what is ahead in 2016 how important is the victory on this tax package for what is ahead in 2016 . Scott many other leaders in the capital c this bipartisan deal as an opportunity to hit the reset button on appropriations process that had broken down in the past. If you remember harry reid had begun filibustering republican bills that have been sent over from the house. Concerned about sequester levels. He wanted to see those listed. Was that heid today has been holding repeated talks with harry reid over the last few days. They are on the same page. In a very general sense. They want to get back to regular order. The twoyear budget deal it is boehner at speaker john struck with president obama that set up this vote on the spending bill this week. That really has allowed congress to pay that into 2016 and hopefully get back to a more normal appropriations process. Scott wong, thank you for joining us. Up, homeland secretary jeff johnson. Then Federal Reserve chair janet yellen. On next washington journal, hill danvers from the center for American Progress. Terror alert system dined to inform the public of potential threats. This is 30 minutes. Morning, efrk. Particularly over the last period of weeks following the terrorist attack in paris on november 13th and the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, the 27bd, state and local Law Enforcement and Homeland Security officials have been on a heightened state of readiness to protect our homeland. People are anxious know. They should know and need to know what their government is doing to protect their homeland. First, as the president explained, on monday. Tat pentagon. Were engaged in a Bombing Campaign against the islamic state. In iraq and syria. To take the fight directly to that terrorist organization. This has included training and equipping Ground Forces in iraq and syria. Two, Law Enforcement, the fbi, does an excellent job virtually every day of detecting, investigating, interdicting and prosecuting and preventing terrorist threats to our homeland. Arrests are made on a regular basis. Three. Aviation security. Since last year, weve enhanced Aviation Security at my direction. At last point of depar chu, airports overseas with flights directly to the United States. Im pleased that other nations have followed with near identical enhancements to Aviation Security. In july, i gave the new admin stater of tsa, a tenpoint plan for improve iing aviation secur and airport screening. Dmesically. That plan is being implemented on schedule. Earlier this year, tsa and i issued guidance with regard to Airport Security. More guidance on Airport Security is forthcoming. In response to the crash of metro jet 9268, i directed further Aviation Security at certain airports in that region. With respect to items brought on aircraft. And an inspection and evaluation of airports in that renal. Four, with regard to potential travel and immigration, to the United States, of those who may be suspected of terrorism, last year and again this year, i directed a series of security enhancements to our socalled visa waiver program. Im pleased that congress is also involved in this effort to strengthen our ability to enhance the security of our visa waiver program. We routinely deny boarding and travel to those with potential terrorist connections. Into this country. At the state department and at the department of Homeland Security, we have in place now a multilayered, thorough process for vetting refugees for refugees for resettlement in this country. This is particularly true with regard to iraqi and Syrian Refugees. The process the multilayered, thorough and takes on average 18 to 24 months to complete for every single refugee. This includes consulting databases and agencies in the Law Enforcement and Intelligence Community. As you heard the other night, the president has directed the state department and the department of Homeland Security to also conduct a review of the k1 visa process. Visas for fiances, which we are doing. Under my leadership as secretary, we in fact began to consult social media for bechts and we will be doing more of this. Any reports of partial reports to the county tear are simply false. Five, since last year, we enhanced services. Six, we continue with information with state and local Law Enforcement around this country with regard to what we are seeing at the federal and international level. Director comey and i routinely do this and will be doing this later this week in a communication with Law Enforcement nationwide. We continue to share information with the private stakeholders such as business organizations, sports organizations, the ncaa, the nba, the nfl, for the same purpose, to share what it is we seek. Eight, as should be obvious to the public this Holiday Season in particular, there is a heightened security and Law Enforcement presence. At Public Events and Public Places across the country. Law enforcement, National Security, Homeland Security personnel are working overtime to protect the American Public. We are building relationships in communities across this country. We are calling upon muslim communities and leader to in effect in you see something, say something. Isil. Muslim communities across this country. We are building bridges with muslim communities, enkournging them to work with us and working with them. These are just some of the things we are doing to protect the homeland. Finally, ten. Public awareness. Public vigilance and Public Participation are important to our Homeland Security. This is what brings me here today. An informed public about our Homeland Security efforts and what we see can help. In 2002, we went to the color bars. Everyone remembers the color bars. Severe, high, elevated, guarded, low. One of the issues with the color bars is there was little public commentary to go with them. And theres a certain deescalation factor here. Once you elevate, its difficult to deescalate. In 2011, we did away with the color bars. And created the National Terrorism advisory system. The National Terrorism advisory system has two levels to it. An elevated alert and an imminent alert. This system has never been deployed. It depends upon for an elevated alert, a credible terrorist threat. Can which in the implementing guidelines means something very specific. An imminent alert warns of a credible, specific, impending terrorist threat. Against the United States. This in my judgment, does not work in the current threat environment because it depends upon a specific, credible, terrorist threat to something in the homeland. This system has never been deployed. Its time we change the system. Trz this is what we are doing in announcing today. We are creating an intermediate level to the system that includes an intask bulletin, which describes general developments or trends regarding threats of terrorism. We do this in public speeches, in Public Statements, for Law Enforcement with joint intelligence bulletins. We do this on a periodic basis. There are news leaks, Anonymous Sources from National Security and Law Enforcement, we want the put in one place for the public to see what we are seeing concerning the homeland and what we are doing about it and what the public can do about it. So, today, we are creating this new, intermediate level to the ntas system called an ntas bulletin. This is a template for an elevated ntas alert, which we have never useded. In the fouryear history of this system. This is an elevated alert, which again, depends upon a credible, specific threat. This is the template for a bulletin. Which we are announcing today. General information for the public and the current threat environment, what we see, additional details, what your government is doing about it and how the public can help. With todays announcement, we are also issuing an actual ntas bulletin. The duration for this bulletin and these bulletins should have a duration. Will be six months. To june 16th, 2016. From today. And in summary, what we are informing the public today in this bulletin, which will be issued today, is the following. Were in a few phase in the global terrorist threat, which has implications on the homeland. Particularly with the rising use by terrorists of the internet to inspire and recruit. We are concerned about the selfradicalized actors who could strike with little or no notice. Recent attacks and attempted attacks internationally and in the homeland warrant increased security. As well as increased public vigilance and apawareness. Though, we know of no intelligence that is both specific and credible at this time, a plot by terrorist organizations to attack the homeland, the reality is terrorists inspired individuals have conducted orb attempted to conduct attacks in the United States this year. Dhs is especially concerned that terrorist inspired individuals and home grown violent extremists may be encouraged or inspired to target Public Events or places. As we saw in the recent attacks in San Bernardino and paris, terrorists will consider a diverse and wide selection of targets or attacks. In the current environment, dhs is concerned about threats and violence directed at particular communities and individuals across the country based on perceived religion, ethnicity or nationality. Dhs and the fbi are providing Additional Guidance to state and local partners on increased security measures. The public should expect an increased presence of Law Enforcement across communities in the weeks ahead. More stringent security should be anticipated at ooents. Heavy police presence, additional searches on pbags an the use of screening technologies. The fbis investigating potential terrorism activities associated with this broad threat throughout the United States. Federal, state and local authorities are coordinating numerous Law Enforcement actions and Community Outreach to address this evolving threat. How you can help. Community leaders, coworker, friends and family can help by recognizing signs of potential radicalization to violence. For more information, visit nsi. Ncirc. Gov. Report threats or suspicious activity to the fbi or your local authorities. Contact information for fbi field offices can be found at fbi. Govcontactusfield. Stay informed. The u. S. Government will provide Additional Information about any emerging threat as Additional Information is identified. And not necessarily on a six month timeline. The public is encouraged to listen to Law Enforcement and Public Safety officials. Finally, we urge the public to continue to travel, attend Public Events and freely associate with others, but remain vigilant and aware of surroundings while doing so, particularly during this Holiday Season. This is the bulletin well be issuing today. We want the public to have this. It will be on the dh website. We want the public to be aware. We also want the public to be aware of all the things that those of us in Homeland Security, Law Enforcement, National Security are doing on their behalf. Questions. Mr. Green. Secretary johnson, whats the process for issuing these bulletins . Who will they be issued to and what about concerns about too much information for people to digest. Well, this bulletin is one page. And i just read almost all of it to you. Its important that we give the public concise, but Accurate Information to the full extent we can. That is not classified or Law Enforcement sensitive. Because we believe that an informed public is good for Public Safety and Homeland Security, so, this will be on our website. It wont just be there for day. Those in the public have consulted on an ongoing basis about how they can help and stay informed. This is part of our mission in momentland security in my view. Yes, maam. Hi. Given the attack in San Bernardino and the other threats that youve outlined, is isis operating in the United States . There are a number of investigations by the fbi of potential plots, those who may be involved in plotting or planning terrorist acts. And as ive said, the new environment that we are in includes not only the potential for terrorist directed, but terrorist inspired attacks and as the fbi director and i have said many times, what we are concerned about here in the homeland are copy cat like attacks. And those who are selfradical sized and may be inspired to commit terrorist attacks and regrettably, we have seen that in recent months and recent weeks, so that is the focus of our Homeland Security efforts. Thank you. Just to be clear, was there ever any rule that prohibited immigration agents from screening social media on these fiance visas and second, congressman mccall said the dni provided evidence that isis was trying to infiltrate the refugee stream. Do you believe thats credible and do you believe its successful . Two questions, two answers. First, part of my time as secretary, we had policies in place regarding which in my judgment, particularly in this current environment, were too restrictive and so, we began to consult social media with regard to certain benefits. Certain immigration benefits. Began that earlier this year. Very early this year. And i think we need to do more of this. There is open source, theres also a private and there are postings, and also communications involving u. S. Persons, so, there are some legal limits to what we can do. But its also worth emphasizing that when we do the vetting, for a lot of immigration benefits, we do consult immigration, Intelligence Community databases and Law Enforcement databases. But consulting social media is something that since ive been secretary, i believe that we need to do and we have begun that. With regard to your second question, we do have to be concerned about the possibility that a terrorist organization may seek to exploit our Refugee Resettlement process. That is true of this country. That is true of every other country that accepts refugees. That is why we have in place a very thorough multilayered process for evaluation of refugees, i think its worth emphasizes that burden of proof is is always on the refugee. The applicant in this country and in the absence of information, we put that on hold or we deny it. But this is something that we also continuely evaluate. Weve provided additional enhancements with regard to those refugees from iraq and syria and are going to continue to evaluate more as necessary. Must there socalled secret is policy in 2014 that prevented agents from screening tashfeen maliks social media before she entered the United States . That would not be accurate and it is also the case, you have to also bear in mind that i cant, im not going to comment on an open investigation. Im going to leave that to the fbi, but as im sure youve seen, there have been a number of public reports that whatever postings she did, whatever communications she had, she did so under an alias. We have in place the ability to screen by consulting the Intelligence Community, but consulting Law Enforcement consistent with law. And we do that when we believe that circumstances warrant and were going to continue to do that. Mr. Secretary. Yes, maam. Right back here. Can you walk through how agencies will Work Together, building a bulletin. This involves a process of con tulting the fbi and a number of agencies and Law Enforcement and National Security. But my goal here with these is to be able to issue these promptly. If we see a new environment, were not necessarily dpoik wait until june 16th to issue at one of these. If we think the environment has changed, but my goal is that we have an agile process. And so, we issue one of these say on a days note. If we believe circumstances have warranted. In the past, october 2014 for example, after the attack in ottawa, i issued a Public Statement about the things we are doing. To protect the homeland. How the public can help and what we are seeing. That was the Public Statement. On a sporadic basis. I think we need to constitutionalize that process in this current environment and thats what were doing here today with this new level of bulletin that does not depend upon a specific, credible threat. Pierre. What was the moment when you realize ld that the old system wasnt quite working the way it should in the hours an days of the paris attack, we heard officials some months ago. Some months ago and there have been periods over the last 12, 13 months, where weve considered using that prior ntas system, but wabecause of the guidelines, i didnt think we had quite reach ed the bar. But that we needed something. The way the guidelines were written, i thought were not quite right and a little constraining in the current environment, and so, some months ago, we decided we needed a new level that provides the public with information about what we are seeing. A lot of which is selfevidence. But what the government is seeing that we share with the public, not on a sporadic basis, not through news leaks of communications with Law Enforcement so the public has this. You can see how the public would be concerned where officials were saying in the aftermath of the paris attacks, no specific credible threat, then San Bernardino happened. Can you see why people are anxious and concerned because the government seemed to be allaying fears, but then the attack happened. That is, pierre, thats a good observation. And in my view, it highlights the new environment we are in. Which includes the very real prospect of terrorist inspired attacks that can happen with little or no notice. So, we were relying upon a model for how we inform the public that does not accurately take account of the current environment. Which is why in the judgment of a lot of us, its important to create this new level of information for the public to say to the public, theres a real prospect of terrorist inspired attacks, this is what we are doing about it. This is what you should do about it in the public. Yes, in the back. Mr. Secretary, you mentioned some months ago, you considered raising the or at least activating the system. The fbi director has talked about this period around july, the july 4th holiday. Is that the period youre referring to . I would say earlier in the year than that. Weve been consulting with the agency, with the National Security community on this and we reached the point where we could not only roll out the new system, but a new bulletin today. Okay. One more question. Yes, maam. Two things, sorry. Get in two questions for the last question. One is yesterday as you know, we had very different situations in los angeles and new york with the School Districts here and so the public does get a lot of mixed messages. How would this system if anything, change that . Would it still be a situation where youre getting different messages from local officials than federal and my second question is a recent poll showed the confidence of the American Public in the governments ability to stop terrorism is at a low since 9 11. What do you have to say about that . Two things. First, this new level of ntas provides a common baseline for what the National Security Homeland Security people at the federal level are seeing and what we assess to be the case. A common baseline for people in los angeles, new york, chicago and every place else. So, its informative in that respect. We have a common baseline for what we are seeing thats not done sporadically. Number two, very often in Homeland Security and in National Security, good news is no news. And its important as i said in my opening remarks in my view, to continue to remind the public that every day, somebody is is working hard to prevent this happens on an every day basis. Prevent b somebody from traveling or boarding who has a potential terrorist or troublesome affiliation. It happens every day. Every day, theres somebody denied boarding on an aircraft with a prohibited item. Every day, theres somebody denied entry to our country. Every day, theres than interdiction of illegal narcotics, of weapons. A discovery of something on the border. To protect our homeland. Public doesnt always hear about that. Every day, theres a terrorist plot that is being investigated. And on a routine bases, there are arrests being made. For those who are being prosecuted for Material Support or Something Else under our federal laws and so, one of my goals certainly, is to note for the public all the things that we are doing on their behalf. And to say to the public, you can help, too. We are in a new environment. Were in a new environment where terrorist inspired attacks are things that can happen with little or no notice and theres a way to address that. Its a whole of government approach that involves the military, Law Enforcement, heightened security, heightened presence in Law Enforcement around the country. It involves building bridges to communities that are being targeted by terrorist organizations. Imploring them. If you see something, say something. It is always the case in my view, almost always the case, that if someone selfradicalized, theres someone close to that person in their family who saw the signs and so, by building bridges to community leaders, families, religious leaders and others, we can encourage people to come forward. And so, this is a multifaceted Homeland Security response to a new environment, which includes Public Awareness and vigilance, which is what were doing here today. Okay, thanks a lot, everybody. Thank you. We will discuss the courts decision in roe versus wade. Its impact then and now. Senior counsel with americans united for life. And melissa murray, professor at the university of california at berkeley law school. Judge sonialerk to sotomayor prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court. For background on each case, order your copy of the landmark cases companion book. Cspan. Org. Ble at cspan takes you on the road to the white house and into the classroom. Our student cam documentary contest asks students to tell us what issues they want to hear about from the president ial candidates. Federal reserve chair janet theen officially announced increase in Interest Rates. At this hourlong News Conference in washington, she took questions and explain to the logic behind the increases. First in seven years. She explained the reason behind the increase and then took questions from reporters on the decision. Its a little more than an hour. Ms. Yellen good afternoon. Earlier today the federal open Market Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by one quarter percentage point, bringing it to one quarter to one half percent. This action marks the end of an extraordinary sevenyear period during which the federal funds rate was held near zero to support the recovery of the economy from the worst financial crisis in resession since the great de. It also recognize depression. It also recognizes the considerable progress that has been made toward restoring jobs, raising incomes and easing the Economic Hardship of millions of americans. And it reflects the committees confidence that the economy will continue to strengthen. The economic recovery has clearly come a long way, although it is not yet complete. Room for further improvement in the labor market remains and inflation continues to run below our longerrun objective. But with the economy performing well and expected to continue to do so, the committee judged that a modest increase in the federal funds rate target is now appropriate. Recognizing that even after this increase, Monetary Policy remains accommodative. As i will explain, the process of normalizing Interest Rates is likely to proceed gradually. Although future policy actions will obviously depend on how the economy evolves relative to our objectives of maximum employment and 2 inflation. Since march, the committee has stated that it would raise the target range for the federal funds rate when it had seen further improvement in the labor market and was reasonably confident that inflation would move back to its 2 objective over the medium term. In our judgment, these two criteria have now been satisfied. The labor market is clearly has clearly shown significant further improvement toward our objective of maximum employment. So far this year, a total of 2. 3 million jobs have been added to the economy. And over the most recent three months, job gains have averaged an estimated 218,000 per month. Similar to the average pace since the beginning of the year. The Unemployment Rate at 5 in november is down. 6 from the end of last year. Nd is close to the median of estimates of its longer run normal level. A broader measure of unemployment that includes individuals who want and are available to work, but have not actively searched recently, and people who are working parttime, but would rather work fulltime, also has shown solid improvement. That said, some cyclical weakness likely remains. The Labor Force Participation rate is still below estimates of its demographic trend, and voluntary parttime employment remains somewhat elevated, and wage growth has yet to show a sustained pickup. The improvement in Employment Conditions this year has occurred amid continued expansion in Economic Activity. U. S. Real Gross Domestic Product is estimated to have increased at an average pace of 2. 25 over the first three quarters of the year. Net exports have been restrained by subdued foreign growth and the appreciation of the dollar. But this weakness has been offset by solid expansion of domestic spending. Continued job gains and increases in real disposable income have supported Household Spending and purchases of new Motor Vehicles have been particularly strong. Residential investment has been rising at a faster pace than last year. Although at the level of new Home Building still remains low. Outside of the drilling and mining sector, where Lower Oil Prices have led to substantial cuts in investment outlays, Business Investment has posted solid gains. The committee currently expects that with gradual adjustments in the stance of Monetary Policy, Economic Activity will continue to expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen. Although developments abroad still pose risks to u. S. Economic growth, these risks appear to have lessened since last summer. Overall, the Committee Sees the risk to the outlook for both Economic Activity and the labor market as balanced. The anticipation of ongoing Economic Growth and additional improvement in labor Market Conditions is an important factor underpinning the committees confidence that inflation will return to our 2 objective over the medium term. Overall Consumer Price inflation, as measured by the price index for personal consumption expenditures, was. 25 over ver the the 12 months ending in october. However much of the shortfall from our 2 objective reflected the sharp declines in Energy Prices since the middle of last year. And the affects of these declines should dissipate over time. The appreciation of the dollar has also weighed on inflation by holding down import prices. As these trancetory influences fade and as the labor market strengthens further, the committee expects inflation to rise to 2 over the medium term. The committees confidence in the inflation outlook rests importantly on its judgment that longerrun Inflation Expectations remain well anchored. In this regard, although some survey measures of longer run Inflation Expectations have edged down, overall there have been reasonable they have been reasonably stable. Marketbased measure of inflation compensation remain near historically low levels. Although the declines in these measures over the past year and a half may reflect changes in risk and liquidity premiums, rather than an outright decline in Inflation Expectations. Our statement emphasizes that in considering future policy decisions, we will carefully monitor actual and expected progress toward our inflation goal. This general assessment of the outlook is reflected in the individual Economic Projections submitted to this meeting by fomc participants. As always, each participants projections are conditioned on his or her own view of appropriate Monetary Policy. Participants projections for real g. D. P. Growth are little changed from the projections made in conjunction with the September Fomc meeting. The median projection for real g. D. P. Growth is 2. 1 for this year. And rises to 2. 4 in 2016. Somewhat above the median estimate of the longerrun normal growth rate. Thereafter, the median growth projection declines toward its longerrun rate. The median projection for the Unemployment Rate in the Fourth Quarter of this year stands at 5 , close to the median estimate of the longerrun normal Unemployment Rate. Committee participants generally see the Unemployment Rate declining a little further next year and then leveling out. The path of the median Unemployment Rate is slightly lower than in september. And while the median longerrun normal Unemployment Rate has not changed, some participants edge down their estimates. Finally, fomc participants project inflation to be very low this year. Largely reflecting lower prices for energy and nonenergy imports. As the transitory factors holding down inflation abate, and lower and labor Market Conditions continue to strengthen, the median inflation projection rises from just. 4 this year to 1. 6 next year and reaches 1. 9 in 2017 and 2 in 2018. The path of the median inflation projections is little changed from september. With inflation currently still low, why is the committee raising the federal funds rate target . As ive already noted, much of the recent softness in inflation is due to transitory factors that we expect to abate over time. And diminishing slack in labor and product markets should put upward pressure on inflation as well. In addition, we recognize that it takes time for Monetary Policy actions to affect future economic outcomes. Were the fomc to delay the start of policy normization for too long, we normalization for too long, we would likely end up having to tighten policy relatively abruptly at some point to keep the economy from overheating and inflation from significantly overshooting our objective. Such an abrupt tightening could of pushing risk the economy into recession. As ive often noted, the importance of our initial increase in the target range for the federal funds rate should not be overstated. Even after todays increase, the stance of Monetary Policy remains acongress dative. Thereby supporting further improvement in labor Market Conditions and a return to 2 inflation. As we indicated this our indicated in our statement, the committee expects that Economic Conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate. The federal funds rate is likely to remain for some time below levels that are expected to prevail in the longer run. This expectation is consistent with the view that the neutral nominal federal funds rate, defined as the value of the uld ral funds rate that wo e neither expansionary nor con tractary, is currently low by historical standards and is likely to rise only gradually over time. One indication that the neutral funds rate is unusually low is that u. S. Economic growth has been only moderate in recent years, despite the very low level of the federal funds rate and the Federal Reserves very Large Holdings of longer term securities. Had the neutral rate been running closer to its longerrun level, these policy actions would have been expected to foster a much more rapid economic expansion. The marked decline in the neutral federal funds rate may be partialy attributable to a range of persistent economic headwinds that have weighed on aggregate demand. Following the financial crisis, these headwinds included tighter underwriting standards and limited access to credit for some borrowers, deleveraging by many households to reduce debt burdens, contractionary fiscal policy, weak growth abroad, coupled with a significant depreciation of the dollar, slow toer productivity in labor force slower productivity in labor force growth, and elevated uncertainty about the Economic Outlook. Although the restraint imposed by many of these factors has declined noticeably over the past few years, some of these affects have remained significant. As these affects abate, the neutral federal funds rate should gradually move higher over time. This view is implicitly reflected in participants projections of appropriate Monetary Policy. The median projection for the federal funds rate rises gradually to nearly 1. 5 in late 2016 and 2. 5 in late 2017. The factors restraining Economic Growth continued to fade over time, the median rate 3. 25 percent by the end of 2018 close to its longer run normal level. Compared with the projections made in september, a number of participants lowered somewhat their paths for the federal funds rate. Changes to the median path are fairly minor. I would like to underscore the forecast of the appropriate path of the federal funds rate as usual are conditional on participants individual projections with the most likely outcomes for Economic Growth coming employment, and inflation, and other factors. The actual path of the federal funds rate will depend on the Economic Outlook as informed by incoming data. Out growth and rapid inflation would suggest the neutral federal funds rate was rising were quickly than expected. Making it appropriate to raise the federal funds rate as well. Conversely if the economy were to disappoint, the federal funds rate would likely rise more slowly. The committee will continue with policy of reinvesting proceeds from maturing treasury securities and principle payments from agency debt and Mortgage Backed securities. As highlighted in our policy statement, we anticipate continuing this policy until normalization of the level of the federal funds rate is well underway. Maintaining our sizable holdings of longerterm securities should help maintain accommodative financial conditions and should reduce the risk that the federal funds rate might return to the effective lower bound in the event of future adverse shocks. Finally, in conjunction with our policy statement, we also released an implementation note that provides details on the tools that we are using to raise the federal funds rate into the new target range. Specifically, the board of governors raised the Interest Rate paid on required and excess reserves to one half percent and the fomc authorized overnight reversed purchase operations at an offering rate of one quarter percent. Both of these changes will be effective tomorrow. To ensure a sufficient monetary my terry control at the normalization process we have for the time being, suspended the average aggregate cap on overnight purchase transactions that have been in place during the testing phase of this facility. Recall thehe committee intends to phase out the facility when it is no longer needed to help control the federal funds rate. The board of governors also approved a one quarter percentage point increase in the discount rate for primary credit 1 . Based on the extensive testing of our policy tools in recent years, the committee is confident that the normalization process will proceed smoothly. Nonetheless as part of prudent Contingency Planning will be monitoring Financial Market developments closely in the coming days and are prepared to tools. Justments to our if that proves necessary to maintain appropriate controls over money market rates. Thank you. I will be happy to take your questions. I guess the word is finally. Longve asked you for so why were you delaying so i will ask, given developments around the world, there is still weakness and the inflation is still nowhere near your target. What made you say do it now . Some have said it was because you feared a lack of credibility if you did not move. That that play a role in your decision . Ms. Yellen we decided to move at this time because we feel the conditions that we set out for a move, namely further improvement in the labor market and reasonable confidence that inflation would move back 2 turn, term, we felt these conditions have been satisfied. We have been concerned as you know about the risks from the Global Economy. And the risks persist but the u. S. Economy has shown considerable strength. Domestic spending that counts spending inggregate the u. S. Economy has continued to hold up and it has grown at a solid pace and while there is a drag from net exports from relatively weak growth abroad and the appreciation of the dollar, overall, we decided today that the risks to the outlook for the labor market and the economy are balanced. That Monetary Policy operates with flags. Moveuld like to be able to in the prudent and as we have emphasized, gradual manner. It has been a long time since the Federal Reserve has raised Interest Rates and i think it is prudent to be able to watch what the impact is on financial conditions and spending in the economy. And moving in a timely fashion in april to do this. Again, i think it is important not to over blow the significance of this first move. It is 25 basis points. Policy remains accommodative. We have indicated that we will be watching what happens very carefully in the economy in forecastour actual and , our projected conditions relative to our employment and inflation goals and we will adjust policy overtime. That seems appropriate to achieve those goals. Our expectation as i have indicated that policy adjustments will be gradual overtime that of course they will be informed by the outlook which in turn will evolve with incoming data. Thank you. Under the old regime before you were raising rates it was easy to understand what you wanted to do. You wanted the Unemployment Rate to fall and you wanted inflation to rise. Could you explain under the new regime what youre looking for, do you want the Unemployment Rate to stop falling, do you want it to rise and what is it you hope for from inflation which is a little more understandable or is neutral itself now a policy goal . Not allen neutral is policy goal. It is an assessment. It is a benchmark that i think is useful for assessing the stance of policy. Neutral is essentially a stance of policy, a level of shortterm rates. If the economy were operating are its potential and we not quite at that but reasonably close to it, it would be a level that would maintain or sustain those conditions. At this point, policy we judged to be accommodative. The committee forecast that the Unemployment Rate will continue to decline. Important ands appropriate for two reasons. First of all, as i have indicated, i continue to judge that there remains slack in the economy, margins of slack that are not reflected in the standard Unemployment Rate and in particular, i have pointed to the depressed level of Labor Force Participation and also the somewhat abnormally high level of parttime employment. Therther decline in Unemployment Rate and strengthening of labor market help to erodel those margins of slack but also we want to see inflation move up back toward 2 objective over the mediumterm. Saying above trend growth and continuing tightness, greater tightness in labor and product help achieve will our objective with respect to inflation. Rates gets raising you to either of those goals . Have kept rates at an externally love level and had high Balance Sheet for very long time. We have considered the risks to and with Interest Rates it is zero. We have less scope to respond to negative shocks into positive shocks that would call for a tightening of policy that is a totor that has induced us hold rates at zero for this long. We recognize that policy is notmmodative and if we do begin to slightly reduce the amount of accommodation, the odds are good that the economy would and up overshooting both our employment and inflation objectives. Aat we would like to avoid is situation where we avoided so long that we are forced to tighten policy abruptly, which aba boarding what running andg sustainable expansion. To keep the economy moving along the growth path it is on with conditionsnd solid in labor markets, we would like to avoid a situation where we have left so much accommodation weplace for so long, that overshoot these objectives and then have to tighten abruptly and risk damaging that performance. The sentence in your statement about gradual increase, the Committee Says it will carefully monitor progress, actual and expected progress in inflation. That will read like some kind of code to a lot of people on wall street. What do you mean when you say carefully monitor and specifically, with regard to what you do next, you need do you need to see inflation actually rise it this point in order to raise Interest Rates again . Ms. Yellen we recognize that inflation is well below our 2 goal. The entire committee is committed to achieving our 2 inflation objective over them medium term. Sureas we want to make that inflation does not persist at levels above our 2 objectives, the committee is equally committed, this is the symmetrical and the committee is equally committed to not allowing inflation to persist below our 2 objective. Now, i have tried to explain in and many of my colleagues have as well, why we have reasonable confidence that inflation will move up over time. And the committee declared it had reasonable confidence. Nevertheless, that is the forecast. We really need to monitor overtime actual inflation performance to make sure that it is conforming, it is evolving in the manner that we expect. It does not mean that we need to see inflation reached 2 before moving again, that we have expectations for how inflation will behave. Where we define that the underlying theory is not bearing out, that it is not behaving in the manner that we expect, and it does not look like the shortfall is transitory and disappearing with tighter labor markets, that would certainly give us pause. We have indicated that we are reasonably close, not quite there, but reasonably close to achieving our maximum employment objective, but we have a significant shortfall on inflation. And so we are calling attention to the importance of verifying things evolve in line with our forecast. Do you need to see it rise not necessarily get to the 2 goal but in order to move again, do you want to see inflation measures actually move . Ms. Yellen i will not give you a simple formula for what we need to see on the inflation to raise rates again. We will be looking at the path of employment as well as the path for inflation. Led us to calla into question the inflation forecast that you have set out, that could the variety of ,ifferent kinds of evidence that would certainly give the committee pause, but i do not want to say there is a simple benchmark. The committee expects inflation over the next year, the median expectation is for inflation to 1. 6 , and botht quarter and headline. We do expect it to be moving up that we do not expect it to reach 2 . Craig torres from bloomberg. The way the committee describes inflation, there is this transitory language. I would like to point out that Oil Prices Today are 36 and on june 15, they were 60. This transitory which first appeared in the statement in december, i believe, is lasting a long time. I be longer than many peoples definition of transitory, and it could go on. And second, i wonder of the committee knows if the committee knows how quickly wage increases or labor market tightness transfers into higher prices. That too is also forecast. My question, what will you be willing to do if you do not see progress toward 2 inflation . We have missed the target for three years. What would you be willing to do . And second, would you allow inflation to bounce around between 2 and 3 the way you have allowed it to move under 2 over the past several years . Thanks. Ms. Yellen with respect to oil prices, i have been surprised by the further downward movement in oil prices, but we do not need to see Oil Prices Rebound to higher levels in order for the impact on inflation to wash out. All they need to do is stabilize. I believe there is some limit below which oil prices are unlikely to rise. If we look at Market Expectations, Market Expectations are for stabilization and then some gradual upward movement. I certainly grant we have had a series of shocks pushing them down but we are not looking for them to revert back to higher levels that they were at merely to stabilize. I would point out, you asked me would we tolerate overshoots. For a number of years between 2004 and 2008, we had a series of increases in oil prices that, for a series of years, raced inflation above again, we did have a 2 objective than but wasted above 2 and we judged those increases to be transitory as well and looked through them. We do monitor Inflation Expectations for a carefully. If we saw in a meaningful way that Inflation Expectations were either moving up in a way that made it seem an anchored or down, that would be of concern. We have called attention to some inght downward movements survey measures. We are watching that. I still judge that Inflation Expectations are reasonably wellanchored. Inflationve tolerated shortfalls that we thought would disappear over the medium term. Just as we did overshoots of inflation that we also judged to be transitory. But we do need to monitor inflation very carefully because if Energy Prices and the dollar prices,stabilize import our expectation is headline and core inflation would move up, and if we failed to see that occurring in a manner that we expect, of course, we would need totake further action reconsider the outlook and to put in place appropriate policy. What with that action look like . Wereellen if the economy disappointing, our actions would not really be based on inflation. We would take employment into account. I cannot give you a simple answer. But we would pursue a more accommodative policy, because we do certainly are a cure are committed to achieving over the long term. Phil dudley has talked about the need for the fed to adjust policy based on the responsiveness of Financial Markets as you begin to increase rates. You did not talk about that today. Is it a point you agree with and if so, how will you judge whether Financial Markets are accepting and transmitting these changes . Ms. Yellen there are a this isf ways that transmitted. The behavior of longterm Interest Rates, shortterm Interest Rates matter, the value of asset crisis, and the exchange rate, these are transmission channels. We would not be focused on shortterm financial volatility, thewe are there on anticipated changes in financial conditions that were persistent and we judged to affect the outlook, we would have had to take those into account. Watch financial develops. The longerterm Economic Outlook, are we saying percent persistent changes in Market Conditions that would have a bearing, a significant bearing on the outlook that we would need to take into account informality appropriate policy. Yes, we would but it is not shortterm volatility in markets. See changesd not you would have to move more quickly. [inaudible] is not an this unanticipated policy move create we have been trying to explain what our policy strategy is. It is not as though i am expecting to see a marked Immediate Reaction in Financial Markets on expectations about fed policy. They have been built into the structure of Financial Market prices. But we obviously will track carefully the behavior of those short and longerterm Interest Rates. The dollar and asset prices, and if they move in persistent and , that are outys of line with the expectations that we have, then we will take those into account. Thank you. Rebecca jarvis, abc news. A historically, most economic expenses fade after this long. How confident are you that our economy will not slip back into recession in the near term . Ms. Yellen let me start by saying that i feel confident about the fundamentals driving the health ofmy, u. S. Households and domestic spending. There are pressures on some sectors of the economy, particularly manufacturing and the Energy Sector reflecting Global Developments and developments in Commodity Markets and energy markets. But the Underlying Health of the u. S. Economy i consider to be quite sound. I think it is a myth that expansions dive old age. I do not think they die of old age. The fact that this has been quite a long expansion does not its dayso believe that are numbered. The economy does get hit by shocks, and there are positive shocks and negative shocks. And so there is a significant o dd probability in one year that the economy will suffer some shock that we do not know about that will put it into recession. I am not sure exactly how high that probability is in any year am a but maybe at least on the order of 10 . Yes, there is some probability that could happen and of course, we would appropriately respond. But it is not something that is stated to happen because we have had a long expansion and i do not see anything in the underlying strength of the economy that would lead me to be concerned about that outcome. An outcomevent of like that in the most negative of scenarios, are there other policy measures outside of Interest Rates, outside of traditional quantitative easing that you and the fed have discussed and complicated contemplated for another environment like something which we saw throughout the great recession, have you talked about anything that would be more direct to the economy . Ms. Yellen during the years in were, the economy was recovering from the great recession, and we put further policy and measures in place, we studied our policy options quite carefully. As you know, Communications Policy to affect Market Expectations about the path of Interest Rates played an importante that role. That is something we did in conjunction with asset purchases. Obviously, we lowered our overnight Interest Rate effectively 20. To zero. The ecb and others that have taken their overnight rate into negative territory, that is something that i do not contemplate that we will need to wethis but it is something could study. Of course, we have Balance Sheet policies. There might be a range of direct policies that we could use as well, but this is something we have thought about on a range of options. Sam flemming drum the financial times. Balanceask about the sheet policy you are adopting . You said you want to keep a large Balance Sheet until normalization is underway. Can you explain why you anticipate that being appropriate, what does well under nate underweight mean in terms of normalization . And what do you mean that the fed sheet might need to have a larger Balance Sheet over term . Ms. Yellen in our normalization principles which are in effect, we committee stated that eventually want to operate with a much smaller Balance Sheet that we have at present. We would reduce the size of the Balance Sheet to essentially whatever size we needed to in an Monetary Policy effective and efficient way. A lot has changed since prefinancial crisis in terms of the Financial System, and we are studying, we are engaging in a project at this time to consider what our long run operating framework should look like, so i cannot tell you exactly what size of Balance Sheet we will determine is the best to operate effectivefficient and manner. Tinyght be more than the quantity of reserves we have had. We have also said that we will, we expect to reduce the size of by Balance Sheet over time ceasing entirely reinvestments. Beyond that, we have not given Additional Guidance other than to say that the timing of reductions and reinvestment will depend on economic and financial conditions. I suppose Additional Guidance we are giving today when we say well under way, they want to see if i mentioned, there are a number of considerations the out no made further decision factors that will be relevant, one factor that was talked about is the desirability of having some scope to respond to a shock to the economy by lowering the federal funds rate. They would be nice to have a buffer in terms of having raised the federal funds rate. To a certain extent to give us some meaningful scope to respond. In mind anyny level of the funds rate, it would depart depend on the entire Economic Outlook, how robust the economy is but that is an important consideration for the committee. It means this is not something that we expect to be turning to to cease reinvestment very quickly. Fox doesbarnes at this. On financial Market Conditions, is there a problem developing in the high yield sector of the bond market, the junk bond sector question mark as you know last week, mutual fund, third and avenue 3rd avenue presumptions. Ted because of the selloff in this kind of want. Did you discuss in the meeting any risk to the Financial System, a Systemic Risk because of the conditions in the junk and market bond market . Soldions of dollars were heavily because of low rates. Did the low interest policy sow the seeds for this development . Thank you. Theyellen risk spreads and High Yield Bond Fund at have been widening since last year. Partly reflecting falling oil partlyonly partly, but and reductions in High Yield Bond Fund have been increasing in recent months. Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund unusualer a rather fund. It had concentrated positions in especially risky and illiquid bonds that it had been facing very significant redemption pressures. My understanding is the sec is in touch with 3rd avenue. You should know the sec has to addressme reforms what structural problem of liquidity mismatch in openend mutual funds. Believe thatue to financial conditions are supportive of Economic Growth. Continueeen and will to track developments in Financial Markets very carefully. We havesay that i think a far more resilient Financial System now that we had prior to the financial crisis, and highly capital banks that are well situated support corporate lending. I would also point out that many corporations during these years have reduced their Interest Payments and extended their get profiles. Profiles. We will be evaluating this carefully. We will come back again. You said earlier that extensions do not die of old age. The other half of that is that Central Banks kill them off instead. I am how worried you are about the possibility that the fed will have to turn around after hiking rates. Other Central Banks that have tried to raise rates have done just that. How damaging could that be to the feds credibility . Ms. Yellen when you say central inks often kill them, i think the usual reason that that has been true when that has been true is that Central Banks have begun to late to tighten policy. They have allowed inflation to get out of control and at that point they have had to tighten policy. Directly and very substantially and it has caused a downturn. The downturn has served to lower inflation. My for being mind the question on you, i would point out that it is because we do not want to cause a recession through that type of dynamic at some future date. That it is prudent to begin early and gradually. It is true that some Central Banks have raised rates and later turned around. Not in every case is that reflective of holocene mistake. Policy mistake area sometimes when they raised rates it has not been the wrong thing to do but conditions have changed in the way they have had to reverse policy to respond to shocks. There areenying that situations where Central Banks have moved to early too ear ly. We have considered the risk of that, we have weighed that risk in making todays decisions. I do not think we have to do it. The committee has said where watching economic developments closely and we will adjust policy in whatever way is necessary to support the attainment of our objectives. Can you explain what if anything might be different in the next few weeks or a few months for them because of this Interest Rate hike question mark rate hike . The first thing americans should realize that the feds decision today reflects our confidence in the u. S. Economy. That we believe we have seen substantial improvement in labor Market Conditions, and, while things might be uneven across of the country and different industrial sectors, we see an economy that is on a path of sustainable improvement, so and thinking about the labor prospects and their prospects Going Forward, i hope they will take this decision as one that signals the fomcs confidence that conditions will continue to strengthen and job and job market prospects will be good. It is a very small move. It will be reflected in some changes in borrowing rates, longerterm Interest Rates, loans that are linked to longerterm Interest Rates are likely to move very much. E, for example, some corporate loans are linked to the prime rate which is likely to move up with the fed funds rate and those Interest Rates will adjust. There are some consumer borrowing rates. Credit card rates that are linked to shortterm rates that might move up slightly. Very low ratesve and we have made a very small move. How concerned are you with Interest Rate risk and banks now that you have ended the zero the. 25a and began percent rate era . Is that a factor in decisions Going Forward, it is is it something you are concerned about . Ms. Yellen Interest Rate risk at banks is something we have been monitoring carefully for quite a long time. The community and smaller banking organizations that we work with, part of our supervision has been ensuring that they manage appropriately for Interest Rate risk, and the larger banking organizations that are subject to the stress test and capital planning, the scenarios that we have presented in each of the last three years, look at their ability to muchtand what would be sharper increases in interest than we are envisioning would happen. We are making sure it will sharpen increases unlike our expectations that they would be well positioned to handle it and that their capital positions are sufficient for them to whether it, so this has in very much in our mind. Saying that the Things Holding back inflation are transitory and yet every day there seems to be new impulses driveutside that could prices lower. My question is, if any years time, inflation remains where it is today, we do see that as a defeat for your theory and is that part of the reason why the language has been upgraded in the statement to say that you want to see actual progress toward your target . Ms. Yellen we have said that we will carefully monitor both actual and expected progress. I think that standard fit policy has been to look through shocks that are transitory, occasionally, there are sequences of transitory shocks. We have had some further declines in Energy Prices, and as i said previously, i do expect there is a bottom to that. I expect we will be seeing it. We analyze inflation data and conclude that clearly, transitory influences are holding down inflation, i do not want to say that we would respond to that. But if we can concluded that there were structural factors or that there were a problem with our theory or some global that we are force, simply persistently holding down inflation in a way that was not transitory and i do not want to simplistic meaning to what we would need to see to conclude that in the inflation data. Wewe concluded that, certainly would take action to make sure we adjusted policy so that we attain our 2 objective. We would need to feel that what we were saying in the data suggested a sustained departure from our 2 objective that we needed to address. There has been a lot of talk today and a lot of discussion about the Downside Risks facing globalnomy from the environment. But you say in your statement that the risks are nearly balanced so could you talk more about the upside risks that you see to the economy, and just briefly, some fed officials have been emphasizing lately the median cpis from dallas and cleveland. How much weight do you put on this measures . Ms. Yellen we look at a range that bear on the inflation outlook and the median cpi has been somewhat more stable and running close to 2 pce, but there is a systematic gap between these two measures and their objective our objective is to percent on the pce price index. There is no simple translation. We do have a pce inflation objective. The upside risks. There are upside risks to the economy. We tend to focus on the Downside Risk. It is right to do so. We want to be careful of that Downside Risk. In much healthier financial condition. Their prospects have improved. We see them buying a lot of cars. Housing has been recovering very the demographics would point to considerable upside for residential investment. My main forecast is for gradual recovery, but there is upside risk their. There. We have seen that the decline in drilling has been depressing investment spending but there is upside risk, too. The Global Economy, we tend to focus, there are many countries that are undergoing very difficult adjustments or slowing growth, especially with declining commodity prices, but even recently we have seen growth in emerging markets strengthen. It is not only Downside Risks, but we do Pay Attention to Downside Risk that the Committee Says they regard the risks overall as balanced. You have often said that the fed will be given depended but you have said in the past that you want to avoid being mechanical. Warrant ta seem to how will you avoid the perception, the Market Perception that you are falling into a pattern or becoming mechanical . Ms. Yellen we will try to avoid that. Le we have set gradual said gradual does not mean comingcal, equally timed equally sized Interest Rate changes. That is not what the committee means by it. Economy is that the will progress in a manner that is not sufficiently even, that decide to make evenly spaced tykes. We want to do what is appropriate and i recognize that is a danger. I do want to assure you that we will be debit dependent. If the outlook evolves, we will respond appropriately. I strongly doubt that it will mean equally spaced tykes and it is not the intention of the committee to follow any mechanical formula of that type. You just mentioned that it may be possible that structural factors are holding down inflation as well and the dynamic that is happening in topline inflation is happening in core as well. Wasmedian projection revised down and this is happening in other Central Banks as well. Additionally, markets seem much lower inflation in the future than centralbank models do. Within the fed, how are you adapting your models to look at new reality and what are you learning as you do that . Ms. Yellen the reason, the main reason we revised down our projection ever so slightly, it is hardly revised for core inflation is because we have seen further appreciation of the dollar that is holding down import prices that spills over into core inflation. Eye on estimation is that core inflation will pick up. There are various idiosyncratic factors that affect core inflation. For example, nonmarket price increases which are a little bit hard to understand. We have been running at a slow pace. There are factors that have been affecting inflation in medical care prices but that may change over time so there is some idiosyncratic factors. I personally do not think we are in a world where inflation is being determined in a different way than it has historically. I see import prices and Energy Headline holding down but also core. I do believe it will pick up. As we have said, is that theory do not seend we inflation is unfolding in the way the committee expect, we will make adjustments over time and policy. You have a background as an academic. Are you looking into these models to see whether or not they need to be adapted . Ms. Yellen we have many people who are in studying inflation models. Let me express some humility about them. I do not think that they are perfect. Policy is based on economic forecasts. There are theories about how the economy works that govern many aspects of economic forecasting. Whether it is Consumer Spending or residential investment or inflation, the underlying theories are not perfect, and they are subject to uncertainty. This is true in all aspects of forecasting, which is why we change our forecasts and our models, we throughout models that are persistently networking. We are always trying to develop better models. Of anot aware, i will say, different model of inflation that would be superior to the one that we employee. That we employ we have to verify inflation is moving in the manner that we expect and if it is not, we need to adjust policy accordingly. Are you concerned about the negative impact your decision could have on emerging markets, are you do you fear it could trigger imbalances abroad . Ms. Yellen we are constantly monitoring foreign economic developments, including those in emerging markets. In the Global Economy with integrated Group Product and Capital Markets that are that the fates are linked and the performance at the u. S. Economy has important spillovers into emerging markets and vice versa. We have been trying very carefully with we have made a commitment to emerging markets policymakers that we would do to communicate as clearly as we could about our policy intentions to avoid spillovers that might result from abrupt or unanticipated policy moves. I think this move has been expected and well communicated. At least i hope that it has. I do not think it is a surprise. Action takes place in the context of a u. S. Economy that is doing well, and is a source of strength to the emerging markets and other economies around the globe, and so that is there can be negative spillovers through capital flows but remember there are also positive spillovers from a strong u. S. Economy. Manyneral view is that emerging markets are in a stronger position than they. Ould have been in the 1990s for example, that they have stronger Macro Economic policies that have taken steps to strengthen their Financial Systems and are better positioned to do with this. Hand, there are vulnerabilities there and there are countries that have been badly affected by declining commodity prices, so we will monitor this very carefully but we have taken care to avoid unnecessary negative spillovers. Wage growth is not quite where you would like it to be. How much is that going to play into your thinking next year as you are trying to decide whether to raise Interest Rates more and when . Ms. Yellen my expectation is that in a strengthening labor market that we would see faster wage growth, and i believe there is whether 2 inflation objective, space for wage growth to be higher than it has been. We may be seeing some incipient signs of faster wage growth. We have seen a pickup in measures of hourly compensation, and some slight firming in recent months in average Hourly Earnings create i hesitate to this is a firm trend. We have been disappointed in the past. Wage growth there are many factors that affect it, it is not definitive in any sense in determining our policy, but it does have a bearing on the inflation outlook. It also has a bearing on assessing how much slack there and ithe labor market, think a number of my colleagues looking at the slow pace of wage that there have seen estimates of the longer run normal Unemployment Rate have come down and i think that is one of the factors that is has prompted those adjustments. Affect views about how much slack there is in the labor market and the inflation outlook. Thank you. Coming up at cspan, we look at the spending bill. After that, the House Rules Committee debates the bill. Journal, billgton danvers looks at the new terror Warning System and how it differs from previous systems that want included colorcoded threat levels. After that, the virginia congressman discusses newly unveiled 1. 1 trillion budget that extendsasure tax provisions set to expire at the end of this year. Plus, your phone calls and tweets. What you did journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Thursday, the treasury secretary joins the u. S. Ambassador as he chairs a noted Nation Security Council Meeting on combating isis financing. The meeting includes finance ministers from the 15 members of the council. Live coverage at 3 00 p. M. On cspan3. The reagan narrative was there with a lightweight actor h premature orange hair which is what gerald ford said about him in 1976. Even with all the success of the administration, although historians have consistently rated him a low i believe out of ideological bias. Night, a historian discusses his book looking at Ronald Reagans life after leaving the white house and the way he has been remembered since his death. I like to write about him because i grew up in the 80s. Facts, iite about the dont make things up. I dont believe anyone else makes any things up. I think this is with repositioning peoples thinking about Ronald Reagan so that it was the picture that emerges was of a very serious, deep thinking, solicitous man. On the night at 8 00 eastern on q a. Next, orrin hatch on the extension of the expiring tax provisions. He indicated for the agreement citing the benefits of the new tax policy for businesses and individuals. Pro tempore. Mr. Hatch i ask that the quorum call be dis missed. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Hatch i also ask that i be permitted to complete two sets of remarks here. Last night after months of discussion and several weeks of intense negotiations bipartisan leaders from both the house and senate reached an agreement on both the substance and a procedural path forward for legislation that will provide millions of American Families and businesses with muchneeded tax relief and set the stage for comprehensive tax reform in the future. The bill which were calling the protecting americans from tax hikes, or path, act of 2015 would make a number of temporary tax provisions permanent, putting an end to the repeated tax extenders exercise that has plagued congress for decades and giving certain giving greater certainty to u. S. Taxpayers across the board. There are no two ways about it, mr. President , this is an historic bill that is actually the latest in a long line of historic bills weve considered in the senate this year, and it has quite a bit in common with some of the other efforts weve tackled in 2015. For example, for many years now much of what weve done in congress has been dictated by the next deadline, cliff, or crisis around the corner. And more often than not the tendency has been to simply kick every can down the road and then give speeches about why we shouldnt do that any more. This year the senate has worked to end the practice of governing by crisis. Among other things, weve passed Bipartisan Legislation to repeal and replace the medicare Sustainable Growth rate, or s. G. R. , formula and to provide a longterm funding for highway and infrastructure projects. Both of these issues had plagued congress for decades with permanent or longterm fixes seemingly always out of reach. Regularly demonstrating that congress is too divided and too ineffective to reach any meaningful solutions. The same can be said for tax extenders which has been an almost yearly exercise in relative futility characterized by partisan bickering as the deadline approaches deadlines approach with shortterm extensions enacted at the last minute, leaving no one, certainly not american taxpayers, feeling better in the end. Yet with the path act, as with the s. G. R. And highway funding bills, weve been able to reach a bipartisan agreement that would effectively end this cycle. Now, mr. President , we have to pass it. According to the joint committee on taxation, 52 separate tax provisions, what we typically refer to as extenders, expired at the end of 2014. Thats 52 separate provisions that on a relatively frequent basis faced expiration and requires to reach agreements on further extensions. Our bill would reduce that number down to 33 provisions, still far too many but a significant relief in terms of ongoing extenders pressure. Most importantly, the bill makes permanent many of the most consequential extenders provisions, the ones that tend to drive the crisis and cliff mentality when it comes to tax extenders, further relieving the pressure and allowing congress to function more effectively by adding more permanence to the tax code, we will allow families and businesses to better plan for the future. In addition, we will adjust the tax and revenue baseline to make conditions vastly more favorable for comprehensive tax reform in the future, a major priority for members of both parties. Most importantly, passing this legislation and making more tax policies permanent will provide significant tax relief for Hardworking Taxpayers in every walk of american life, from the middle class to middleclass families to the working poor it will do the same for job creators throughout our country, resulting in a healthier u. S. Economy, increased growth and more american jobs. Put simply, mr. President , more permanence in the tax code will be a good thing for our country, and the path act will provide just the kind of permanence we need. So lets take a few minutes to look at some of the key provisions of this legislation. Ill start by talking about some of the biggest priorities that my friends on the other side of the aisle brought into the recent negotiations. As we all remember, president obamas socalled stimulus included provisions that made some of the biggest refundable tax credits in the tax code even more refundable, including the earnedincome tax credit, or eitc, and the Child Tax Credit, or c. T. C. This increased credits which when boiled down are essentially additional Cash Payments made directly from the government to an individual filing a tax return, where originally designed to be temporary and had to be extended a number of times over the years. Going into these negotiations, democrats essentially demanded that the enhancements to eitc and c. T. C. Along with a partially refundable tax credit that was also in the stimulus be made permanent. As you might expect, republicans were reluctant to go down that road not because we dont want to help families who benefit from these credits, but because we know that refundable credits are particularly susceptible to error, fraud, and overpayment. These types of improper payments are well documented, particularly with regard to the eitc, where every year we lose tens of billions of dollars to either deception or bureaucratic mistakes. However, we opted to make accept making these credits permanent because doing so allowed the negotiations to move forward, but we did demand, and the democrats agreed, to include significant provisions to improve the Program Integrity with regard to these credits in order to reduce improper payments Going Forward. In fact, if enacted, the Program Integrity provisions in this bill will be the most robust improvements to address waste, fraud, and abuse in the tax code in nearly 20 years. So essentially this compromise in refundable credits was the very definition of a winwin situation. Particularly whenne when you cor the other provisions have been included in this legislation as a result. And we never did this really before. We all knew that there was fraud. With this bill, well be able to secure key incentives for Economic Growth. For example, the bill makes permanent section 179, Small Business expensing, which allows smalSmall Businesses, the drivef american job creation, to grow and invest with more Immediate Tax benefits. This has been a top priority for many members of congress, not to mention virtually everyone in the business community. The path act will also improve and make permanent the research and Development Tax credit, a vital tax provision for industries and businesses that thrive in areas of research, areas where the u. S. Continues to lead the world. And this has been something ive fought for every year, year after year after year. And weve always gotten it but its never really worked as well as it should because there was no permanence to it. Now were going to have a permanent. Thats a great, great step forward. Our bill also gives more companies greater incentives to invest in assets that will help their businesses grow and expand. This, too, has been a longtime priority for the business comiewndz and many members of Congress Business community and many members of congress. And while we were not able to make it permanent, we did improve and extend this important tax incentive. The bill will also make america more competitive on the world stannel. It permanently extends the active financing exception, or afe, from subpartf income and provides a fiveyear extension for the controlled foreign corporation, c. F. C. , lookthrew lookthrough provision. This gives companies a greater ability to compete internationally. This is important if, like me, you want to see u. S. Companies remain u. S. Companies. In addition to these Top Priorities for businesses and job creators in the u. S. , the path act would provide significant tax relief for families. The bill makes permanent the deduction for state and local sales taxes. It makes permanent the lowincome military housing credit and the employer wrangle credit for active employer wage credit for active military employees. And it includes an expansion of eligibility for work opportunity tax credits. All of these provisions benefit American Families in various regions under a number of different circumstances. Our legislation will ensure that millions of americans who benefit from these tax provisions will be able to rely on and plan around them well into the future. Not a bad result, if you ask me. Im not done yet, mr. President. In addition to the many benefits well provide to families ans businesses, the path act would also give significant tax relief to charities. It would make sure that charitable distributions from iras remain taxfree on a permanent basis, and the charitable distributions for contributions of food inventory would also be made permanent under the bill, as would a provision that incentivizes S Corporations to make charitable contributions of property. Im really only going through the highlights. I havent gotten to the obamacare provisions yet. As we negotiated this legislation, the most difficult part was probably dealing with the rumor mill, which i suppose was not unexpected. Most of the really outrageous rumors we heard during this process dealt with provisions of the socalled Affordable Care act. People were claiming that Senate Republicans had agreed to bail out the obamacare Risk Corridor Program in order to get a deal. We heard that there was an agreement to provide tax relief to prop up the failing obamacare exchanges. None of these rumors were true, of course. This exercise in tax permanence was never going to be used to solidify obamacare and republicans never for a second considered allowing that to happen. However, because Many Democrats have begun to recognize some of the more problematic elements of the president s health law, we agreed on the need to suspend one of the more harmful taxes imposed under obamacare. The bill includes a twoyear moratorium on the med device tax medical device tax that has drawn the ire of republicans and democrats alike. This moratorium is important, mr. President , not only because it demonstrates the bipartisan opposition to the tax but because it will help patients and consumers throughout the country who have seen their Health Care Costs go up because of the medical device tax. I have been a particular advocate to get rid of that lousy tax, and were ultimately going to get rid of it. But at least were rid of it for the next two years. Well see what happens in those next two years. This legislation provides roughly 650 billion in tax relief over the next ten years for families, job creators, and others. That is real money that will help millions of people and provide real growth to our economy. That, mr. President , is the real value of greater permanence in our tax code and is the biggest reason we need to pass this legislation. Now, dont get me wrong. I dont believe this is a perfect bill, by any means. It is not even close to perfect. As ive grown fond of saying, if we were living in the United States of orrin hatch, this legislation would look a lot different. Though it pains me to admit it sometimes, thats not where we live. Here in the real world, any undertaking wornl thest i worths going to require compromise. I know i say that a lot. This is a good bill, period. Anyone, if they are so inclined, would cling to the parts they dont like and make excuses to vote no. But taken as a whole, both parties should be able to support the overall package weve put together and without question every one of us should welcome the positive impact this bill will have on our economy and future legislative efforts here in the congress. So i urge all of my colleagues to support the path act and provide real tax relief at this critical time. Now, before i close, mr. President , i just have to note that a lot of work has gone theinto this legislation. Every provision of this bill has had a number of champions in congress who have worked for years to preserve and enhance these provisions in the hopes of eventually making them permanent. I want to acknowledge some of those efforts here today, particularly those of my colleagues on the Senate Finance committee. For example, the deduction for state and local sales taxes, which this bill makes permanent, has had a number of champions on both sides of the aisle. In our committee, senators enzi, cornyn, and heller have all made this a priority and our legislation will ensure that their work pays off. Another one of the more significant tax provisions this bill would make permanent is the research and Development Tax credit. That has been a top priority of mine for many, many years, and senators cornyn, crapo, and roberts have also played leading roles in this effort over the years. Section 179, Small Business expensing, will also be made permanent under this bill, and senators toomey, roberts, thune, portman, and isaac san have all been leaders on this for many years. The bill would also make permanent the accelerated 15year depreciation for restaurants and retail, a provision that senators burr, cornyn, crapo, heller, isakson, roberts, and portman have all worked long and hard to keep in place. Of course, i could add my name to every one of these. In addition, senator enzi has been a big supporter of making the active financing exception, or a. F. E. , permanent. Our bill once again accomplishes this goal. Senator roberts has been a strong supporter of the S Corporation basis adjustment for charitable contributions and the charitable deduction for food inventory contributions, both of which will make permanent by passing this bill. Senator thune has also been a leader with regard to the food inventory deduction, and hes also worked to enshiewsh that charitable enshould you are that charity ensure that charitable deductions from iras recent taxfree remain taxfree, another permanent provision in the path act. Senator heller has championed the special rules for Real Property contributions made for conservation purposes, yet another item that our bill makes permanent. The deduction for teacher classroom expenses is also made permanent in this bill. Senators burr senator burr has been a strong supporter of that provision and deserves a lot of credit for it. The path act will make the lowincome housing tax credit permanent something that senator crapo has worked on for sometime. Senator portman, all of these people have been really active members on the republican side. Senator portman has worked to extend the work opportunity tax credit and expand it to include the longterm unemployed. His proposed modification is included in our bill, as is an unprecedented fiveyear extension for this credit. We appreciate your work on this, senator portman, as we have seen you work so hard on so many of these issues. Were grateful for you, and im really grateful to have all these people on my committee. Of course, this was not an exhaustive list, mr. President. For right now, im focusing mainly on temporary provisions that will make permanent by passing the path act. If i Start Talking about my colleagues various colleagues efforts on the shorterterm extensions in the bill, we would be here all day. I do want to give credit on the obamacare provisions. For years opposition to the misguided medical device tax and thats the most charitable description of that tax youll ever hear from me has been gainingaining momentum. Throughout that time, the senators have worked hard to push for a repeal. As i noted earlier, our bill would take a significant step inured this effort by step forward in this effort by imposing a twoyear moratorium on this tax. I havent mentioned my colleagues on the other side, but certainly Amy Klobuchar has stood right with me in getting rid of that tax. Its only for two years, but were going to ultimately get rid of it completely. And weve got to do that. As you can see and let me just say, it is a pleasure for me to work with senator wyden, the rangthe Ranking Member. Hes worked with us on many of these issues. And so have others on the democrat side of the aisle. But the leadership on many of these issues has come from many of these people ive mentioned. I just want to make sure that they that people understand this who are listening. But as you can see, mr. President , the path act reflects the efforts and priorities of many members of the senate, not just members of the finance committee but members on both sides on some of these very important issues, as they would have to be. I thank my democratic friends for helping. As the debate on this important bill begins in earnest, i a i am particularly grateful for the work my colleagues on the finance committee have put in to advance the interests of their constituents. Each of our members has put a huge stamp on this legislation, and with a little luck that a handful more votes, their work will be permanently enshrined in the tax code. Thats no small achievement, after all these years of trying to make some of these provisions permanent. There are, of course, others who have also worked hard on various parts of this bill. Virtually every senator, or at the very least, every senators constituents has highpriority items included in this bill. Thats a big reason why it is important that we get this done for the American People. Again, im happy to bring together both democrats and republicans on this important set of tax changes that really is on the next washington journal, a look at the next terrorist Warning System. After that, in virginia congressman discusses newly unveiled 1. 1 trillion budget extends a measure that tax provisions had to expire at the end of this year. And come your phone calls tweets. Washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. On cspan. House Speaker Paul Ryan brief reporters on it. At 1 trillion spending and tax bill following a jiffy conference meeting. This week with finish to bipartisan agreements. Is a big win for manufacturers on a foreign policy. Were increasing military spending. Were tightening security requirements on the visa waiver program. Are reauthorizing the benefits for 9 11 First Responders in a very fiscally responsible way. Where stopping the irs from suppressing civic but as a patient. Were maintaining all about prolife protections and remaking cuts to the fpa programming. In can addition to all of that, we care and in washingtons days of extending tax policies one year at a time. I cannot tell you how many times i have visited with Small Businesses and farmers which only give me some certainty in the tax code and i can go create jobs. You finally delivering on one of those tax promises via been trying to four years to get. Certainty the tax go to be great more jobs. I think this is one of the biggest steps for the rewrite of our tax code with maybe many aars and will help us start tech reform agenda. Lastly, i inherited this process. Let me be the first to say, i dont think this is the way government should work. This is not how appropriations should work. So we played the cards that we were dealt with as best we possibly could and inheriting a process we need to restore to regular order. We listened to our members and let our committees take the lead and im pleased we have accomplished so many things for the American People. And i look forward to in 2016 just like we have in the last six weeks Getting Congress back to what we call regular order. That is what 2016 is about. Steering this battleship working the way the peoples house should work the way it was intended. Reporter Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi expressed concern about the export ban in the omnibus. Do you feel that putting it on the omnibus, you dont need democrat assistance . The speaker in divided government you dont get everything you want. Republicans and democrats didnt get what we wanted. This is a bipartisan compromise and i understand some people dont like some of the aspects of this but that is the compromise that we have and we will have bipartisan votes on both of these bills. Reporter you dont anticipate reopening any of these issues . The speaker no. Reporter you stepped up your outreach in a number of ways especially on the omnibus bill. What does a successful vote look like for you. Is it 100 votes . The speaker the way i look at this is, i inherited a process at the end of the process and this is a process i do not want to see congress repeat. Thats why by the way by having the numbers that we have, meaning not having a sequester, i think that puts us in a much better position to have a much more full appropriation process instead of doing bills one at a time. We shouldnt be piling this stuff up at the end of the year. I dont think thats the way we should govern and this agreement gets us that much toward getting closer to regular order. As far as the numbers, thats up to congress. Reporter members talked about you set getting an agreement from reid. The speaker we have discussed this. We want to restore regular order and make sure we have a situation where the house passes an appropriations bill. Brings up an appropriations bill. Senator reid blocked appropriation bills last year because of sequester issues. The reason he blocked them is now gone. He wants to get us back to regular order. He wants to get us back to regular order and has impressed upon me his goal to not block bills coming up to the senate. Now whether the filibuster bill getting off the floor because of some rider, i cant speak to that. And the minority will preserve a right. Senator reid has impressed upon his desire to get the appropriations process functioning again and allow appropriation bills to come up again. Reporter can you explain how the i. R. S. Funding level was negotiated given there was a permanent extender bill was passed. The speaker i have been on the ways and Means Committee for 15 years and been trying to get this tax policy in place. So im excited about this huge win for families, for job creators, for certainty for our economy. This is going to help us grow our economy. With respect to the i. R. S. , i have to tell you whether it was the oversight that Jason Chaffetz and his committee has done and the ways and Means Committee under the leadership of peter roskham, the i. R. S. Meddles into the Political Affairs of people and we are not going to let them turn into a political weapon again and we have these critical riders dealing with the i. R. S. So people can exercise their First Amendment freedoms without fear of the i. R. S. Coming down on them. As far as customer service, we want to make sure the i. R. S. Has what they need. Reporter given the defections of your own members are you confident there will be no shutdown. The speaker i have no reason to believe we are going to have a shutdown. This is the result of a bipartisan, bicameral compromise and everyone can point to a reason to be in favor of both of these bills. We have a threeday rule. I told the members at the beginning of the week we werent going to waive the threeday rule. So that means because of the way the bills were filed we will be considering the tax bill on thursday and the omnibus on friday. Friday is friday. Reporter ultimately there is nothing on Syrian Refugees. Will congress finish its work and leave . The speaker the majority leader of the senate has given us a commitment they will address this issue early in 2016. The bill we sent over there, we have a commitment from the senate they will bring it up and they will have a full debate on refugees. Thats the way regular order works by the way. You pass the bill from the house and bring one up in the senate and the senate has committed to address it in regular order. Reporter there are a number of bipartisan things you guys were asking for, the Syrian Refugees included, things that havent received democratic support. Was there enough in these negotiations . The speaker we played our cards the best we could, given the situation we inherited and im very proud of what we have been able to achieve. Ending the 40year ban on oil exports, do you know what it does for infrastructure . Its huge. Permanent policy that is good for american policy and good for jobs. I think thats very, very good. The certainty in the tax code, i cant tell you how many farmers and manufacturers i have talked to who said, you passed an extender on december 11 that goes away on december 31, how can i make decisions with that kind of tax policy coming through washington. Finally, we are providing the certainty to the taxpayers that they need so they can go out and plan and invest and create jobs. We have important riders in this legislation. We are exercising the power of the purse. Are we doing it as much as we want to . No, but thats what you get in divided government. Reporter how is it important that republicans vote on this omnibus . The speaker our members realize the bigger the vote we provide, the more leverage we give ourselves. Thank you very much. To headline says it all. The author of that piece is a senior staff writer the hill. This spending bill, how did it come together . The new speaker delegated the responsibility. Negotiating with his democratic counterparts for weeks and weeks. Starting with leading these listening sessions, trying to get buy in very early from the rank and file membership. Two weeks ago when they had pored through a number of writers and whittled that list down, rogers and the democratic counterpart kicked it up to the leadership level where it was expected that paul ryan and the other congressional leaders would really close the deal. It took a little bit longer than we expected but it does look like we are going to get it done by friday. At the speakers News Conference meeting you ask the question and tweeted that out. You ask the speaker about what a successful vote looks like. He will not say as voters will vote how they want to about. How are you what are you hearing about the gop conference and how they will vote and what are you hearing about democrats . We are hearing a little bit of opposition from nancy and some of the other democrats coming out of their meeting this morning. They are concerned about one provision specifically. The provision that lifts the 40 year ban on crude exports. Another provision they had would be in the package was a provision helping puerto rico as it deals with its debt crisis. So we are hearing some grumbling from both sides, but it has not been as pronounced as perhaps previous spending packages, lastminute spending packages, at least on the republican side as i mentioned before, paul ryan has been reaching out to members starting from the moment he took the speakers gavel, trying to incorporate members ideas, trying to get buy in from the rankandfile. I asked him what a success will successful vote would look like. He would not say specifically numbers but some lawmakers are saying that they could get over 100 votes for the omnibus spending bill which would be better than some past bills. One lawmaker predicted they get a majority of the majority which would be roughly 124 votes. That would be a very strong vote for speaker ryan. The house took up a shortterm measure showing they could finish this work on the socalled omnibus, they will vote on friday and thursday they are taking up this package of expiring tax cuts. Tell a bit more about what is in that bill. Speaker ryan pointed to the tax extenders package as a big win for republicans. This would extend a number of tax breaks for businesses, corporations, individuals, even farmers. In fact, make many of those tax breaks permanent. I think the total would be roughly 650 billion over 10 years. That is a significant amount of change, so republicans are very happy about this package. Most of them probably will support it in the house. Less support i think from democrats who have complained as recently as this morning that these tax breaks tend to favor corporations more than they favor workingclass families. Given that paul ryan has used his interview yesterday and his News Conference today with reporters to talk about what is ahead in 2016 and returning to regular order, how important is the victory on this tax package and the omnibus spending bill for what is ahead in 2016 . Paul ryan many other leaders in the capital see this bipartisan deal as a opportunity to hit the reset button. On an appropriations process that had broken down in the past. If you remember, harry reid had begun filibustering republican bills that had been sent over to the senate from the house. Over concerns about sequester levels. He wanted to see those levels lifted, and so what ryan said today was he has been holding repeated talks with harry reid over these past few days. They are on the same page in a very general sense. They want to get back to regular order. I think with the twoyear budget deal in place that Speaker John Boehner struck with president obama and other negotiators, that set up this vote on the spending bill this week, that really has allowed congress to pivot into 2016 and get back to a more normal appropriations process. You can follow his reporting on twitter. Thanks for joining us. On the next washington journal, build dampers looks at a new terror Warning System and i would different from previous systems. After that, or junior congressman dave brat discusses the new budget deal and a measure that extends tax provisions set to expire at the end of this year. Plus, your phone calls Facebook Comments and tweets. Cspan takes you on the road to the white house and into the classroom. This year, our student cam documentary contest ask students to tell us what issues they want to hear from the president ial candidates. Wrote to thes white house coverage and get all the details about our student hand contest at cspan. Org. The House Rules Committee met to debate the 1. 1 trillion spending bill and expiring tax provisions. The tax provisions had the for thursday. The spending bill will be considered in the house on friday. This is just over four hours. Over four hours. Thank you for joining us today. We will be considering the omnibus bill. While this bill is described as not being perfect, it is a deal. Described as not being perfect, it is a deal. The primary people responsible for it are sitting at the table. They spent a lot of time with their staffs, not only trying to Work Together, but find compromise and ideas that would be good for this country, the taxpayer, and i believe ultimately to make this place a better place. It provides for responsible funding for the federal government, increases transparency and accountability, and puts a stop to executive overreach that stuns our Economic Growth. The bill contains important measures that continue to chip away at the most harmful aspects o liftsacare, and als the ban on crude exports. Billimportantly, the ensures that our troops are 132. 4unded to the tune of billion dollars, more than one million activeduty troops, a levin billion dollars in new equipment procurement that will ensure that they are capable of taking on the fight against isis , jihadists, and other enemies who threaten our homeland. The men and women of the united needed thetary members of this body to come to their aid, and the members of this body need to know that you stepped up to make that happen to make sure we did not fight about supporting the members of the United States military and their families. I want to personally thank you. With us to testify today is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, hal rogers and his partner from new york. Also, we have today on the second panel, the new chairman of the ways and Means Committee, kevin brady, and send 11 of levin. N sandy also we will have an Expert Witness on many of the intricate provisions that may be necessary to be available to discuss this committee on the tax provisions. So, before we go further, i want to yield to the Ranking Member from massachusetts. I just want to welcome you both here and thank you for withg before us, obviously what is being described as a deal. In a perfect world, we would like this process it to be different. I think you both agree with that where every individual appropriations bill would be considered on its own merits because im sure there are things in here that we all know are in here for some time. Nevertheless, we need to keep his government running and we need to do the peoples business, and so i welcome you here and look for to your testimony. Thank you. Prayedk you very much the gentleman and all the members of this panel know that work started a long time ago. The Appropriations Committee has for a long time produced not only bills, but been to this committee to talk about their ideas, get feedback from i believe that that is much of what you took to the table to cut the deal on, so much of this has been vetted, much of this has been understood, but i will completely agree with the gentleman from massachusetts, ive had numerous conversations , a member from virginia about his desire and really insistence to want to see this body including not only us, but the United States senate, engage in regular order, where we take these appropriations when they come through committee, debate them, measure and scratch and call to get whatever we get here, and then have you go and gauge the United States senate. That is not always available to us, but many people, including others, friends on the democratic side, have been pushing that, so that is a goal that we always want to subscribe to, but we also indepth somewhere where we can Work Together as opposed to yelling and screaming at each other and coming to know product theyre in, so we are delighted that you are here, mr. Chairman, as always, both of you know that anything you have in writing e to help, so feel fre leave it behind. The gentleman is recognized. Forhank you mr. Chairman, the numbers of your committee who worked long and hard. I am pleased to be here to speak on behalf of the fiscal year 2016 omnibus appropriations bill. The legislation that will fund the government for the rest of his go year 2016. The rest of fiscal year 2016. We are here with an omnibus against all of our desires because the senate simply refused to take up any of these Appropriations Bills sent to them. Propelledly, we were year and package bill. It is not the way to do business. It is not the way the Founding Fathers wanted us to do business, yet we are here. Senate,ther body, the would allow these appropriations , all 12 of them, to come before ,he senate body and be debated we can do separate 12 bills the way it should be. Nevertheless, we are stuck your with this huge omnibus bill. This measure will the attached as an amendment to the military construction and veterans. Ffairs appropriations bill it abides by the terms of the bipartisan budget agreement of 2015. Inprovides a total of 1. 1493 dollars for the operations of the entire federal government. This funding meets the 548 billion defense, and 418 billion nondefense base budget caps. This package you have before you includes full year appropriations legislation for each of the 12 Appropriations Bills. Ive also submitted, mr. Chairman, a technical correction for consideration. The amendment would fix technical and drafting errors at Division Zero of the omnibus bill. Main purpose is to ensure the scoring of the appropriations divisions and the authorizing and tax provisions are kept separate as intended. Mr. Chairman, National Security is a top priority with this legislation. The measure provides 573 billion for the department of defense, including 59 billion for global war on terror and overseas Contingency Operations funding to support our troops in the field. Isis, and our enemies around the growth globe, to alliesipped and trained come and to counter russian aggression. It also protects against harmful cuts that would gut article at a readiness and provide support for our veterans and military personnel. The bill strengthens Homeland Security, targeting funds towards broader security and Law Enforcement. Otherll supports important parties like funding for the National Institutes of health and center for Disease Control, Agricultural Research and infrastructure. The bill also finds ways to save taxpayer dollars, cutting wasteful or unnecessary programs and stops harmful white house overreach. Epainstance, we have held to its lowest funding level since 2008 and saved 1. 7 billion that the president proposed to spin on the irs. Within the health and Human Services bill alone, we eliminate 17 wasteful and duplicative forms. The legislation provides note new funding for obamacare, prevents a taxpayer bail out. It also includes several policy provisions that will help rein overreach, stopped onerous regulations, and help grow the economy. There is no funding for new or expanded epa regory programs. The bill blocks the administration from foisting new fees on the ranching, aviation, and oil and gas industries. The bill stops oshas antibusiness end run around the rulemaking process, making the system more transparent to the public. To increase account ability, the bill will help halt improper behavior at federal agencies, such as prohibiting the irs from targeting roots for scrutiny based on their political beliefs, from determining the tax exempt status of an organization, and from holding inappropriate conferences. The bill also preserves the sanctity of life, maintaining all existing prolife holocene and funding provisions from previous appropriation bills, adding a new provision prohibiting genetic editing and by 7 . Pending for as you know, there are other provisions. It extends the 9 11 health and , the 9 11 act,t if you will, includes that these are waiver improvement and terrorists prevention act, authorization act, and includes legislation to finally lift the 40 year ban on crude oil exports, which will have a dramatic effect on our energy industry. An in to the year omnibus is not the preferred weight to do business, as i said. It is always better to complete individual bills in a timely fashion. This bill will allow congress to duty,l its Constitutional Fund the federal government, and avoid a shutdown. The Ranking Member of the , chairse, my workmate my desire to return heres my desire to return to regular order to year so we can hopefully avoid another omnibus like this. So i want to thank her for her hard work bringing this bill before you. I hope we can pass it in short order, send it on to the president and senate for their quick approval as well. Will help moven our country in the right fiscal direction as we embark on a new year under regular order. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. I think you should take solace in knowing that at least your conference expected you to come up with a deal, taking the things i had been done during the year, and i think you should be patted on the back also. Thank you to you for a job well done. You are now recognize. Thank you, mr. Chairman. It is always a pleasure to be here with my chairman, mr. Rogers, to finally be concluding this years appropriations process. It hasnt been an easy year. I am disappointed that the majority chose to attach a repeal of the oil export and to this omnibus spending bill. For many of us, it leaves a sour taste about this package, and i regret the decision to make such a major policy change at the last minute on a mustpass bill. We have been proceeding under the notion that the omnibus bill past the house. The inclusion of this provision makes supporting this bill from some members on my side of the aisle very difficult. I am pleased, however, that the final agreement drops more than 150 riders, many of which would have caused a white house veto. Womens health, labor protections, Consumer Financial protections, the clean air act, and the clean water act, none of these provisions belonged on our bill, and i am very relieved that they are gone. I was disappointed that we were 19yearoldverse a prohibition on federal funding for the research of gun violence. It is a writer that i believe should have been removed years ago. A former colleague also announced that he regretted that it was still on the bill, even though he was the author of that bill 20 years ago. Enacted inagreement november provided additional funding allowing us to make critical investments reflecting them a credit values. The agreement allows for notable increases to the National Institutes of health, the head start program, energy research, Infrastructure Investment through the army corps of hiring,s, police nutrition funding, and many more important priorities. To prevento able deep cuts to the Environmental Protection agency and other agencies frequently targeted by some in the house majority. Somemnibus also carries tax matters, including the tax provision, solar and wind credits. Also of great importance to me, the omnibus package carries the 9 11 health and compensation fund. I appreciate the efforts of all those involved to make sure that this legislation was included. Not all priorities however work addressed. I regret that we were unable to reach bipartisan agreement on the legislation to address the bankruptcy crisis facing puerto rico. It remains a priority to me, and i hope that we can continue all efforts to reach an agreement as soon as possible. In closing, i would have to call this package a mixed bag. It represents some good bipartisan compromises, drops the most controversial provisions, and most importantly, funds the government. Colleagueswill will review the details and make their own judgments, and i also want to thank thehairman. It has always been a pleasure to work with you, and i do hope that in the next session that we will have some regular order and have our 12 probations bills considered independently. Thank you, mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here before you. Thank you very much. I am going to go out of order move my time to that to the gentleman from texas to speak about an issue that is very important to him, and i want to reserve my time for him. The gentleman is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank you for letting me move out of order on this. Thank both of you for being here and for your work on this bill. Mr. Chairman, i noted with some interest this morning, Early Morning hours, the politico pro report that said the builder of the countries dams and levees got a 10 boost in this budget this year, the army corps of engineers, whose budget is an annual tugofwar between congress and the administration, budget to 6 billion. That was one to 3 billion more than the administration requested. I know it could not have been part of this exercise that we have in front of us, but i wanted to make you aware of a situation that has occurred in north texas over the past several days. Concern about the largest earth and dam west of the mississippi river, which is on the own fork of the trinity pounds a body of water called Lake Lewisville. The Lake Lewisville takes up a land areaion of the in the 26th district that i represent. Arestream from this dam about half a million residents who would be significantly, immediately, adversely affected if there were indeed a problem with this dam that was catastrophic in nature. Now, sunday morning on the front page of the dallas morning news, an article about the dam in trouble. And will make it available to your staff, and will provide a copy for the record. Notnt to stress that i am in complete agreement with the tone of the article, but as you well know, it is difficult to on ring a bell. Ring a bell. In contact with the core of engineers and stay in rigor contact with the corps of engineers in the district because i stay in regular contact with the corps of that comprisesse a big part of what the corps of engineers does in north texas. That their me ongoing assessments and studies , no immediate ranger danger, but we still had a record in lewisville lake. We had so much rain that we had a Tropical Storm that came up through the area, and the spillway was overtopped at lewisville lake, and the highest level ever recorded in the 60 years of the lakes existence was in fact recorded last may. There are two areas of concern, one is seepage that occurs below the dam. That is being monitored. When we had the extreme wet weather in may and june, then again around thanksgiving, corps of engineers it was out there on a 24hour basis monitoring what is happening in this area of seepage. There apparently was concerned for eight sand boil in late may of this year, it was controlled ofplacing concentric circles sandbags around it until it rose to eight level where the pressure equalized and it was no longer flowing. The concern is that eight sand boil that did not occur. During thisoncern very heavy rain event we had in may and june of this year. Another area, and i understand that i am not allowed to show you a colorful poster that i had prepared to show a large escarpment on the lake side of the dam where there is a road across the surface of the dam, where the road has been undermined and you can know longer drive to the into the dam because this thing has been undermined. This bill way with the corps of engineers in june when the water was spilling over. Thetime between then and august recess, the escarpment opened and widened, not affecting the water in the lake, but it is very dramatic in its appearance, and obvously needs to be fixed. It has been there for six months. I am told that they have a contract and they will get to work on it right after the first of the year, weather permitting, but again, mr. Chairman, overall this to underscore that the corps of engineers got 10 more money than they asked for. Weve got a real problem in north texas. I could lose a leg in my district, and that would be a great loss eight lake in my district, and that would be a great loss. The people downstream would be significantly and adversely effected. I asked before these moneys are obligated or spent if we could perhaps pay some attention to what is going on in the largest earth and dam west of the mississippi, 60 years of age. I had the detail on the appropriations for the last 15 years. Its not like we have not put money into this project good we have put 3 million or 4 million every year that i have been in congress, going back to 2003. This year in this bill before is, a little over 4 million, down a little bit from last year. I dont know why it would be down when we have these new problems, but again, all i would ask is that whatever flexibility we have within the appropriations process, and i know that these things seem like they are written in stone by the time they get to us at the rules committee, but we have all seen things change between here and the floor, and if there is any opportunity for change or reprogramming as this fiscal year moves forward, i would urge some attention be paid to this, thinke it is i dont the immediacy of the newspaper article was fair, but at the same time, this is a problem needs to be fixed. This is one of those things that people look at us and say, why dont you fix that . That is one of the sings it should be taken care of. So i do want to leave a copy of the newspaper article with you. I also have a detailed itemization of the appropriations done, and ask your consideration as we go through this fiscal year if there are Funds Available that they be made available to the corps of engineers, specifically for the Lake Lewisville dam project to relieve the damage that has occurred with the flooding this past year. We are in an el nino year, so who knows what may happen in the future. I am certainly interested in your response to that. Thank you, mr. Burgess. I had a summer problem in my district a dozen years ago. It was very dangerous. The corps of engineers has been able to fix it. This omnibus places a high priority on dam safety funding. It includes all funding in the byget that was requested this 24. 2 million to continue necessary studies at dams across the country, including lewisville. Additionally, the bill includes 310 million for Flood Control construction. The corps of engineers gets to make those specific allocations. We dont tell them how to do their job. We did include report language telling them to give priority to various factors, such as the severity of risk of flooding or catastrophic collapse. If there is work that needs to be done at the lewisville then it can be done in fiscal year 2016, the omnibus gives the corps of engineers sufficient funding to do that. They could also potentially asked for a reprogramming transfer as it can deal with any federal program, but it would have to go to the relevant reprogramming process. If there is anything we can do to help the gentleman in banking his concerns in making his concerns to the attention of the corps of engineers set up a meeting, any way we could assist, we are pleased to help. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I do want to suggest that the modification study is ongoing. Ofy are to have the result that in 2017, and look forward to having the work done in 2020. I would just ask if there is any way to convince that timeline. This is something that has gotten a lot of peoples attention because it is on the front page of the paper. The paper may have overplayed the subject of little bit, but i dont think you can be dismissive when you have got this much at stake. Dam. A 60yearold earthen it will require maintenance for the remainder of the lifespan, myt ever it may be, and understanding is that for every dollar invested, it does return nine dollars and citizens in economic value over the years that it is participated in Flood Control. So it has been a significant project in north texas. 9. 32 in returned economic value over the years that it has been to is a painted in Flood Control packets so it has been a significant project in north texas. Feeler thing i do obligated to bring up, and i know there was some discussion about including in the omnibus all the language similar to bill that was passed by the house of representatives right at the end of november, first of december, in response to the concerns about replacement or resettlement of Syrian Refugees. Been lefthat it has omnibus. E i will just tell you that many people where i live, and i am sure i am not unique, other parts of the country saw all of these young men streaming across whatrn europe, wondering in the world is going on, and the next thing you know we had a shoot out in paris. As a consequence, Congress Passed that bill in the latter part of november, first part of december, as for the big boat in the house, i understood it was a vetoproof majority, and i would in ouren language appropriations bill, because people see this happening and they are asking themselves why the congress is not understanding what they understand to be a very clear danger to the country. The gentleman makes a very important point. That provision was in the original housepassed bill. Bill, toh an omnibus prevent a shutdown occurring, we have to have a bill that passes the senate and signed by the president. There were very, very strong objections by a number of members on that point. So it did not make the final cut. Textill does include a verbatim of the recently passed house bill, the visa waiver bill, which would close gaps in that program and add additional layers of protections against people we do not want here. Deniesmple, the bill that visa waiver traveler to travelers who are nationals of or even visited in the past five years iraq, syria, and other countries with significant terrorist activities in the judgment of the executive branch. Mr. Chairman, i would just point out that i also served on the Helsinki Commission and had a hearing in october, and richard, Deputy Assistant secretary of state for Refugee Resettlement, told me in that hearing in the middle of october that there were 1700 syrians that were already in this country and were in the process of being resettled. Day her that they about the vetting process. I heard that it went through five agencies, and that worried me. No more agencies involved, the less accountability you have to any particular agency. I was troubled when i ask her for the number of people rejected by the program, and she could not provide be a number, and here we sit two months later, and i still do not have that information from the ministration. So anything that you can do to help meet that that information from the state department, we dont know at this point, ok, 1700, maybe that is a manageable number, maybe that is reasonable, i dont know, but were none rejected, and it would be hopeful to have that information. As we ask ourselves questions about the vetting process and the accuracy adequacy of the leading process as the state Department Tells us are doing this prior to bringing people into this country. The other aspect of this, and i secretary birdwell from the department of health and Human Services has requested additional dollars for the office of refugee settlement. This is a small office that most people dont know about, but we have talked about it in this committee before last year when the unaccompanied minors work wrapping all the headlines as the number of people that came across the texas border increased to levels that had not been previously been seen. Just a note from secretary the requestetter on for additional appropriations for this fiscal year are more than double for the same time last year and exceed by more than 60 those for the same year in fiscal 2014, the year with the largest referrals and history of the program. In other words, we had a huge problems two years ago, but we are 60 higher today, 60 . They are requesting additional to locate unaccompanied. Inors this is significant because one of our texas delegation members, mr. Barton, was met with the information that he had a large resettlement going on this last weekend. ,e was not notified before hand governor kasich last night at the debate reference the same phenomenon in ohio. It gives no indication as to what they are going to be doing, and then shows up with a large number of people that put strain on the hospitals, school systems, and the local folks are left to deal with essentially what is our failing for not enforcing things at the border. So, as we consider this request from sector birdwell, i think it is important to nick to take note of the fact that according to her that the numbers are 60 above what they were during the worst year of this program two years ago. Well, customs and Border Protection and ice have sufficient funds in their base ofget to absorb the costs taking the kids, children, transporting them to the office of Refugee Resettlement for temporary care, and thirdly, eventually, transporting them to their family or sponsor in the United States until the final. Isposition of the case and forth, transporting them back to their country of origin when the final order of deportation. Unaccompanied allied alien Children Program with hhs is million, but 940 it also has 278 million in carryover funds Still Available from last year. Millionditional 150 that can be transferred from other programs within hhs if needed. So i think they have sufficient funds. I have a bill, hr 530, that would put an assessment for each of those children that we are taking care of against the appropriations made in the state guatemalaions bill, and el salvador, nicaragua. If we are taking care of the children, perhaps they should help us bear the cost of that care. Otherwise, this revolving door, conveyor belt, just continues inexorably and we are continuing to fund the very thing that again our constituents are asking is why, why they are having to bear this burden, fund this burden, so i just offer that for your consideration. I would just finish up with the department of labor rule, the fiduciary role, that is one of the things i get the most phone calls in the district about. I wish there had been a way to include it. I hope we will not stop trying to fix that problem, because many people at home recognize that as one of the greatest impediments for middleclass people being able to provide for if theirirement fiduciary advisors are prohibited from giving them information. Amen. Thank you mr. Chairman. You have been very indulgent. I yelled back. The gentleman from new york. Gentlewoman from new york. Thank you all. We think we left a few things out. First, would you tell me again what you said about the choice issue . A new rule or something that prohibits something on choice, what was that . As far as we know, all the riders were gone. The bill maintains all pro life provisions, including a brandnew one against what is called jean editing. Gene editing. What the heck is that . Im not the expert. One, but all my life ive never heard of genetic editing. What is it . [inaudible] for Health Reasons . What other reason would you have to do that . Something, if thats going to be a rule of the United States of america, then the only reason i think anybody would do something with the dna is to is thist ever it would be on a fetus, right . Or anybody . That wouldnt be part of this prolife bill, i dont think. No wonder we cant find out. I would like to know if some physicians or scientists had something to do with that. It isnt anything against democrats, is it . No. Youre not going to give them a republican gene or Something Like that . What are you up to . That is an idea. It is in the fda bill. So,hat reminds me agricultural cant do anything. Ith genetic editing they are prohibited from doing it for capital, i guess . Ttle, i guess. . I agree to do away with the country of origin liberating labeling. Why would it come in with that part you are talking about . Tissue,egulates human and as i understand it that doesnt make any sense. If this doesnt have something to do with prolife or prochoice, why would you put it in as you read it . Why is it such a big deal. I dont understand that. I understand it. Several people are trying to explain it to me. All of whom are scientists. It has to do with research that is based on future science fiction, but does not pertain to the reality now. Warsod grief, it is a star thing that someone has read, is that what we are doing here . Let me give you another example here. When i first came to the house in congress, i had a number of women in my district who were des. Ted by a hormone, it was given to pregnant women for the select purpose of stopping miscarriage. The offspring of many of these women were seriously affected, testicular cancers, reginald cancers, awful things happen to them. Vaginal cancers, awful things happen to them. The world why in would they allow that. Then i found out and i am this, theyou knew , buteen using it on cattle they stopped using it because it did not have any affect on miscarriage. I hope we are not going down this path again. Weve brought in star wars here, havent we . Things, theo create perfect robot over at the usda. One of the things i do concern there with is that i know is a great benefit therefore all the Oil Producers them but not much for the alternative fuel producers. We cand like to see if ,ake the amendment available fuel cells, geothermal, other things we are doing. At a proper time, he will present that, and i would like that to be an order so it can be on the floor and we could discuss it, because i think that , and wevemething been swamped with talk about that. With that, item have any further questions. I will have to see what i can find out. Right . Iting, be delightedwill to hear your views and discussed this issue further. Hereen we get so good in there were going to predict the future like that i which we ofld protect conditions infrastructure the United States of america could that is pretty predictable, isnt it . You for who you are. Ive known you all my life. I know you want to do better. If the gentlelady would yield . Yes. At one time her family lived where i lived, kentucky. I knew her family, her parents, her brother. Right. I was a microbiologist coming out of the university of kentucky. I was always proud of that. Thank you all so much. Gentlewoman yields back her time. Thank you very much. Gentlewoman from North Carolina is recognized. You, mr. Chairman. I appreciate the recognition and want to thank our colleagues for being here, and the today thank the staff for all the hard work they have done, and i think it showally important that we our Team Appreciation to the staff on both sides of the aisle for the great work that has been done here. I want to say that i associate myself with the comments that the chairman has made, and some of the comments that the Ranking Members may, too. I think it is important that we point out to our colleagues, as well as to the public, that we all want to get back to regular order, and that the house in effect has gone through regular order. Passing six ofr, our Appropriations Bills, and the senate would not take any of them up. It was clear that the senate would not take any of them up, so we find ourselves in this position to pass this omnibus if we dont want to see the Government Shutdown. I think it is also important to bill has then negotiated among the white house, the senate, and the house , and the different groups with in there. I want to point out, and i know that for us on the rules committee we know this very well, but i keep getting asked this question about the power of the purse, or i keep having that thrown at me at home, and even here in the house. Say, well, we have the power of the purse, therefore we should be able to do what ever we want to do in our appropriations bill. I keep pointing out to people that section seven of article one says, all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the house of representatives, but the senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills. Peoplenately, too many who talk about the issue of the power of the purse leave out their that clause in says, but the senate may propose or concur with amendments on other bills. I believe Many Americans have come to believe that the house has unilateral authority to pass out Appropriations Bills. I honestly believe that in every case that we possibly can, we have to remind people that that is not the case. And that when you have a piece of legislation like this, there are true negotiations. And i really appreciate speaker ryan thank very forthright in our conference about how these , and howons did occur we could not get everything we wanted. Any bill does not represent desires, in terms of how we would fund the federal government. I would have done it differently. The chairman would have done it differently. Dr. Burgess would have done it differently, but we live in a society where compromise is necessary. That while it is not everything i would like it to be , i have been reminding a lot of my colleagues this morning that what is before us is what we have to vote on, not what we wanted to have come not what is left out of the bill, but what is there. And so while it is. Lowey and so while it not what i wanted to be, the good lord has not put me in charge. So we have to deal with whats our colleagues have put together. I want to say thank you again for all of the time put into will be i think that we able to go to regular order next year, have this house passed the bill, and hopefully have the Senate Passed some bills and to send them to the president , for better or for worse. And then let the American People outagain the process play in that way. Mr. Chairman will the gentlewoman yield . I will yield. Mr. Chairman we will have regular order when we have the Senate Passed these bills. They have got a rollover there. Bring up anyannot bill unless you have asked the votes, even in appropriations an appropriations bill. What happened to majority rule . If the senate would a bride abide by the rules and 11 be considered, we could break this cycle and no longer have these huge bills that a lot of people do not know what is in them. Mrs. Lowey again, i agree very much with of the chair man. When people talk to me about it, it spoke to a group on monday, i did my best to explain to them that it requires 60 votes to bring up the bill. So when a house is criticized for what we do or not do, we are given all that responsibility which is one reason i bring up article one, section seven, is that it is important for the public to understand that these bills must be passed to go to the president. And i believe it was the Ranking Member who pointed out that this was what has been done here and it would avoid a threat by the white house. So the white house has a consideration, because we do not have the votes to override the veto and neither does the senate, so i would ask my colleagues who are not happy with this legislation. That may not let perfect be the enemy of the good. Canthat we do everything we to accept the positive things, increased funding for n. I. H. Is wonderful. Not putting in this bill legislation that would bail puerto rico out and set a new for bankruptcy is a good thing. I think a lot of times we need to accept what is not in the legislation as a good thing and not grieve about what did not get in. So, thank you both very much and thank you to the staff for all of their hard work. I yield back. Mr. Chairman does the gentlewoman wish to engage in this . I just would like to thank you for your eloquence. We do represent many states, many different kinds of communities, that is what is great about our democracy. We can finally get together and compromise. But i could not resist to tell you that i am still hopeful that within the democratic process, whether it is through this process or whether speaker ryan can come up with another way to help puerto rico, i think it is so essential. And i have been a strong advocate for assisting puerto rico and helping them work out their bankruptcy problems, because there are so many, many people who are in desperate need of a solution. So we can differ on that issue, but i just wanted to say on the record that i think it is very important and i was pleased that we were able to find a solution for the 9 11 funding and i want to thank both sides of the aisle for your support of that. I do hope that perhaps we could talk further, my good friend, miss fox, perhaps we can find a solution that i know the speaker is working on and i would be very supportive. So maybe we can talk further. As you know, i am usually found here on the floor or in my office. Here a lot of the time. Mrs. Lowey thank you. Lets talk further about it and i hope in the following weeks after this does pass, we will be able to find a constructive solution to dealing with the desperate situation that puerto rico faces. Thank you. Mr. Chairman the gentlewoman yield back her time. The gentleman from massachusetts. I want to thank you for being here. Think we have said it enough we have before us a bill that is over 2000 pages long. I do not think that any of us will truly know what is in it. Until it comes up for a vote on friday. That is unfortunate. We can vote for or against a based on trust with you guys and whether or not we agree with most of what is being said or disagree, this and genetic editing, there are things in here that many people do not know what we are talking about and will have to figure that out. But that will have to be after this bill. So this is frozen. No point to ask questions. On thewill be up or down floor. I know this is not the way that you wanted it to come before us, but it is what it is. You know, people try to go through this the best they can and throw the dice and vote the way they think is the right way on friday. And move on. I yield back. Mr. Chairman thank you very much. The gentle man from oklahoma. Mr. Cole i want to welcome to my very favorite members, my Ranking Member of this committee. Some time, every time you show up, something happens around here. Some things get done. And i know how hard both of you have worked on this and i want to express my personal appreciation for what each of you has done in a very divided Conference Congress in making sure that the government actually functions. I see my own very tired chief court that there, susan ross. I must say, i will miss this process in some ways, because every morning for the last several weeks when i would get up at 5 00 mother would be 5 00 mother would be there would be an email from susan ross sent at 3 15 a. M. They work incredibly hard. And i will yield. Mr. Chairman thank you for yielding. Cole works on. Labor hhs, the biggest nondefense spending. But the staff is remarkable on this committee. They have since one month ago, november 16, they have had one day off. That was thanks giving day. Whatever, allay, night long. E do not think them enough so i thank you for recognizing them. Mr. Cole i thank you mr. Chairman. And i think we have them on both sides of the aisle. I know that my friends from new york would agree. If you would yield to me. Mr. Cole i would certainly yield, my friend. The staff every day, working through the weekend, and i know they do not get sleep. Absolutely. A couple of observations. I listen to my friend mr. Burgess and he made a very good case, he obviously has in his district in texas, it immediately came to my mind if we restored earmarking we might be able to help right away. Toi would for that forward consider, because that frankly is one of the virtues of that, taking care of a really important problem really quickly. I am not asking my friend to sign up for that. I will yield. I was actually interested in this as well. When i look back over the last 15 years, the years i was able to earmark within the budget, there has not been it has remained steady. The committee has done a good job of making sure allegations go where they are supposed to go. Mr. Cole i appreciate my friends observation, that is not something that is commonly understood. Earmark is not extra money, usually within the budget we say these things are so important, it needs to move to the front. Million people a living under the threat of a breakdown of a dam, that is something that congress ought to look out. In fact, mr. Burgess knows the problem and can bring it to our attention. I want to make a couple of observations about the bill itself without going into it. It has been an issue. I have gone to two conferences, i have talked to our web team about this. I have listened to friends on the other side. I think broadly speaking it is interesting to me that the republican complaints about the ,ill or about what is not in it and in the democratic complaints are almost all about what is in it. It is it strikes me that there has been a lot of compromise on both sides. But to my friends on my side that are worried about it, i largely agree. But i reminded them that most of them to sit on authorizing committees can do these things and they need to do these very things, not rely on it. Members need to think long and hard when they ask us to do things that we are and that they are experts at hand we know about the appropriations process, but we do not listen to all hearings on whether it is Syrian Refugees, i could go through a whole list of things that really are more appropriately dealt with by committees of authorization. They cannot pass it on their bill, then basically they are asking us to pass it on ours, when they were not able to get it through with regular order. There are times when that is appropriate and i am not opposed to doing that, but it does create a law of problems. And most of my friends that are not appropriators cannot understand the real power of this committee, it is frankly, if you look at it is incremental and gradual. You change things slowly over time. Movehift resources, you things, it is very seldom traumatic. Dramatic. It is actually very cautious. And i appreciate ms. Foxx reminding everybody that it does have limits. Our friends in the senate willing to pass the same thing and the president willing to sign it, they have convictions and principles too and they do not always agree with the majority. Heardo areas that i have very little debate about and i commend both of my friends in front of me for this, i have heard almost nobody complained about the military spending in this bill, which is over half of the total. Yet people know we are in a dangerous era, we are sending them to do tough things and want them to be wellequipped. Practically no complaints, but very little thank yous either. In my bipartisan budget meant budget agreement if we do not pass this bill we will cut the military very dramatically. The other area that i hear very little complaints about is the distribution of money within a nonmilitary part of the budget. This has been element of compromise. You know, president the president wanted an increase of 1 billion. Congress said that was not enough and we will make a 2 billion, we think it is important to get that started it i could go through a list of things where there is a republican budget. Obviously, a democratic budget. But where the Appropriations Committee worked through these things i bipartisan basis and i think found Common Ground. A 1. 1 trillion spending bill, not to mention the tax portion of this, another 6 billion. That is a range of compromise and for those who are worried and they appropriately can be concerned because this should be frank. Ese shoulds th come to the floor. But i want to thank my Ranking Member because these did come to the committee. Everyone of them was vetted and there were amendments offered by each side, discussions and obviously the final bill is the product of a lot of compromise. At the full committee level, which you two guys did, and the leadership that he provided on both sides when the final when the issues that could not be resolved, could be done. So this is not the best way to legislate, i prefer bills on the floor, but it certainly beats a resolution that these things have been carefully considered and fully debated at the committee level. Six of them have gone across our floor. And our friends in the senate, we hope that they will do the same. And just to give the senate aipac a pat on the back, they thierere asked bills bills through. A so things are starting to fall and work and nobody has done more to do that than my friend the chairman, whose goal has been to get this running. And our Ranking Member. Whos and i would say that themyear came closer before and next year offers the opportunity. Since we all have a top line on spending numbers, offers all of us, appropriators and nonappropriators, the opportunity to put them on the floor and have a debate and let everybody participate in the process. Once they see it and like it, the American People will be impressed. I want to commend my two friends, all they have done to get is from this point. They were continuing resolutions, they were abdicating for institutional power by this body, you both restored this process a great deal and it speaks well of your institutional knowledge, your commitment to the process and frankly her ability to Work Together. Acrosse differences and the aisle. I will yield. Mr. Chairman back to the editing. I hate to leave it as we left it. You chair the subcommittee that unds the n. I. H. As i understand it, this provision would conform fdas n. I. H. On a that of gene editing, which is a to edite that attempts in anans genes embryo. And n. I. H. Is concerned about what that may mean for future generations, so that is about as far as i can mr. Cole i am not a scientist, but i think that the chairman is right. There is a different thing what we allow in terms of genetic modification for food, livestock , and as far as human beings are concerned. It is an area where you can be careful. This ishis is not largely a compromise, each side has wins and losses. My friends, by and large, have a different view on some of these issues than i do. But they felt comfortable enough with this to sign off on it, both the administration and administered of and legislative levels, so i do not think that my friends will be surprised. Mr. Mcgovern, we will all be better off with this. Bills get better. I have had a number of people come to meet with particular come to me with particular problems that i did not know about. Had we had a bill on the floor, these are not members of the committee, that i would probably have said, yeah. We can accept that amendment. But they are coming late in the process, so these are not your marks, these are common sense adjustments you need to make in a country of 350 Million People across a vast continent with great complexity to it. And when we do not bring a bill across the floor, we denied average member a chance to do that and to educate us on something maybe they know more about than anybody on the committee. Particularly if it is my friend from texas, if it is particular to his district, may be something i would not know about. So you really want these bills to come down where each member can do that. Again, we are stepping closer to that process. This is a bipartisan compromise and our job is spending the money, it is not authorizing legislation, but the amazing thing to me is how little i hear about how the money has been spent on both defense and nondefense alike. Which the Appropriations Committee has done its job pretty well in a bipartisan nature and these other things that were attached on, i am a big believer with what we are doing with taxes and lifting the oil ban. But i think, and i am happy to do it, but again our friends the authorizers need to authorize. They need to get this stuff done and let us do the thing we know most. But if you want to cede all the power to the committee, it wouldnt be in better hands. So if you want to make us the only committee that matters in congress, that is ok by me. I yield. Mrs. Lowey you are the distinguished chairman, of the committee that funds programs and i am. S particularly impressed with the investment we are making. We all face so many challenges, our friends, our collins, so we want them to know that this investment can really save lives. , although wenk you all wish we could have put more money into head start, you did with a good job there Educational Initiatives and workplace initiatives. I cannot say if you had even more money to spend in those areas, we could help even more children. But i want to thank you for your leadership and funding the National Institute of health. So, thank you. I yield to the chairman. Mr. Chairman i have just been handed the statement of Administration Policy, the white house recommends this bill and urges its passage as well as the is anending, so that important piece of information that we have now. Ome as a problem on our side, but we will work through it. Again this is a compromise. Mr. Cole i wish it would have been smaller bites and more transparent so that more members could appreciate it, but we are where we are and it is late in the year. But this is a major a compliment. This is something honestly that the people can vote for, take a great deal of pride, whether they are democrat or republican, because there are a lot of good things. I want to echo my friend ms. Foxx who made an important point, do not go against the bill for what is not in it. That is a perverse way of doing things. If you are opposed to what is in the bill, that is a different thing. But you cannot ask us to say, give me everything i want, even though i like the rest of this the military needs to be funded, and i too want to see the nih out there fighting alzheimers and cancer, the center for Disease Control protecting us from diseases, i cannot vote for that. Really, i think we hopefully can and i think we have an opportunity as members learn more about this bill, to get a big bipartisan vote. A really substantial number of votes on both sides. So again, i commend you for all you have done. I look for to working with them. We want to get this across the finish line. And going home to certainty for the American People at christmas time. I yield back. Mr. Chairman thank you german gentleman. Hell take time to judge hastings. Judge hastings thank you. I want to thank the Ranking Members as well as their staff. Statements in the Administration Policy i want to put that in the record. And i want to read one sense sentence, the all the ministers to appreciates and want unrelated riders and take a critical step for a Strong Economy and urges congress to pass this legislation, contemplated both what we talk about as well as other tax extenders. I am hesitant to bring this up, because it is a segue into chairman of the Ranking Member of our Sub Committee on the rules committee, we have two subcommittees and chairman would all woodall has indicated a desire, or perhaps even a suggestion, that we have twoyear budgeting. Differences of the we have had a getting to this point, i am hesitant to bring it up. Chairmanld like, chairman rogers , you have been here a long time and this is not the first that summary has mentioned to your budgeting. I am not try to be facetious. I am abdicating that i have abdicated this before and i thought that maybe we should have twoyear budgeting, but i find that this place cannot think beyond next week, let alone too much on the future. In a sentence, would either of you talk about a practical idea in reference to whether or not we could it, that . That accomplish mr. Chairman i think if we do to your budgeting twoyear budgeting it would be a big help because it would give us certainty it is about certainty about next year. We have had that in previous terms, renewing in advance what we would do the next year. However, we need annual appropriations. To your budgeting would give us to your appropriations and things change. He cannot predict that until the time comes. It would give us certainty about respondsk agencies to to us. If we do to your appropriations appropriations, so i like the idea of a budget with one year prorations. Mrs. Lowey i thank you for bringing up that issue and you can see why the chairman and i work so well together, because i agree with him 100 . The world is changing, things are happening with the tremendous challenge of isis and i think that is essential that we review all bills to make sure that we are responding, so that i agree with the chairman. Good hastings that is a lead in. I will yield to my friend from georgia who is probably glad that i brought that up. Thank you. Mr. Chairman the gentleman yield back his time. The gentleman from georgia, the vice chair of the committee is organized. Mr. Woodall things tend to stay the same. I understand that the committee has a desire to get work done each and every year. It does not provide much certainty to anyone when our constituents do not get october money until december, and that is if they are lucky. I am reminded of the last cycle where we had a 2 year budgeting process where you had a topline number you could work with andy moved to the first appropriations bill out of the committee in the last week coming moved it 4161. And it went to this and it where it sat senate where it sat and did nothing and the da did not get money until february. At some point, it is not a process issue, it is a personality issue and we cannot count on one another to take our work seriously, then it does not matter what rules we have for valuable it is process. It is valuable to have an example of what the committee would do when you have your topline numbers earlier, the cross the house floor before the end of april, that is a real step. I want to ask one other question with my time to it ordinarily we time. A conference so ordinarily we would do a conference, everybody would put their signature on it and that is what we would have. But instead we have a deal and a joint statement, can you help me oferstand the legal dynamics this, instead of having a conference report everything is wrapped in legislative language with the bill and the joint statement attached . Mr. Chairman i am not sure i understand. Landoodall the law of the at the end of the process when the president says he encourages the signing of the bill, what will we will have a bill that has appropriations language in it, but will also have a joint Explanatory Statement that goes along with the bill. Instead of a conference report that would have captured everything, line by line. Mr. Chairman safed informs me staff informs me that we have a statement of explanation that has the same this not being a conference report, we have language in the bill explaining that it will have the same effect as a conference report. We have moved so many conference reports, it would not surprise me to move another one. I have been watching the eyelids drooping of your team, they have gone to the nonstop rush to the finish line. I appreciate you all. I yield to the chairman. Mr. Chairman there is liquid in the bill. The Explanatory Statement regarding this act, created in the house of representatives, by the chairman of the committee for appropriations of the house shall have the same effect with respect to the allocation of funds and implementations of were ans as if it joint statement of the committee of conference. I think the chairman for that. For us that have been here five years or less, we have not seen that process. So here 20 years or less, weve not seen that. I think it was 1998 that we finished 13 bills by the start of a fiscal year. I am so optimistic about that in this upcoming cycle and the truth is whenever the two of you come before this committee i am optimistic when i leave, more optimistic. And i thank you for making a possible. Mr. Chairman vitamin yields back. Let me tell you that the perspective from here looks great. [laughter] mr. Chairman gentleman from colorado. I am just seeing this for the first time. It does not seem like we have a lot of time to get these out. I am trying to figure out what is in the bill. Do you know what the bill will end up doing, one program i am 5 programs the eb that was set to expire. What happened with that . Mr. Chairman it is a oneyear extension. I know that there were negotiations in it was widely agreedupon, the longerterm extensions that made important reforms that democrats and republicans in both the house and senate and i was hopeful that that would have made its way into this though. I am hopeful to see if we can do that. But i want to ask you about the status of the longerterm authorization. That particular item was negotiated with the leadership that could not come. Mrs. Lowey i would like to comment on that. As our chairman said, this is a when youre asked to check my a oneect example extension. This is a perfect example of a discussion we had about doing theira work. This is a program that should be discussed by the authorizers. Proposed, its should be thoroughly debated by did sides, and if they their work it would not be part of the appropriations process at all. It should have been done months ago, certainly. Is, if the house voted it would be very important, it creates jobs, drives investment in the country. I am glad that it is not expiring, so this will prevent it from expiring, but like some of the things, markets and people can react better with things unpredictable over time on authorizing statutes. Said expenditures will change each year and you do that job well, you do your best. The authorization authorizing legislation should be done in a more predictable manner over time. So i was hoping that he longerterm version would be included in this bill. That will go back to the authorizing process. At least it will not expire in this bill. Other than that, i am beginning to read this bill myself. So i will have to find people later for questions. I yield back. Mr. Chairman the gentle many yields back gentleman yield back. The gentleman from ohio. I appreciate you for being here. It is not an easy process and you have been at it for a very long time. I want to ask a few questions. I think that the gentlelady from new york asked about the wholesale language. The solar tax credit and the wind tax credit was included, is it possible there was an error that fuel cells were not included, does that because they have always been done together historically included, because they have always been done together historically . Or is this about winners and losers . Mr. Chairman the item was chosen by the leadership. Mrs. Lowey i was going to say the same thing. As you know, during the process there are certain issues that had there is point of view, but could not be resolved and this was a leadership decision. Mr. Stivers ok. Like everybody else, i have things i like in the bill and things i do not like. I am proud of the work that you did. This is a hard job to find Common Ground in this institution, so i appreciate what you did and i appreciate all the hard work and i do care about the fuel cell language. Industry inelcell ohio and they will be disadvantaged compared to wind and solar, when you look at the above Energy Policies i believe it in. Stivers, the mr. Doctor is going to testify shortly on the tax bill could which i think that tax bill. Which i think was clear. Mr. Stivers maybe he will be able to tell me, because it is a tax portion. Mr. Chairman it was moved. Mr. Stivers but it was negotiated. Ok, no problem. I am not trying to be difficult, it is something medicare about and i hate it something i care about and i hate it when there is winners and losers. Mrs. Lowey this is not resolved in the conference, but i believe that he will be here and he is going to request an amendment regarding fuel cells. Today . Mr. Stivers i heard that earlier, so that was news to me. But i am excited about that. We should treat them equally, that is my thatlowey i am sure that will be appreciated. I do not know if he is here, but i think that was his intention. Thank you. Stivers i yield back. Back on ato go question i asked my colleague. The language it has the same effect in the conference report, mainly for clarification. But is it not true that that language can be used for other use ins, such as lawsuits or pushing a position that gives some affect to an outside this agreement . And outside this agreement diagreement . Mr. Chairman i do not know the answer. Can, becauseyes it it has. Just to let you know so that your staff can catch you up, this is a georgia issue, this is a dealing with water issue from something that was really pretty interesting. And i want to read a few minutes on this. This is not something that has come up overnight. This is not something that has and this has been something that has been a historical letter an historical letter was sent a few weeks ago from all 16 come up with republican and democrat, from the state of georgia dealing with this. Any language that basically what we have what we feel like infringes upon the states rights issue of dealing with waters between georgia and alabama. This is an issue in which i on the state level have worked on for the past years i was in the house come about also while i have been here. The best solution here is for congress to stay out. Unfortunately, there was language appropriated in from directly, side that that it said it interferes with the states ability to solve this issue, which has been litigated for many years. Concern is not only for this but for the joint letter of between the language here, is how do we get this out . Let the governors solve this. Ist disturbs me about this there is a lot of stuff that you ,orked hard on, the you all that whether you disagree with or agree with, this is something that i know georgia and other places as well have spent millions of dollars trying to solve. And it specifically said keep the federal government out of have th because again we one the arguments and then we have to go back and fight after this is added in. This is wrong. This should not continue to happen in these bills when you have writers put on that affect, basically state issue and state problems. With staff, leadership, i know that i we are on the long and of the road. But this is something we need to fix. It should affect the other states that are involved in this and should not come in the form of writers. This is part of the issue for me, saying why . The language that is added is basically taken as a slap in the face, this is not something that should be in here, not something we should be dealing with. If the Committee Chair wants to actually work on this, then we will deal with it that way. It is concerning that this language got in here, we will see what we can work on. I want to thank you for the main part of the bill which it did not come with these writers. We will continue to work on this. I wanted to bring this forward, because this is an issue that will not be fixed unless it is gone or we can mitigate it. We should not have to do this. When all 16 members of the bicameral delegation came together and said this is a really problematic point for us and now the language that was added could involve other states and the joint explanation, by putting more states, could involve other states. Not just georgia. There could be disagreement about that, but when you look at it from that perspective there is issue. I have made my case. There are a lot of things going on. I hope we can continue to work on this. This is a problematic issue for us, we are working on this trying to fix this. I wanted to use this time to say thank you for your work, there are a lot of things i am appreciative of. But it is a shame to me that we get this lingers. Mr. Chairman the omnibus blocks all Senate Efforts that would disadvantage alabama over other states. Proposald the senate that would have prohibited from reallocating or studying the reallocation of water in the Alabama River basin. It blocked the expansion of that proposal through the flint river basin. And it toppling was that would have elevated floridas Environmental Concerns within it acf river basin and halted Senate Language that would have required notification of any instant for a river basin, withdrawing water in excess. The legislation also replaces problematic report language regarding notifications from the andt to deal with core violations of water contracts involving the ac t. At the new report language is not specific to any water basin, merely asks for a report from the doj of any violations of water contracts recorded by the corps. However, the doj indicates they have never received any notifications of violations from the corps and do not expect any. So therefore the report would not include any information of the violations. Mr. Collins i appreciate that and i appreciate the staff working on that. The problem is what was left. There is a genuine disagreement. It is one of those things that may seem odd to you if you look at it. If i told you to comment on this piece of paper, this is all you see, what i do not show you is i wanttory behind what you to comment on. What we are dealing with is a history that involves far beyond a single focused issue of the language that has been presented. It was taken out, we understand that. And we appreciate it. But it was then turned around and added in a liquid that is problematic language that is omatic. Rob omatic. The issue that we have should be noted that a similar attempt was inserted, when it was said that this was language that was a clarification for a nonwhatever you want to call it language, and then it ended up in a lawsuit in this case. This is not sibley an issue of simply an issue of language and how it is written, this is an issue of 30 plus years of history. It is used for leverage. This is the problematic part. I know this is an increase disagreement. The issue we have is we have history backing it up, but this is problematic. By being nonspecific and not having a report is not the issue. But the gentle man who offer agree, because they wanted it in this way. This is nonspecific. When you look back to 2005, it is an interesting date to go back to when you say multistate, georgia is one of those involved in multistate water negotiating problems. I think the issue is that ive issue,espect for you mr. Chairman ive Great Respect for you. But alabama and georgia need to sell this. Mr. Chairman we understand. We are talking about some way to help you solve this problem. We will continue to work with you. Mr. Collins you have to understand from my perspective, the needs to be solved with governors of the state. They need to get together and quit this plane with the writers. This will come back unless we can work it out and get it fixed. I yield my time. Mrs. Lowey i just want to say again, i do not know a thing about this issue, but you explain yourself so eloquently and is another reason why they why we should not be legislating on the preparations bill. Mr. Collins that is why i am proud that we are going to be working these on order and this is what needs to be done, the people of this country need this and we need to adjust this in this order. I yield back. Mr. Chairman the good gentleman from alabama is recognized. Thank you. That the defense is the same as was provided for in the et chairman when thornberry was here, the amount ragged edge ofer what the joint chief of staff said what they needed and what was reached was 5 billion below the amount. So the appropriators have followed with a budget deal said, that actually went below the lower ragged edge is what we were told from the gentleman. I assumed that this appropriations bill saved money for the Refugee Program for the department of state. Mr. Chairman yeah, the bill maintains the whole 15 levels for migration and refugee assistance, three point 3. 06 billion dollars total. Additional funds are available if needed to respond to humanitarian crisis overseas, but not for the domestic refugee issue. Would fit into that would be up to the executive branch and not up to us . Is that right . Right . Mr. Chairman ask the question again. Mr. Byrne the decision about who would fall into the category of somebody who would be able to come in on the program would be up to the discretion of the executive branch . Mr. Chairman that is right. Mr. Byrne we know that the president ordered the executive branch to admit 10,000 refugees from syria, so this funding would allow him to do that, use this money for that under his discussion discretion . Mr. Chairman as i understand it, there is no specific amount or what is called resettlement that is within the discretion of these active Branch Executive branch. Mr. Byrne it was ordered from the president to admit 10,000 people from syria, certainly it will be used for that month according to the present orders for that, according to the president orders . Mr. Chairman it would be in the president s discretion to do that. They would have to go through all procedures to bring mr. Byrne they could let in the 10,000 refugees that the president has ordered . Mr. Chairman the funding is at last years level and two out of the three is for resettlement overseas. Mr. Byrne so they could not use any money appropriated from this bill to pay for the resettlement of Syrian Refugees in this country . Mr. Chairman it could. O mr. Byrne up to . Mr. Chairman some of the money could be used for that purpose. Mr. Byrne last year one of the big issues was whether there was money being a prorated for the president to grant executive amnesty to immigrants. Is the funding here to implement those . Mr. Chairman there is no money for that purpose. Mr. Byrne it is safe to say that if you voted for this appropriations bill, you would not be voting to fund an executive action by the president to grant amnesty to immigrants . Mr. Chairman that is exact we write. Mr. Byrne important to know. The department of labor has issued that rule and i assume funding is in place for them to use the funding to implement that role. Mr. Chairman yes. Mr. Byrne thank you, i appreciate the clarification on those points. I yield back. Mr. Chairman the dome and yields back gentleman yield i will recognize myself are as much time as they need. [laughter] mr. Chairman this is not directed at the two witnesses. Mr. Sessions i share much of the frustration in the process that we find ourselves. The speaker has stated that this is not where we should be and i agree with that. I think that the fact, what we have sitting in front of us, the bill we are considering which the dominant from colorado has not had time to read and i admit that have not either, a lot of things in their there are good and many that we would have. Hard time voting yes on so the frustration, i have had a lot of questions over the last several weeks for many parties on how things are going, where i could notfrankly answer very well. Part of this process, many of us found ourselves in that situation, because negotiations are at much higher levels. So to what ever regular order is, the committee is doing the bulk of the work and i think it will be a healthy thing, one that will give us the ability to help us feel like we are contributing. It is much more where the underlying intention of the process is supposed to be. Anyway, just to echo some of the frustrations i have heard from the other questioners today. Having said that without going into a lot of detail, there are some things in the build i find should be pointed out as far as my perspective, coming from the state of washington per speblingtive. From the western part. Some were addressed some were not. One particular thing that was probably close to number one on my list and so i have to at least offer a word of thanks for the recognize nisks the federal governments responsibility to continue Nuclear Cleanup in my state. We have the largest Nuclear Cleanup project in the nation. There are several around the country and so the commitment that is expressed in the bill is, i think, admirable and it underscores the federal governments responsibility as well as its important obligation. Along those lines, also theres funds to continue look at Yucca Mountain as an option for Nuclear Waste depositories. Thats a positive thing to point out. Jumping around, i would have to take the other position that the think the country of origin label language that is in the bill is a good thing. It will avoid us as a nation having to be subjected to a uge amount of unfair, i think, retaliatory tariffs from our two neighbors, mexico and canada, so i think it was a huge thing to get that language in the bill and appreciate that very much. As you know, the western United States is experiencing some very interesting walks weather issues, drought situation, so addressing some of that with some increased funding toward trout relief was important. Along those lines in, my district in Central Washington we the last two years have had recordsetting, catastrophic ile wildfires and provisions in this language in the bill addressed that so that we can move forward toward better Forest Management on our National Lands and get out of the cycle of battling these catastrophic fires. Preventing them in the first place and managing our federal forests. Appreciate that very much as well. Theres many things. We can all point to good things in there. But theres p also some things that are larking in this bill and like i said, many of us in the rural and western parents of the United States find a long list of things that have been omitted from this negotiated deal. There are several members in the, waiting to speak on this, and i see the chairman of our estern caubous, mrs. Loomis, want caucus, mr. Loomis, wanting to i think take some time to talk about these issues. Im hopeful that some of those priorities will be moved forward at some point in the very, very near future. You know, issues that maybe dont many people in in congress cant relate to but a huge part of the western United States is federal property. And many things the federal government does impacts us and our ability to improve our economy, to create jobs, and im talking about things as it relates to Environmental Protection agency, the regulations as it pertains to clean, a clean wearkts the restrictions that are placed on people in the west and their ability to grow an economy are huge. And we have issues with endangered species, with particular ones like sage grouse and prairie chickens and things like that that have a huge impact. Other provisions i think are probably more widespread around the nation. You could talk about the stream protection rule and what impacts the that will have on our coal strirks which not only impact the west, but many areas of this country and in ways that maybe we havent realized, not just in jobs, but also in our nations electricity production and what the higher cost of power will be in our country. So just a lot of the things are concerning that were left out. I think that speaks to the process itself, though. Its unfortunate that we couldnt get all 12 bills passed through the interior of the house so we couldnt discuss some of these things member d have every feel like they had input and priorities brought up, issues that other people dont know about in other parts of the country could be included because they are huge priorities in certain parts of the country. So thats a huge failing of this system that were using today. So count me as a fan of regular order, and i think from what i hear from other people in the room that there are many of us in that boat. So i guess, all that, there should be a question in there some wrks but i guess my to tion would be pertaining some of those issues in the Natural Resources department of interior area, would there be a commitment on the part of the chairman and the Ranking Member to bring those issues forward that they could can be considered in a more productive way . Maybe if you could speak to that and why they werent included in this particular piece of legislation . There were there are a number of provisions that relate to the concerns of the gentleman. R example, we prohibit the e. P. A. From implementing various harmful, costly regulations, including regulating the lead content in ammunition and fishing tackle, for example, implementing onerous Greenhouse Gas regulations for livestock producers, wen hansed the congressional oversight of e. Prving a. s review of mining permits. We forced the department of the interior to work with states on the stream buffer zone rule, someone referred to it, to prevent unnecessary harm to mining operations. We prevent the bureau of Land Management from hiking oil and gas inspection fees and burdening ranchers with higher grazing fees. We prohibit fund r funding for the fish and wildlife place sage grouse on the endangered species list, we pro hibipt the department of interior from administratively creating new wiltder wilderness areas. Weve cut the e. P. A. Sunday funding seve errly. Theyre now back to a funding level of 1989. So there are a number of things in this bill that i think would satisfy the gentleman. Not perfectly, we didnt get all we wanted, or i didnt, but were on track. And im very deeply interested in the western u. S. Problems that the rest of the country doesnt know much about. Representative lowey if the gentleman would yield, i want to commend the gentleman on the thoughtful presentation and remind us that there are 435 members of congress, manying with different point of view arks and many be should be taken up in the authorizing process where there has to be healthy debate. So im just not going to comment on each of them. Some we can agree on. Many i would disagree with but i do think that your thoughtful approach warrants further discussion, and i would hope that as we begin the new fiscal would he authorizers take responsibility for debates, thoughtful agreements and disagreements, and im sure your input would be respected and considered. But what happens when the authorizers dont do their work, every side of these debates, which are very serious, may or may not be resolved. And as we were saying b. That some of these issues cannot be resolved among the appropriate ators, among the chair and the Ranking Member and all the Ranking Members of the 12 committees so theyre stuck at the end to the pushed up at the toned the leadership level. So i just want to say that i appreciate your thoughtful questions and i hope we can address them request more thoughtfully in the next session of congress. Appreciate that. I agreement it should be in the jurisdiction where the expertise lies. Amen. Amen. I appreciate that. The gentleman from texas . Thank you. Thank you very much. And nita, i want to thank you for taking time to be here. This is more jon than just our lick at us and your lick back at us but to go into these bills and determine more about them. Id like to say straight up ive been pleased with the amount of information that is available to not only our members in a summary form but also the American Public, who can look at all 12 spending bills, ascertain where we are were, where were headed, whats included, the important, hich might be extraneous material about what the key issues were, its available to our members. Its available to them before they have to make a decision necessarily on friday. Will the gentleman yield . Yes, sir. Its also available to the public online. Yes, sir, and to the public. Online. I will apologize for the rules committee as chairman i have to recognize this, last night and part of today, the parliamentarian and the rules Committee Web site was virtually inundated, not taken down, it was inundated with millions of requests for a lot of data, a lot of information, and i do recognize that. O next time we go to the, to ask for more money in the brges maybe theyll hear us and be more beneficial to us. But i want you to know i do recognize that but it is available. Now, for my time what id like to say is thank you. Thank you to each one of you for sticking to your duty, sticking to working together. I will tell you im interested in not just understanding what might be a texas issue, but rather an issue for the entire country. Lifting the oil ban would create an estimated one million american jobs that would impact all 50 states. And wayne matter of years, just within a year or two as it icks off, nita, would add 1 170 billion annually to our g. D. P. , but theres more to the story. The more to the story is that what would happen is, is that lifting the ban would also increase Overall Energy supplies, which would directly benefit the consumer, and cording to the government accounting office, consumer gas prices here at home could drop 13 cents per as gallon. Well, just a few short years ago we became distressed all cross this country, in particular i work with lots of disabled families who many times have larger vehicles, things that might be called gas guzzlers but they need them because they have a lift for people who would be associated with bheached and lots of our veterans and veterans families who are trying to take care of these veterans who have need of a wheelchair. And we were faused with a near disaster as families were rying to strugtol pay 4 and some for gleefpblet this weekend, dallas, texas, 1. 71 for gasoline. 1. 71 for gasoline, which means that families have seen a huge advantage for not only the technology, but also the willingness of this United States congress to stay after this. And mr. Chairman, i know not everybody has to agree with it, but gettling 170 billion worth of g. D. P. Out of this arrangement is an important thing. All 50 states, jobs for people, one million american jobs. You know, i dont know how it the said best, but you know, success has many fathers or many mothers, even people who vote no if this passes will get the benefit of 170 billion worth of g. D. P. And a million american jobs. And 13 cents a gallon. Id like to say thats exhibit mr. He kind of work, chairman, you have pro d. C. Ed for this country on a bipartisan basis for the untry and im going to admit the processes sometimes get difficult on us, but the success is the product. The success is the product, and this has much to be done. So maump, i will give you back my time. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman absolutely. The gentleman from texas. Chairman rogers, i know weve been here a long time and i apologize, but today we saw the Federal Reserve raise rates a quarve a percentage point. At what point do we need to begin to factor that back into our budgetary estimates . Thats going to have a direct impact on the payment of the national debt, is it not . And the president of moneys left for discreation Discretionary Spending . Mr. Chairman thats correct but i have no expertise on that. And i see mr. Levin here. Accept might be able to give a more thoughtful response. I will await that. Mr. Chairman i want to thank our esteemed panelists this afternoon and thank you for coming the thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much, maump. And i want to thank the chairman and repeat again that as the Ranking Member its been pleasure working with the chairman and im particularly grateful for the extraordinary staff on both sides, because theyll be delighted to finally get to sleep when there is finally a vote on this bill. I dont know why we gave them one day off to sleep i dont know why we couldnt make this happen on thursday. Can you make that happen . So ill close the hearing on the omnibus portion of todays hearing and there will be amendments to that. There are some people . Thank you. Ok, now, were now going to move as we announced previously, were going to now finish off the last portion of this, which would be the tax portion of this h. R. 2029, then well go immediately to amendments. The committee on ways and means would have the gentleman from texas yes, sir . Mr. Chairman, im not quarreling with the procedure, ut were the other members that are here, here for the omnibus or yes. Thank you very much. We have members of the committee and i did not know who all was going to be here. We have one member coming in here the first part as we announced, were going to go do this part, the tax part and then amendment. But this closed that portion that of hearing. So well now go to the gentleman, mr. Braidy, the gentleman mr. Levin, with the expert squizz who is here and i brady, hted, chairman that you decided to include that. What we want to do is get it right and the explanation that would be before this committee is always most important and i lot of people are watching. So thank you very much. Without objection, anything you have in writing we would love it have you leave for our awesome sten 0 grapher. It only helps her get right whatever you said. Thank you. Happy to be here with the Ranking Member, mr. Levin but also with our expert on tax licy the our goes, on this bill, our focus has been on delivering a package that will grow our economy and help american taxpayers keep more of their hardearned dollars and thats what this bill does. First it prevents a major 600 billion tax increase on the American People. Second, by making a number of temporary tax provisions permanent, it will deliver predakettability, clarity rand certainty to individual pax taxpayers and businesses trying to invest and manage for the full. As we know all too well, our countrys tax code sometimes makes no 1e7b89s how can families and businesses depend on tax code each year when Congressional Congress does not . With this bill in place, americans will no longer have to worry each december if copping will take action on items they have come to rely on, including state and local Tax Deductions for families and also the research and Development Tax credit. Third, this is a progrowth by. It will make it easier for employers to plan ahead, grow their work force and invest. Many those who are frustrated which Washington Waste will be pleased that our bill contains strong measures to fight fraud and abuse in federal tax programs. These are the first significant revisions since the 1990s. Theyre only a small down payment on republican effort to make shes tax provisions that are today far too prone to error and abuse more accountable. Next Year Congress will take more actions to make sure people cannot take improper advantage of the current broken tax system. Fifth, it reins in the i. R. S. And empowers taxpayers. Requires i. R. S. Employees to respect the taxpayer wifble its bill of rights and prohibits i. R. Ssks missouri from using personal emple mail account for official business. We can all agree these are important taxpayer victories. Finally, this bill serves as he path for the progrowth tax reform, by assuring we will no longer have to spend months each year debating on tax provisions. Im proud of this legislation and grateful to all the members of the ways and Means Committee and those on our g. O. P. Conference who have helped us throughout the course of our negotiations. There is a lot in this but these are the kai principles. The bottom line is it prevents tax increases, creates more job opportunities, makes it easier for americans to do their taxes. Thats a great gift for american taxpayers and people who want and deserve a stronger u. S. Economy. One more point about this bill, last week i was here to talk ams the bipartisan cust report that will help american workers. The house has done its work but the senate has failed to move forward and we have to extend the deadlines for the outer wear provisions and are cut tariffs on six environmental provisions. With that im happy to take your questions. The doctor and i are available to visit with the committee about this bill. Chairman brady, thank you very much. Mr. Leven, welcome back. Were delighted that you are here. I would remind the gentlemen that sometimes we do have problems here and with our great witnesses we would remind you to speak directly into the microphone. Thank you. Hello, everybody. I oppose this bill. We dont have the final score, i dont think, but it will add 600 billion to the deficit. Tax extenders are troyer for a good reason. To address their impact on the deficit and also to take them up in the context of overall tax reform. In this and this bill does just the opposite. It essentially says theres a free lunch. Its the opposite of what was done by the previous chairman, davidcamp, who looked at all these provisions, made some of them permanent and others not, and paid for them. Lus the fact that this bill is not balanced. Businesses receive about 60 of hese cuts. So let me just say a few words about the impact of proceeding this way, of essentially effect affecting the budget baseline and making these permanent, unlike the temporary. If you make them temporary, you have to pay for them in terms of the baseline, this just folds it into them. It will have a major impact op Discretionary Spending in the years ahead. Thats the consequence of adding 600 billion to the deficit. Nondiscretionary, nondefense appropriatitions appropriations today are at the lowest level in terms of Overall Economic structure since 1962. He lowest. Lso, what this does by not offsetting now essentially saying they wont have to be ever, and so that means that therefore its possible for, therefore, there to be socalled tax reform with tax reductions that mainly benefit e very wealthy, and they essentially are arguably paid for themselves. On bonus depreciation, its another example of what we should not be doing. Bonus depreciation thats has been used during periods of recession, be the recession is behind us. The Interest Rates been raised because of economic improvement. So what this bill does is keep the 50 for three years and hen coup to 40 and then to 30. The likelyhood is that that will continue add continued continue and the overall cost of bonus depreciation on a 10year basis is over 200 billion. Also, as part of this 600 billion package, and ill be breervings youve been here a long time, it takes the two International Tax provisions, tax provisions that should be looked at in tax rorges tax provisions in one case 86 billion, that has kept for a number of years and the other the lookthrough, thats made permanent. These tax provisions have been used, from what we know, semly as tax havens to avoid essentially as tax havens to avoid some legitimate tax purposes. There are a number of provisions in here that we very much like. The Child Tax Credit and the other two that are very important, the eitc and the education provision, but the proice price is too high in terms of an overall package, a package of 600 billion. Ill close with this because weve been going through this now for month after month with the majority republicans. They passed out of committee provisions that would essentially make permanent these tax provisions, and it came up to are, 7, 80 month billion. 800 billion. The notion, i gerks was that the more you increase the doifers the easier its going to be to raise, to cut other taxes. Its its counterintuitive. It works only if you believe that making other tax cuts pay for themselves weve been through that now for years and years. It has president worked out. And thats another reason why this 600 package on balance is a serious mistake and thats why i and many other democrats in the house oppose it. Thank you. Thank you very much. The testimony from both of you is important for this committee. Its important for members who are listening. Its important for the American Public. Well go thrur these some 223 pages. Our web site has been inundated with people trying to get at this to determine what it is, whats in, whats out, what might be included. I dont want to argue with anyone any one of you. I will err on the side of believing that i believe maump brady, what you have done is awesome. Im not going to try to quarrel with you weve saved 600 billion or not. I would characterize that we should not have taxed and should have made permanent i. R. S. Contributions to chairy. We were going to do that every year also but instead of uncertainty, maump uncertainty,e are getting certainty. I do not want to argue with anybody about what is right or wrong, about depreciation on two thirds of the tax code. As you accelerate it appreciate, it the depreciation, it keeps our businesses young, nimble, new, so we do not grow old and stagnant. A persons business means that they update with the times. Problemsthey fix the that they have. Whether it is 88 or modernizing ada or modernizing with the times. And lastly, r d. , i came fromleman hightech when i came to this job. Thank you from the original Bell Labs Team that invented broadband back in 1986. We developed broadband. We do not know what the future was, but we knew what would spawn off a revolution. , comes fromr d incubators, labs, all sorts of things that accelerate to make life better. We should never tax, and i dont think we were going to, tax r d. It is a regular part of doing business. We gave it to people without having them worry about it at the end of every year. What you have done is give them certainty. I would not make the claim that we saved 600 billion, because what we have done is begun a revolution in this country where people can now all of their Business Plan follow their Business Plan from january 1 from now on. Decisions,hoices and go out and purchase americanmade products. I am proud of you. I am proud of you and i think it is a job not only well done, but a great lift for people who benefiting, and making our country stronger. Dr. Burgess . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to relate to how optimistic i am about the future of this bill in front of us today. Today is important, and i appreciate the work you put in as i think about that year and the things to come. The good things to come. At the the wind is at our back at fundamental tax reform. Happen. Going to make it im proud to be a part of that. I want to thank you for being here today. Thank you for working so hard on this. I cannot wait to see what is next. The gentleman from as is recognized. Express my frustration over this whole process. I do not particularly like the , at the last minute we are being presented with this big package of a little bit of everything. White frankly, none of us are going to know completely what is in it by the time we vote for it. The process is frustrating. That is not the fault of anybody isting at this table, it this institution and the other body as well. But it is a reflection on how our priorities have not always been right and i think we need fundamental tax reform. I do not believe that we have leadership where we should see it. In charge,een proposed something, and nothing happened. Franklyankly, quite i am not confident that unless things change here, we will ever see it. But let me say this. Dilemma i can see right now. As much as i agree with all that they have said in terms of the of where the line share of the tax code goes, one of the things that is frustrating me the most about the congress over the years is the fact that i have felt the most vulnerable in this country have been neglected time and time again. In this deal there is the theanent suspension of Child Tax Credit. I wish it were indexed. Permanently things extended to the people i care most about, is something that ghtly. Nnot take li this train is moving out of the station, whether we like it or not. This is going to the white house, this is what the white house has said they will sign. If it gets to them. The dilemma for people like me is trying to figure out what is the right vote. The process is flawed. The fact that they are unpaid for is flawed. Train is leaving the station, and something that is helping people that i think have been neglected for far too long, the people who run this in by the people who run this institution, what do you do . Im going to go through this and read it and figure out what the right vote is. Here. K you for being point weully at some will get a Better Process in place we were are not having to deal with these kinds of things at the last minute when nobody pages, trying to figure out what the implications are. This is not the way it should be run. Without ideal back. With that, i yield back. Do you seek time to engage the witnesses . I dont want to cut anybody off. A brief comment, with the indulgence of the chairman. We are going to do tax reform. And a lot of hard work has been done over the past four years on the committee. We have examined the entirety of the code. We have put a lot of proposals out there. The American People want to tax reform. But a something we can agree upon in a bipartisan way. The country this music country desperately needs growth. It is not going to happen without tax reform. Package, have broken a cycle that has been around for a long time. Much in terms of tax, and at the last minute we extend these tax provisions on a temporary basis. It has created a tremendous amount of uncertainty for the American People with businesses to plan, at a time when it is already an atmosphere of uncertainty with the economy to begin with. It is a terrible environment for business. The American Economy must be made stronger, it must put back in a position of prosperity and to build we are going a lead in the Global Economy growth which is also struggling. Proposal we have broken the cycle. We are making some of these provisions permanent that we agree should be made permanent. We are setting the stage for tax reform. Furtheruld have had cooperation with the administration, and our colleagues in the senate, perhaps we could have gone even further. I think this is a very ambitious package. It is progrowth. It will help not only businesses, but families. For staffry important to moving forward on tax reform. First step on moving forward on tax reform. I hope it will continue next year with our colleagues on the ways and Means Committee in the house and in the senate with moving forward. Tax let me amend what i said. Tax reform that will go passed both chambers, and to the white house, part of my critique of some of the issues is that they seem to be focused on people who are well off, and ignore people who are struggling and full durable. I think it is important, and i always said, in this package there is an extension of the current income Child Tax Credit. I am not diminishing that. The only thing that can be paused here. I have been troubled over the years because that population has been consistently and deliberately ignored. I can hope we can get the tech system in balance. Tax system in balance. Up was this was brought not ideal. But we cannot ignore the fact that people are struggling in this country. 60 Million People could be helped by this, and these are people who this congress has ignored. I appreciate it. Me a comment very briefly . I think your feelings are totally shared. I think one needs to understand [inaudible] it will become permanent. Let me say a word about certainty and uncertainty. When you do 600 billion unpaid is certaintylt that the pressure on discretionary nondefense will grow and grow and grow. Said, it is the lowest level in terms of our economic package since 1962. It has been going down and down after in the few years the 2008 election. Not only is this a step backwards in terms of tax reform, but it is also creating events creating immense essures on the people who are lower middle class and struggling out of poverty to be of to address discretionary programs, nondefense, so that we reverse this trend towards more, less and less Discretionary Spending. Weathers education, Health Whether it is education, whatever it is, health research, whatever it is. The pressure has been so immense matter sograms that much that we have not found real money for infrastructure. Million works is further and further in this direction. I get it. Again, this train is moving out of the station. And in it, there is something i feel very deeply about. Where we are going to have to wrestle with over the next couple of hours. I yield back. Do you seek time . The gentleman is recognized. I think there are going to be members here that are going to the votet because of on the really complicated matter in a short time frame. This bill is 233 pages. I doubt very seriously of three quarters of the membership has a clue about what is in it and what is not in it. Also, members are going to have some angst about the cost of this measure. I need to get a firm figure by mr. Brady,levin and what is the cost estimate for this measure . 629 billion for 10 years. Is that correct . That is the latest. Billion, we have an updated measure. I would be interested in seeing what the deficit talks in the congress would say. If they do not have any angst, i guess i should shut up. Does the gentleman wish to seek the time of the Committee Witnesses . Yes, mr. Chairman. I will be equally brief. The good news is, we have seen these provisions. These were extended a year ago. Unfortunately, this is temporary for a year backward. This means families, Small Businesses cannot even count on that tax relief they were owed. We all voted on this exact same package as well four years ago. Of us have memorized the tax provisions here. The difference is we are making many of them permanent sore families and businesses can count on them. My thought is we ought to stop this charade on the cost. Beenruth is we have extending these provisions for one year at a time, every year. Some of these have been extended 419, 17ears, some years. We know them well. Whether you extend them one year without paying for them, and you should not, or two years, or ise, or 10, the annual cost exactly the same. Whether you buy the pie one slice at a time or you buy the whole thing, the cost is the same. The mostrence is disappointing recovery since world war ii. Our families and businesses need the relief. The tax increase is never a cost. We have always worked hard as republicans to stop washington from taking more money from the Hardworking Taxpayers who earned it. Our belief is this is not washingtons money this is our taxpayers money. In this instance, the exact same price, we will provide them the tax relief they can count on. A 600 billion, 629 billion a charade, is a serious mistake. It is a serious mistake for a number of reasons. When they are temporary and has two the benefits temporary it two benefits. You can examine them, you can delete them. It is also a major impact in terms of the tax basis and whether or not you have to pay for these reductions in taxes. Your notion basically is you do not have to pay for tax cuts because they pay for themselves. That has been the notion behind the tax policies of the republicans. Extending these temporarily have zero benefits. Of the ways and Means Committee, you extend these provisions without paying for them. You had no complaints about them. T have honest and true dont say i did not have any complaints. When we extended them i did not extend them thinking they would be permanent. So for that timeframe. Yes, but you are doing this on paying for primarily unpaid for permanently. The difference is that people cannot count on these. I will just reclaim my time. Have q, im sure, argumentshese repeatedly. That i amre you pretty glad that i am not on the ways and Means Committee. [laughter] if you talk about getting called , i am delighted for it. I am delighted to know that that weretax credits set to expire that are going to be considered. My overall concern is that when you do things like bonus depreciation and other measures that are going to get more to National Corporations and other benefits, i just savor for avor poor people over big corporations that go overseas and do in version and other things that effect our economy in any meaningful way. I recognize that they can create some jobs but they do serious damage by not paying taxes themselves. And the thrust always is on the poor. That is why stand against this measure, and prepared to vote against it in spite of things like the cadillac tax and other measures. I will be voting no. The gentleman yield back his time. The gentleman from georgia . Thank you. The issue does feel a little duplicitous sometimes, to have that conversation sometimes and not other times. I have to agree with the chairman, the worst boat i have taken was the vote last year to extend the tax provision for what amounted to 17 days and retroactively just over 11 months. Why in the world and i incentivizing to do something that they should have already done . We cannot get it through the committee, we have gone backwards. Im conflicted over the amount of money that is involved here because it is absolutely weighing on my deficit conscious. On the budget committee, i want to balance the budget and see the future go forward. But every year i sit around in that budget committee, i spend months crafting a budget that pretense that tax provisions will last a year that has gone on for decade after decade after decade. If im going to have a serious conversation with my colleagues about whether it is lifting up. Folks outmic ladder the economic ladder, i need to have serious servers to have that conversation with. The more we can do to get out of the fiction business, and given the tough Decision Making business the better off we will all be. We had an examination of these measures, and we critically looked at everyone one of these things and struck about half of everything each year, that are absolutely be on board with you mr. Levin. But my experience is exactly the opposite. Exerciseerformance every year that is nothing but undermine peoples confidence in our system. You all are better than that. I was listening in in the back all are foru said tax reform, we will deliver tax reform. This is not the final question on whether or not this is the best tax policy to build america. This is the final statement of whether or not we will continue fixing the tax policy and that we will get about the Serious Business of reform in the future. I appreciate your comments and i agree with them. Last two years, we have actually examined these provisions in committee, in hearings, we have marked them up, and we have subjected these tax provisions regular order. In the past we had this kick the can down the road attitude where at the end of the year quickly we have to put a package of extenders together to extend it for another year with no certainty. You are absolutely correct. There were farmers who wanted to buy new equipment, and they had , if anyhort window window at all, depending on whether cash flow was because of the way bonus depreciation was weated last year in what did. That is unacceptable. We cannot grow this economy, we cannot give certainty to the businesses. Small businesses are the backbone of this economy. For those who are struggling out there and need jobs, if we help our Small Businesses, they will create jobs, and people will move up the ladder. Gentleman frome florida as well, these are not just committees on tax, were looking at well for welfare reform to move them up the ladder. We need certainty. We need a good down payment to move this forward. You really hit the right note. I didnt agree with many parts of the proposal. Least it was serious, and it was honest. For, what it proposed, and it looked at everything. It looked at bonus depreciation. What this bill does is to take two International Tax revisions and to take them out of tax throughmaking the look permanent. That is for a number of years. Advance of the proposal, the other one that is , what it does is to take the outside of tax reform. And that is a mistake. You should not say that there has never been an effort to do tax reform. What happened was it was put forward, it was dismissed by the have is and now what we piecemeal efforts. Mistake,nk that is a and the impact of 600 billion, as i have said, in terms of ,iscretionary programs appropriations, is going to be immensely serious. I appreciate the time. Not presume to know more about tax policy than any of you sitting at that table. But i would say that my experience watching tax extender policy is no more persuasive to me that this bill closes the than it isese issues to say that the fact we have been doing it every year for a decade leads these businesses to assume it will go on in perpetuity anyway. In the context of fundamental tax reform i believe, i welcome the chairman to disabuse me of this notion, i do not know how you get a copy tax reform unless everything is on the table comprehensive tax reform unless everything is on the table. Thingsvote for these today, everything is off the table. I will share concerns with mr. Levin. Weare providing certainty can today with everything on the table. You are absolutely correct. Is tot, the first step answer the question what is the tax code . Today, there is confusion. Is it with the current law is, isnt part of the tempora, all of the temporary provisions . This makes a true and honest accounting of the true tax code. It creates formatting for Going Forward. This is a critical step. Elevatingcontext of the fictions that are around here. Eliminating the fictions that are around here. At kroger, who shop walmart, safeway, they pay every one of those taxes and there the least stable to be able to do that. The more we can expand transparency in the tax code, the better. Of american fan our pay more in gas tax than they are an income tax breaks to pepper and joined the fiction that we are fiddling with the income tax to help them get ahead is distortionary. Code,e created a welfare not a tax code. People who work for wages do not have any other choices than to pay these taxes where the first getting where the government gets the first bit. We need to look at that tax that is so burdens working families in this country. I thank you all. I yield back. The gentleman from ohio. Thank you. I was like i would like to ask the chairman, we talked about the fuelcell language that was excluded and the solar language that was included in the tax credit. Could you explain to me again why that was not on the table or get included . Thank you for raising this issue. Like you, we have developing fuelcell technologies, and another number of areas, thermal, we tax credits wind tax credits. They were not included because their provisions have not expired. They will expire in 2016. Thosewas no need to make extensions in this bill. The larger package of her novels does include a fiveyear extension of the solar tax credits, which was a key discussion point in this overall package, especially related to the effort to lift the oil export ban. They stay in law until 2016. Thank you. That is an important competitiveness issue. It means wect, cannot pick winners and losers. Im glad to hear that the reason it was not included is a was not expiring. We can have that debate next year. Hopefully it will not expire. We can have that debate next year when it is time. I know everything happens when it is time. I appreciate all of the hard work of everybody here. I actually think this is a good compromise package. Everybody gets a little bit something. Think they might like, not like,. It helps lowincome people with the Child Tax Credit. It and it looks if a lot of individual extensions for a shorter term. But i think it sets you up really well for tax reform as you said, mr. Chairman, and i appreciate all of your hard work on it. I am sorry we are not going to get a unanimous vote on it, but i will support it. He yields back his time. The gentleman from alabama. A lot of the clock is the gift to humanity. I have no question. Chair yields back. The gentlemen from washington. As scrooge i will just have a short question or comment about the legislation. I come from a state that we dont have a state income tax. Every year the question of hether you can deduct your state sales tax comes up. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we dont. But it is a big deal. Those people in the state of washington that do take advantage of that deduction, it is huge. Almost a third of the tax payers do, and it comes up to almost 2 billion that impacts families in my state. T may be counted as increasing the deficit, but in my way of thinking that is their money, not our money. That is not the u. S. Governments money. Let re going to taxpayers keep more of their hardearned money, i dont think that is a cost. I think that is a real benefit. I am very appreciative that is in there and made permanent and we dont have to argue that. It is also very important for many people in agriculture in my start, just as you were talking about the certainty of being able to play financially and not the last minute of the year, if you are fortunate enough to have any money left over, do you buy that piece of equipment or not, to have the ability to make those plans 12 months instead of maybe 12 days early i think is a huge thing. So i am very appreciative of those kind of things. Research and Development Tax credits are very good. There are a lot of good things in there. Like anything we do around here, everything is probably not perfect. But i appreciate very much your work on it and look forward to supporting it. Thank you, sir. Gentleman yields back his time. I want to thank all three of you for taking time for being with us today. I know you had to excise a lot of your afternoon for this. It is important for this committee, important for members, important for us to express not only in the hearing form, but to get the correct expertise to address this properly. All three of you have done that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. If you would, leave for our awesome stenographer anything you brought in, in writing. I would like to call up the panel of members. I recognize that what we are doing here now is allowing testimony that would be on any part of the two pieces that we have today. I would just simply ask that anyone who is wishing to give testimony would specify to us really which bill they are in eference to and give us that help. Would ask the gentleman from mr. New york, delaware, mr. Jordan from ohio, mr. Griffith if he chooses from the state of virginia. She has been the most faithful person. I pet you they will let you sit next to mr. Carney. Give her that chair. You were very kind. Mr. Griffith, if you choose to be with the other, i would allow you to. We will hustle through this. I know you have been very patient. Mr. Jordan might have been here for the same matter. We will include him. Ms. Lunch mis, you get the award for being here the longest. The gentle woman from wyoming is now recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I very much appreciate the work of president prorkses of this Appropriations Committee and the developers of this omnibus bill. I would take an environment slither out of this bill and subject it to a continuing resolution until philbin and allow the rest of the bill to without being subject to a c. R. So it would be only that very sliver that relates to the interior and environment subcommittees component of this omnibus bill that would be subject to a c. R. The reason that i am asking for this amendment is that i dope want to interfere with the very good work that negotiators have completed in the remainder of the bill. But it appears to the we were states in particular and people that are very concerned about the interior department and e. P. A. Components of this bill, that the position that the negotiators took left the stern states and coalproducing states and Natural Resource issues on president negotiating table in a way that was a greater sacrifice than any other component of the bill. In other words, the west in particular is particularly aggrieved. So it wants to receiver itself out and continue negotiations on that part of the bill through february and allow the rest of the omnibus to go through as negotiated. Let me give you some examples. Im sorry that the gentleman from oklahoma who is on this committee isnt here to hear this. Earlier while i was listening he was explaining his concern that authorizing committees are not doing their job. Therefore, riders are put on , lls that are policyoriented and we should limb Appropriations Bills to appropriations. Yet this very bill violates that premise in a big way. This very bill funds the land and Water Conservation fund even though its authorization ust lapsed two months ago, and even though the Natural Resources committee has had a hearing on a working draft to reauthorize the land and Water Conservation fund and to implement some reforms to return that program to its original intent. Over the years the land and Water Conservation fund has morphed into a bill that largely funds the acquisition of more federal land in states that are already dominated by federal land, when the original intent of the land and Water Conservation fund was to prioritize states projects and states funding. There are also some other changes to that bill that we have been working through in negotiations to authorize or reauthorize the land and Water Conservation fund in the Natural Resources committee. Yet this bill preempted our ommittee work and funds that we are trying to reauthorize. There is an issue i would wish to point out. There are things that were removed from this bill that were in both base bills, the house and the senate pace bills. We were just told that there as language added to this bill to ledge mize this as a conference to legitimize this as a Conference Committee record. If something is in both base bills, it stays in the bill. T is not a process where the particular negotiators dont like what both houses decided, so they thorough it outand yet that is what has happened in this big. As specifically to the stream buffer rule allowance, that is evastating to cole coal producing states, particularly my colleagues who have underground mines, although the rule is extended to apry to surface mines it could affect the availability of electricity coal from cole nationwide. Since that is such a huge component of our pace load in electricity, it could have dramatic effects in the ability of this country to provide electricity at a time when we are not ready to replace coal with wind, and solar, and natural gas and nuclear. So this is something that the Coal Companies and the coal producing states find extremely egregious. Lastly and this is just of many. And i am referring specifically to a handout that was prepared y nita lowey, and it is on her website. It is marvelous. It is an amazing piece of work. It shows that she was successful in negotiating out of this bill. Now this bill allows new standards for existing sources of Greenhouse Gas emissions. It allows the extension of navigateable waters. A allows the cost of carbon into any guidance. It allows rule on hydraulic fracturing federal and indian lands. We have a rule in my state on hydraulic fracturing. And in wyoming and all the other states there is federal nd surrounded by and rounded by private land, and this drilling goes under all of them. Whose rules apply . The states rule or this new federal rule . It is stacked real making with change. Ability to it allows wolves to stay on the ngered speak cease species to stay on the endangered list despite the fact they are supposed to be taken off the list. It prohibits the incidental take of the northern long eared bat. This bill allows interior to implement and enforce the threat and spess enforce yt of the lesser prairie chicken. And it allows the department of interior to continue to use its listing the sage greenhouse. That takes 11 million akers of stern land out of the acres of western conference land out of the process of beg available for oil, gas or recreation. This is something that we find as members of the western caucus and the Intermountain States to be a bill that is so weighted against the west as to be unfair to the west. U have con congressional districts that are extremely egregiously affected by this sliver of the bill that came out of the interior and environment appropriation subcommittees negotiated product. That is why we want to take a rifle shot and say only this omponent of the bill will be subject to a continuing resolution so we can continue negotiations as to that part of the bill until february and allow that part of the bill to produce. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Gentlewoman he that i was unaware, which is why we do hearings. I have contacted a former member of the rules committee, mr. Bishop, as chairperson of the committee. I would like to advise that i am going to ask mr. Newhouse if he would come back and play chairman for a few minutes and allow me a chance to go and investigate this issue. I have accepted your testimony on the surface that you have described. I have gathered together the information that i believe i need, and going to have to go look at this. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I take very seriously, in tanko, who is here with a very important provision. I know that the former governor from delaware has contacted me about important things currently governor markel. We are looking at things. You have come to the right place. This is the right time. We are going to measure plea times and try and saw once. So i would ask the gentleman, mr. Newhouse, if he said come and take my place, and we would go with the gentlemen for questions. Do you have any questions . [inaudible question] mad only rappinging member, her work product is wonderful. I am not happy with what it says, but it sure is clear. She did a fabulous job of compiling and explaining what is in this bill. Please give her my compliments. I shall do that. E aim to please in new york. Do any other members hatch any questions . Mr. Burgess . I want to thank the win for pointing out the issue on the authorization side of things. As a humble authorizer, i recognize that we do authorize a lot of stuff. Authorizing bills with few exceptions are not mustpass pieces of lemming simulation, which is why everything win owes down to an appropriations bill at the end of the year. So it is not exactly fair to imbullpen the intent of the authorizers. We do our work. We do a lot of work. But our bills are not structured as mustpass pieces of legislation. And if they are bottled up, there they sit until a mustpass piece of legislation comes up to which it can be attached. I held my tongue. I couldnt stand it any longer. I had to speak out. Thank you, and i yield back. Not a problem. I should say, too, and ms. Lumus, you have announced you are retiring, and your presentation today tells me we are going to miss you greatly. You very well verbalized it. I couldnt have said it better. You put into easy to understand terms the situation we face in the west. So i appreciate that. You mentioned a couple of things, the land and Water Conservation fund. It was actually increased in the amount of the funding they go without any of the reforms the committee was seeking. As far as the sage greenhouse goes, certainly it is going to impact the ability to utilize resources around the west, and recreation, but also in some ses it impacts militaryplaces, which is a concerning thing. That is something we shouldnt compromise. Appreciate much your testimony. Thank you, mr. Chairman. No one else . I appreciate that. Mr. Tanko, you are recognized. Thank you. Members of the committee, i thank you for the opportunity to present an amendment to the omnibus bill that amends section 302. Basically this addresses the investment texas credit extension for solar technology. I certainly support solar strongly and feel this is a basic need for the industry. They are epcouged and strengthened by these incentives. But i want to bring what i believe is an oversight to this committees attention. As currently written, this anguage excludes other technologies from benefiting. 2020 threshold i believe we should inall the technologies, including fuel cells. This bill is straightforward, it would add these other technologies to the extension to 2020, and we would ask that be approved, be looked upon favorably by this committee so that we can speak to what we oversight here. Mr. Carney . Welcome to the rules committee. Thank you mr. Acting chairman and the Ranking Member and ibs members of the committee. I am here to support the amendment, which does exactly as he described it. It adds into the extension of 48c, investment tax credits the other technologies that are currently apartment of the code that werent included. It is our understanding based on agreements with leadership over in the senate, mr. Read and mr. Mcconnell, it was supposed to include this whole list. Qualified fuel cells, which is the particular technology that i am interested in. That we mentioned when talking about the governor it would negatively affect an operation in our state that Bloom Energy Fuel Cell ey build places. People are making good middleclass wages at that facility. They have borqued as a delegation to advance the extension of this credit to the fuel sell technology, and it was the senators understanding in a conversation he had with leader reed, that that would be included. We have been told over here on capital, that it was not part of the agreement over here, and there forethat would have to come to the house leadership. This amendment is simply a mechanism to carry that agreement forward if that communication occurs, recognizing we are at the 11th hour here on a very important piece of legislation. I would like to thank all the negotiators for the time they were putting into this, to emphasize how important this particular provision is, not just for the installation in our state, but for inthrations around the country. In the scheme of things, it is a small id. Who work 200 people in facilities, it is a very important matter and about would that could mean whether they continue to have a job or not. With that as my request, i would be happy to answer any questions that members might have. Thank you for hearing us out and appreciate your favorable consideration to this request. Thank you both for being here today and the information brought forward on a very important issue. Think i understand, and this was brought you were earlier. Aybe you were in the room. The bill before us is a bipartisan piece of work. I think i heard the chairman of ways and means say this tax credit doesnt expire until next year. If that in fact is incorrect, i would certainly like to know that. If that is correct and changes at this time would maybe threaten the entire package, if hat is true, i think the scombleffed desire of everybody would be to work through regular order. Mr. Chairman, i would suggest that after having heard conversation for the past several hours, respectfully i certainly, th which i endorse as a fundamental dynamic of the effort made by the house. So if we can extend that certainty to 2020, i believe we of accomplishing the spirit this cut. I, too, have organizations like plug power in the Capital Region of new york that would be tremendously impacted if this were not allowed. I heard talk about doing it next year, but you strike when the iron is hot. You have a package here that is dealing with renewables. We should include all the other technologies for the sake of e fairness, and certainly no for certaintys sake. This what aid in the effort to crow jobs, keep jocks, and provide for encouragement and predictable. I think that is important. I, too, have been informed that there was an agreement. There was a bipartisan agreement in the United States senate, the draft does not reflect that agreement. And that we should do our best here for what is a very small piece of a very small bill to go forward and address certainty in this given moment so that we are doing the best for this company. It speaks to the best of the American Economy. This would bolster opportunities. So i realizefully would encourage us or this committee to look favorably upon the request. Again, thank you for the opportunity to present it, and thank all the members of the house who have worked so diligently on the omnibus bill. What you say is exactly right. Just to go back to the rationale for my support of this and the intent of the rules committee to approve this amendment is to provide a mechanism to allow an agreement that we believe occurred in the senate to move forward. About ue, what you say the expiration of the tax credits. The rules of engagement here in the holdouts were not to include those provisions as part of this overall agreement. But those were not the rules in the nate in terms of determine nations being made for what was included, and not these were extended and the argues was made because of the need for certainty and because the need for advanced financing of mechanisms that these lists of additional technologies be included in the agreement so that those agreements could be made with the expectation that those credits would be available to the financing of the overall package. But fundamentally it is about preserving a mechanism, a vehicle for an agreement that took place under a different set of rules. I have been told in terms of what was on the table for them in terms of these tax changes. Appreciate that. There again, some of the frustration with the system we find ours under. Mr. Mcgovern. I appreciate them for raising this issue. It is about jobs, which we all say we care about. It just seems to me even at this late stage that a couple of phone calls cant be made where we say ok, nobody is object to go this, this is not a big deal in the scheme of things. Put it in an amendment, or selfexecute it or give an up or down vote. That is what telephones are for, and we ought to be able to figure this out. In response to the gentleman, the acting chair talking about returning to order, i hope that we do. But i hear that every week, and we dont. So maybe in the new year, people were start vote fog regular order and well be able to get more things done. Like to think we could get a couple of people on the telephone and work it out and do it and move on. But thank you for being here, and i appreciate your leadership on this. Efforts are under way to make that happen by the way. Good. I support those efforts, so thank you. I used back. And if it makes it any easier, you can omit the word acting. Anybody else . Mr. Chairman i had a quick question, thinking about the difference between a clerical error that got confused in the negotiations. How would the members characterize this. Do we think we had this included and somehow it was gone . No, i dont think it happened that way. I think the daily gation in this case let by senator carpe Research Went to mr. Read and that these are the things i would like to see. It made it to leader mcconnells side of it. And assurances were given back that this was done. When it came out, included similar, which wasnt the main focus, but it is the top one on the list and didnt include the others. On this tied, we have talked and had a willingness to engage the issue by congressman dent others. Some of those people that work at this facility live in his district. And chairman brady. To look at the issue. On this side of the capital it was represented that because this experience next year. Those werent the rules of engagement on the other side of the capitol. His is all we are trying to do , for rules to be included, that it was an agreement we should carry forward. I know how hard it is to get something on a tax when they are using their full band width. I dont know. What i do know is these technologies are really moneyor. I know it has been scored, but i dont have that number available, and we could probably get that to the committee. Thank you both. Mr. Chairman i yield back. Gentleman yields back. Anybody else on the republican side. Mrs. Fox . I want to thank both of you for coming. You make a compelling case. We appreciate your testimony. As a good chairman would say you have done well enough that you are welcome to come back. Thanks for hearing us out. [inaudible question] nko this from ta afternoon, and he said we believe there was an error somewhere, and that the powers that be will want this done. If we could have some idea that we could get this on to the floor as an amendment, maybe we can do some good with it tomorrow. That is what we would like to see. But it is awful to leave thisous. Geo thermal are making a great comeback in my part of the state. We shouldnt stop that great nnovation and the ability to explore that further. It would be very important to me and i think to most of the up le from the cold country there to have this go on. Thank you very much to the members of the committee and the chair. Thank you. Absolutely. And i apologize, i did not see you slip back in. Oh, no. I wanted to get here, and i knew you would be gracious to let me do that. Thank you, gentlemen. We appreciate it. Thank you. Gentlemen from south arolina and West Virginia virginia. Virginia. Did i say West Virginia . I apologize. [inaudible] [laughter] just to make up for that, mr. Griffith you are recognized. Prosecute chairman, i will tell you that we are here in support of the amendment offered by mr. Jordan of ohio, 11439. I will speak on two parts of at, and mr. Muschamp laney will speak on two parts. Mine is dealing with the amendment we have put forward. It was believed that this stream buffer rule was going to be in the agreement. Somehow, as often happens late at night when negotiations are going on, it was left out. This basically the sections al with the buffer rule, put a moratorium on that for one year. It covers the time period of the funding and says that you shall not spend any money in regard to the further ransom of that rule and that the old rules will stay in place for the remainder of this budget period. I have been here most of the afternoon partly because i joy listening to the rules committee and partly because this is important in the coalproducing regions of the United States. We are losing thousands of jobs. I have lost thousands of jobs in my district, direct or indirect, in relation to the Coal Industries alone. These are hard working men and women trying to put food on the table. My district now has the dubious discretion of having the highest rate. It is a serious concern. The stream buffer rules laid out july 7 will not just negatively impact the coal industry. Some have depicted it as being the final nail in the coffin of the coal industry. This is a very serious matter. It goes way beyond what others would reasonably have expected. We need to do something about it. As opposed to putting in an entire new bill, this just says lets delay the funding and thus put a moratorium during this acts is taking place. We will put a moratorium on it and not move forward. We will see if folks can let cooler heads prevail and come up with a rational policy that will let us safely mine coal and protect the streams, but coming off the other legislation, half my companies are in bankruptcy. It is a very depressing sight to travel through the coal field of southWest Virginia that i represent. That is an important aspect, and we would ask in this amendment, the jordan amendment, that this be found in order and give us a chance to fight on the floor. E do think there is an idea. He will speak on into of these. Three bills have passed regarding siberia security sections. The language that is in the omnibus that we are looking at now as i understand it basically combines the two house versions. There are friends of mine who voted against fourth. Mr. Are friends of mine who voted for both, and then there were people like me who went through and trying to figure out what was the right policy. There were numerous complicated differences, this is exactly what mr. Jefferson laid it. It calls for a cowens between the house and the senate to issues. He these are complicated matters which should not be determined in an omnibus, where it is a take it or leave it opportunity. We would pull those out and recommend those things are not able some of them would resolve some of the issues. With that being said, mr. Chairman, i am happy to answer questions or i can turn it over to my colleague, and he can adress the other two part of the jordan amendment. Mr. Griffith, thank you very much. I note that we have at least two other members who have walked in. Programs only mr. Amash would wish to john a. you. Meadows, wisconsin concerned. Thank you for joining this distinguish the panel. Mr. Griffin inn is a good man to me. We want to have you a good panel. Mr. Griffin has been here about five hours today, so i was willing to let him go first. Time . Vaney, do you seek yes, sir. Recognized. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of mr. Jordan, who was not able to be here. Why are we doing this . Ordinarily when i come in, try and talk to everybody, but i want to talk to my own colleagues a little built. Why are we here . We want to support the omnibus. I think just about all of us here to speak on behalf of the amendments vote the against the budget bill. I suspect that several of you on the panel did as well. But we are trying to anything out a way to support the effort on the omnibus. There is a precedent for that. Back during the ryan murray debate, many of us voted ainst the ryan murray budget deal but then voted for the omnibus that came from it. We knew we had lost the battle on spending limits. The majority wanted to spend her. We had that battle, and we lost. There four we knew the federal government is going to pen a certain amount of money. We know the federal government is going to spend 1. 1 trillion according to this omnibus. We also believe if we can control the purse springs and direct that money in some fashion, it might allow us to support the largers am bus bill. The four things contained in this meant us would allow us to do that. I know mr. Amass wants to speak on. We want to speck on the syrian refugee issue and pro life issues. I just spent last night in las vegas. He topic of immigration took about half the time. The Syrian Refugees was half of that. So almost an hour. We took the time to address the issue three weeks ago. We made the effort to fashion a bill that not onlying collected a dramatic majority in the represent party, we had 47 diems voting for it. We had a voteproof idea for how to deal with the syrian refugee issue. It was important to us, still important to the American People, and it is not in the am bus, which makes vlingt sense to me. We have language that we know is not a poison pill. It is the safe act and calls for what speaker ryan has described as a pause in the program until we can put in the protections we all know are so important. Why isnt it in here . They were supposed to be in here. We are accused of taking a show vote on the floor. No, it is not a show vote. We will always have a chance to attach it to the am bus. It is not here, and i dont know how to explain that to people back home. Yes, we deal with the visa waiver program, and we should. In the greater scheme of things it may be a greater threat to National Security. But it doesnt mean it isnt a threat, and it doesnt mean it is not important to people back home. It is. All this bill does it take the language that almost 300 of us supported in the house and puts it in the omnibus. The last piece deals with some pro life issues. We have had some fights in here, dealing with the defunding planned parenthood. Again, we fought, and in a fair fight, lost. I get that. I would hope we can continue to press some pro live issues. What we have done is added three smaller pro live ricers on this mend ep unlimited. Number one would be to take planned parent out of the medicaid program. Some tried in texas and were sued. They were not allowed to do that. A State Government tried to move planned parenthood out of medicade and was sued. Our amendment would give them that ability to do that. We add the abortion, nondiscrimination act language, which would simply protect those, and the medical providers providing things based on their personal belief. I was overseas with a Bipartisan Group two years ago and was disturbed to find out that our stapleton uses our money to in that our state department used our money to ins influence countries. They said do you know that you extort us, that your state department will come to us asan you wont get our money if you enforce your ban on gay marriage, you wont get our money if you continue to enforce your laws against abortion. We are using our taxpayer dollars to force those people to change their laws or not follow them, than is wrong. We go after a piece of that. United to defund the Nations Population Fund as part of this amendment. We think they are good amendments, we dont think there is any excuse for them. The question mr. Cole asks, could we support the bill if the amendment passes . The answer is tucson particularally we could support the bill if the amendment passed. I thank you for your time, mr. Chairman. I yield back. I am taking in what you have said. Thank you for the completeness of your testimony. Sir, you have had several people sitting around for a taken ong time, who have in the entire afternoon. We are delighted that you are joining us. You arrived just in time. The gentleman is appreciated and respected and the gentleman is recognized. I appreciated these fine gentlemen who held my place in pipeline. I want to thank you, mr. Chairman, and i want to thank the members of the committee. I always appreciate the opportunity to be here to talk about these issues, and i appreciate that you give us the chance to do so. I just want to echo a lot of what mr. Griffith said earlier. There is a suber villain here that is more than 100 pages long and has no business being in an omnibus. It is something that is contention. It has bipartisan opposition, and it had some bipartisan support. The previous versions of this bill. But the current version of the bill is something we have never seen before. There have been changes to the language. You talk to privacy groups, and if you talk to those who have look the at this bill carefully, many of us, including myself, think that it antiprivacy legislation we have seen since the patriot act. It is being snuck into a 2,000page am bus. And it is not fair to the members of congress who vote on this legislation. It is not fair to our constituents at home who expect a full debate. And i am worried, frankly, that many of my colleagues who were concerned about patriot act votes in the past and other votes they have taken on surveillance measures in the past where they found out later that those bills did much more than they thought, i am afraid that is going to happen here and you are going to have members of congress from both party go home and find out a ear or two later that they voted for something that they never voted because because it was snuck into an appropriations bill, where it has no place. I would encourage the committee, i would encourage the Leadership Team to reconsider having this language in this bill. It deserves a debate on the floor. I think we can all agree that if we debate it on the floor and people support it, that is ok. But we should do that in front of the American People with everyone having full knowledge of that we are voting on. That is not what is happening today. There are people in the surveillance community, people who are concerned about these issues, talking about it online. You will see that. But you dont hear many members of Congress Talking about it because most of them dont know it is in there. I would just urge us to reconsider this. To pull out this language. Lets have a vote own an appropriation bill. Let have a vote on measures that have been considered thoroughly. Let not have a vote on this right now. I am convinced that special on the other side of the aisle, they are going to be surprised at what is in here and very concerned about it. There are a lot of members on our side of the aisle as well who are going to be very concerned later on. With that i am happy to take questions and he appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much. I am just going to say this because i think i know the answer. But if there are any other members of congress seeking to give testimony, that is the last panel. I know mr. Meadows is here. I am not asking him to rethink, but i am mcgahee sure. This is the last panel, and that is what we are doing here. Mr. Griffith, let me tell you that one of our colleagues from West Virginia has fought and ught and fought and fought and most of the time been so genuine and fair that it hurt me to see him get turned down so many titles on this coal ash. Ssue let say i dont know what i am talking about no, no, no. All i am trying to say is it is very relevant. It represents your district, his district and probably eight or nine first base zribblingts. I have no more sympathy than i do for a member of congress trying to represent their district, especially went they see people are laying off, missing their job, people wanting to work but cant find it. This committee, and i am going it to say this to all three of us to varying degrees we are a powerful committee. Are also a very Important Committee to provide data, information, hold hearings, allowing your colleagues who are up here, who spent hours and hours and hours of their week and their tight, to come and represent others. What we are being asked to do, and this is no surprise to anybody here, and i respect you for being here and few rguments have been as cogent and convenient because you said you do what i do for the bill. Normally we dont ask that question because it is really not fair. You have volunteered this in a most genuine say. Weapon find and ours at the end of the year, and our role is try to vet the bill. We are trying to talk what has been negotiated, right, wrong or indifferent, and there may be senators and house members i was one of those i was not consulted during the entire time, but i consulted during the entire time on a number of the provisions that are in here. Other members got engaged. I know they did. It is hard when it comes down to it and you see things added that you udidnt didnt expect. I appreciate you being here. I am not going to recommend we make any of these an order, and it is not because i am not for any of threets provisions. I would want and hope that this becomes and i am not saying this because it could happen next year or the next year. I am hopeful that the team which i am on and which you are on learns how to more rapidly, to actually give whether it is mr. Griffith or someone else, an answer. I think an sure is due each of you. Maybe this was the answer. Maybe the negotiators would chase to say you got our answer now. I dont know. What i do know is you are indictmented to answers, and i am glad you are here. Is that a fairway to put it . That way i can go back to dallas, texas, and tomorrow i good e told that i denied friend of mines amendments, things i agree with. But i am simply suggesting that the process that is where we are today. And i realize you for tag taking all day. As you rightly describe, this is our only chance to publicly participate in that process. I am going to say as i have looked at others, i thought i could look at him and say what i said every time, but we are going to handle the issue that you spoke on. I think you are entitled to an answer. The answer that i am going to tell you up here. Maybe people disagree with me. But i appreciate you being here, and i respect the heck out of all theo of you guys. If you see mark meadows, tell him weapon appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, we respect the fact that you took president time and went through the process. We understand the process, but when you are fighting for your folks, you have to take every opportunity. You are right. I admire that. I do want to thank the gentlemen for being here because i have a great deal of sympathy for all these amendments. I think they are appropriate and well thought out. I agree with my friend from virginia that they do take every opportunity. The one question that has always been asked and ablely answered by my friends from south carolina, i just want to make one statement to my friend in the back of the room from North Carolina, Christmas Present received and appreciated and it has all been devoured. I yield back. I failed to get it. The gentlewoman from new york. I want to thank you also. I am glad you brought to my attention that there are 100 pages of Cyber Security in there that i knew nothing about. We have some pondering to do on that. But thank you for your work. I always appreciate it when a member delves in full bore with what they are trying to get done. I am grateful to you for that. Thank you. Mr. Mcgovern . Did you offer an amendment . Yes. And my amendment is included in his amendment. There are four parts to the amendment and i dont agree to the other parts. I will offer amendment specifically under Cyber Security because that is what i do feel. I think we need a cybersecurity bill, and we want to make sure it is done in a way that protects privacy and respects our liberties and traditions here. Just want to say this bulldogs i cochair the human rights commission. You mentioned your problem with the u. S. State department threatening to with hold moneys from governments that somehow pass laws that we dont like or wont change their laws. You mentioned the issue of africa and the lbgt community. I it tell you that i am glass and i hope our government is is not to i hope we are saying to them that we are not going to support your government when you have policies like that. Universal, there are a lot countries in the world that have those kinds of laws. And by the way, who to pass those laws are funded by entities here in the United States. I think if we stand for anything. Lawed. Ht to be out we shouldnt be micro managing other peoples laws, but human rights ought to matter, as to whether or not we are giving taxpayer money to other country. When it comes to lbgt laws, there are countries in africa where they get the death penalty. I hope we are making a big stink about that because we fall on the opposite side of that as a nation. I would like to think we do anywhere. But i appreciate you being here nonetheless, and we will see you on the floor tomorrow, i guess. Gentleman yields back his time. The gentleman, from lewisville texas, dr. Burgess. Some four hours ago when we started this hearing, the points that were brought up about the safe parenting act and planned parenthood funding, i made those same remarks to the chairman. I would encourage us to thoughtfully consider this amendment and make people not understand why we are not taking the steps necessary to protect our people. Can we not just put a pause on this until we figured out . I think we nor it and our own political peril but more importantly at our countries peril. I rely on you whenever there are Civil Liberties questions. Between the two of us we must make up a normal person. Appreciate you bringing those issues to us. Separateperry did planned parenthood funding from medicaid funding. But i can tell you is that there was a departure from using medicaid funding at planned parenthood. Texas set up a separate fund which they used state moneys four. From all appearances the last legislative session and seem to be working quite well. It has been in the process. I will yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Collins we have long conversation before hand a lot of these issues. This is going to start on the path that we need to go. These are things that will get fixed as we go. I dont think the amendment of someone the rest into their sexual orientation. Ive heard that argument but i dont buy into it and it is very good the you brought it before us. Im happy to sit here for four hours listen to it. I think that that is a comment well said, we will stay here all day all night whatever it takes. Your support for you believe in and your representation of people back home. We respect each of you. Especially when we have an omelette the threeday rule, to get some these issues out on the table. For theple of questions gentleman from southWest Virginia. As far as the stream protection role. Your focus is on the coal industry. Thattrapolation dozen impact lots of other mining activities around the country . I believe it certainly does. It doesnt immediately it will certainly do so within a short hearing of time. It is impossible to find a mining situation to the underground what you dont have some water in the mind. The key is to make sure youre not polluting the water. That is a concern. There is no way this country can move completely away from coal. Said, this islier going to have a dramatic impact on any goods that may need to be manufactured with the use of coal. Which course electricity is one of ourbased fuels. Very much needed in periods of severe cold as we saw two winters ago. When Natural Gas Prices spiked. I think over hundred dollars in the northeast per thousand cubic feet. Available. It doesnt have to go through pipeline. It can be waiting to be called upon to be used. It is an important fuel source for the United States. Seems that there is an effort to put the immediate completely eliminated. E it. They could be a huge detriment to the Mining Industry as a whole. I appreciate you pointing out out. Even in the state like ours where we depend on hydropower, we do get coal by cable. It will impact all the soul of the country. Mr. Martian mr. Mulvaney, thank you for raising your points. I didnt see in the amendment the section youre talking about as far as our state department influencing other governments. The examples i gave her a little broader than the actual narrow language of the amendment. The amendment speak specifically to the United Nations. Realm of uslarger trying to do this overseas. I raise it because you raise it. I like to make one last comment. I made yield myself a minute. The issue brought up, the issue, i so much appreciate because i think two parts of this, i was in argentina lets say two years ago and i watch our ambassador lecture the argentinians about job growth and job creation and what they needed to do from our state department. Meanwhile always happening here washe United States threatened he in opposition to what we were telling other people to do. Currently there is a system that exists on a bipartisan bicameral appropriators, when they become aware of something that may be exactly what mr. Mcgovern was talking about, it would be a very difficult issue that we should properly make sure that this country new we were not going to fund, it should come back through the congress to. Have under thers foreign account the ability to withhold money. And set an official Going Forward and holding these governments accountable on their own. It should come from the people who gave the money. A part of working with you. Is there anything further from any member of this committee . I want to thank all three of you. Ifnk you for your time today you see mr. Meadows tell them what you get whatever he sent this now closes the hearing the omnibus and tax extenders bill. With the committee grant a rule providing for consideration of the Senate Amendment on military construction and veterans affairs. The rule makes an order of motion to make appropriations to designate and hit her in the Senate Amendment. Amendment number one consisting of the text of the committee print. The rule provides one hour debate on the house amendment equally divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking minority member of the committee on appropriations. The rule waives all points of order against consideration. Questions will be divided between the two house amendments. That amendment shall be engrossed as an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Section five provides that the chair the committee may insert into the congressional record and any time during the remainder the first session such material as he may deem explanatory of the Senate Amendment in the motion. The speaker made a sense dispense with the reading of the journal of the previous day. Chair may at any time to clear the house adjourned. The speaker may appoint members to perform the duties of the chair for the duration of the debate. They shall not constitute calendar days for the purpose of the war powers resolution. Thank you very much. Ou have now heard the motion is there an amendment or discussion . I move the committee make in the Cyber Security act of 2015. Thank you very much. The vote will now be on the mcgovern amendment. It. Nose have the gentleman asks for roll call though mr. X no mr. would all know mr. Burgess know mr. Stivers know mr. Collins knowmr. Burns mr. Newhouse i. Slaughter ms. Slaughter mcgovern i mr. Hastings mr. Tuesdays, nine days. Themotion is not agreed to vote will now be on the motion from the gentleman. The eyes have it. Mr. Governor, do you seek a rollcall vote . Ms. Slaughter you seek a rollcall vote . Yes i do. I mr. Cole i mr. What i mr. Burgess i mr. Stivers i was to collins i mr. Burns i mr. Newhouse i ms. Slaughter no mr. No mr. Chairman i. 98 is, two days. Two nays. S, agreed to. Is re i want to thank all the members. I want to thank cspan for being here i know your listeners are very interested in what is going on. This ends the committee hearing. We will have mr. Cole who represent the committee. Good luck server. Ir. Mr. Mcgovern will represent the democrats. Merry christmas to each and every one of you. This ends the hearing. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] today, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee evaluates the immigration system and the screening process for foreigners entering the u. S. Live at 9 00 a. M. On cspan3. , treasury secretary jack lew joins Samantha Power as he a United Nations meeting on combating isis financing. That meeting includes finance ministers in the 15 members of the council. Live coverage at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States give their attention. Landmark on cspans cases, we will look at the case on one of the most divisive issues to come before the Supreme Court. Abortion. Decidedgainst wade was in january, 1973. Isis a case that controversial. Possibly under scrutiny. Constantly under scrutiny. There is question, i suppose, whether it ever will cease to be under scrutiny. Terminate an unwanted pregnancy but unable to because of a texas state law normag abortion, agree to be the plaintiff in the 1970 case that challenge that law. The lawsuit listed her as jane roe. The defendant was Dallas County District Attorney henry wade. While she had the baby and put it up production, her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Jane roe, the pregnant woman, had gone to several physicians seeking an abortion and was refused care. She filed suit on behalf of for celfin all those women who on the half for celfin all those women who have in the past or the present time are in the future with the termination of a pregnancy. We will discuss the courts decision, its impact then and now. With our guest clark forsyth, senior counsel with americans united for life and author of abuse of discretion, the inside wade. Of roe. Vad an melissa murray. Thats live monday night at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan3 and cspan radio. For background in each case order your copy of the landmark cases companion book available at cspan. Org landmark cases. Live today on cspan, washington journal is next. House0 a. M. Eastern, the returns for work on the tax extenders bill and the 1. 1 trillion federal spending bill. Coming up in 45 minutes, bill danvers of the center for American Progress on the new terror alert system announced by the Homeland Security secretary. At 8 20, virginia congressman the one point 1 trillion budget deal and a measure that extends tax provisions set to expire at the end of the year. Host good morning. It is thursday, december 17. Staved offongress another potential Government Shutdown by passing another shortterm federal funding belted the expectation now is that that measure has brought legislators are enough time to pass a 1. 8 trillion spending and tax package. Perhaps as early as tomorrow. We will get into the details of that legislation on this mornings washington journal. But first, well discuss the Federal Reserves longawaited move to raise shortterm Interest Rates for the First Time Since the financial crisis. Yesterday the fed