Will take up a temporary spending measure. We are not sure when. That will have to go through the rules committee. Look for house coverage tomorrow on 10 00 a. M. On at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. The house today passed a measure that would allow states to exclude organizations like planned parenthood and other organizations that perform abortions from state medicaid funding. The white house has issued a veto threat on that legislation, no word on whether the senate will take that out. The issue of planned parenthood came before a link the hearing before the House Oversight link the hearing before the House Oversight committee. Parenthood president is Cecile Richards. She testified today. Here is the headline today. Planned parenthood chief goes headtohead with gop in an emotional hearing. Writes that the president insisted the organization had not broken the law, and the accusation it faced after embarrassing video that showed executors nonchalantly discussing fetal tissue discussions. She fought back events against allegations that planned parenthood profits from these allegations. These deceptively edited videos are released by a group plannedd to meeting of parenthood according to retreats. That statement was part of her opening statement. Here on cspan we will show you the first Opening Statements from ms. Richards and the leaders on the committee. It is about 45 minutes. Following that, we will open up our phone lines to get a reaction where we will show you the entire hearing. Fors lengthy, it went on four hours. Around 8 00 we will open up the phone lines. First up, from the House Oversight committee hearing, Opening Statements. Committee on oversight and government reform will come to order. Chairman is responsible under the rules of the house and the rules of the committee to maintain order and preserve decorum in the committee room. Members of the audience are reminded that destruction is a violation of law and a criminal offense. We welcome your presence, but we will not tolerate disruption. We hope to have a good, lively debate. This is what congress is intended to do. We need everybodys participation along the way. This is antz important topic. The risk of getting a little wife julie and i have been married some 24 years. 25th wedding anniversary coming up in february. Im proud of my wife. She got her degree in psychology later in life, after helping to raise three kids, some of whom are still at home. She just started to work for a Plastic Surgeon. His Plastic Surgeon is involved in helping women who are having their breasts removed. Day wife spencer spends her day helping these women. Im proud of her for doing that. , she passed away when i was 28 years old. She fought cancer for more than 10 years. She had Breast Cancer. And i miss her. Cancer asfather to well. Country kills about 1500 people a day. A day. Our federal government only spends about five alien 5s to fight it billion to fight it. If they were shooting 1500 people a day, we would be fighting it with everything weve got. As i said before i came to hereess, and as i stand today, as fiscally conservative as i can possibly be, we dont spend enough on cancer. We dont spend enough. We need to spend more. I would quadruple the amount of money if i had my chance to fight cancer and win. The reason im passionate about a we haveg today, is a lot of Health Care Providers who i think in their hearts know that they are treading trying to provide good. The question before us is, does this organization, does planned parenthood really need federal subsidy . Dollars . Eed federal every time we spent a federal dollar, what we are doing is pulling money out of somebodys pocket and giving it to somebody else. , what i dontike want to tolerate, what i dont want to become numb to is wasting taxpayer dollars. Tell, and we are going to have a hearing, this is an organization that doesnt need federal subsidy. For the year ended june 14th planned parenthood reported 127 million in revenue over expenses. Million more in revenue than they had expenses. And 2013, in005 large part under ms. Richards leadership, there is a 53 reduction in cancer screenings. 42 reduction in breast exams and breast care. I dontd why understand why. I dont understand why. Let me give you a sense of the numbers we are talking about here. Government dollars from to plannedgoing parenthood is roughly 528 million. 450 million of that becomes federal funds. Million comes in the form of medicaid. There has been a lot of bluster today about shutting down the government over planned parenthood. The Funding Amount we are talking about under title x is 60 million. I just told you that last year, they had more than 100 million in revenue without expenses. We are talking about 60 million. Roughly 4. 6 of their total revenue. Planned parenthood is an organization with massive dollars. Nearlyhards makes 600,000 per year. The affiliate in north dakota and south dakota makes roughly 450,000 a year. I could be here for a long time listing exorbitant salaries. This is also an organization that seems to have exorbitant travel expenses. 2013, they send more than 5 million in travel. Firstclass tickets, private chartered aircraft. Tohly they are spending 14,000 a day to travel. That is a lot. That is money that is not going to Womens Health care. 2013, they spent roughly 600,000 on blowout parties. Andolate champagne events pepa performed a concert. These are things they locked money doing according to the tax record. In the past three years, they spent more than 67 million on fundraising. They are pretty good at it. That is partly my point. They are pretty good at fundraising. They dont necessarily need taxpayer dollars to pay for it. This part i really hope we have a deeper discussion about. We may not learn everything that we need to, but over the past than 22 Million Dollars has been transferred from their 501 c 3 to 501 c four organizations as well as tax. This is advocacy, it is lobbying. It is get out the vote. In one case in alaska, it was about redistricting. That has absolutely nothing to do with providing health care to young women they need a breast exam or need to get a mammogram. None of that money goes to that. Its a political activity. Was naive, but surprised you could take 501 c 3 money and give it to the file 501 c 4. You look atyees, if planned parenthood and organizations under it, you will find shared employees, facilities, mailing lists, assets. It is a political organization. And that is something that needs to be ferreted out. Start saying,you they have to have federal money, over the past five years they have spent more than 32 million sending money overseas. He not even come to the United States. It did not affect people in low income situations. They are so flush with cash, they started sending in giving out money overseas. I dont understand that. We have usia usaid, all kinds of foreign aid. We dont need planned parenthood foreign aid but that is all we got. And their desire for more of taxpayer dollars is insatiable. To be someoing discussions about the video. Let me just explain that. We are going to have to address it one way or the other. I think it was legitimate to look at all of the videos. All of the videos. We issued a subpoena to get all of the videos. In california, there is a court case where there is a temporary restraining order that does not allow the producers of these videos to release them publicly. Letter askingnt a for the videos. Democrats, i think those record askects, did not want us to for the videos. They wanted to take a language out. Nevertheless, we moved forward and took the step of subpoena. Something i think both sides of the aisle should support. If you want these the totality of the record, let this subpoena go. With a temporary restraining order in place, there is conflict between the legislative branch and judicial branch. But we are seeing is on one hand there is a restraining order and cant send it, and the other they have a subpoena from the United States congress. That is going to have to work itself out. There has been discussion about the producer coming to testify before congress. I dont know which are actually will go. The first step is seeing all the videos. Democrats have said, they have been doctored and edited, even though they have not necessarily seen them. And then they have videos that want to show that. The reason they are out there is because they are publicly available. There is more to this story, there is more that needs to come out. But that will have to play itself out. The prime thrust of this hearing is about the finances. Inwere very clear and blunt what we were talking about in terms of what we are trying to accomplish here today. The focus of what we are doing today is how this organization is funded, and how they spend their money. If they are going to accept taxpayer dollars, they will have to withstand scrutiny of Congress Asking questions about how they spend money. That is the direction im coming from today. If there is nor more clarification needed, i can answer questions. I recognize Ranking Member cummings. Cummings let me be clear from the beginning, we have asked for all, we wanted all of it. Everything. And we welcome a subpoena for everything, because we think that goes to the integrity of this committee, and the integrity of this congress. Todays hearing is very important. Will reveal whether this committee is more interested in facts for fiction. The questions members post will show whether they are engaged in evenhanded search for the truth, or a partisan attack based on an ideology. The way we conduct ourselves will demonstrate whether this committee is seeking integrity in our investigation or is being usurped by the most extreme portions of partisan warfare. Lets look at the fact. And his group engaged in a threeyear campaign of deceit against planned parenthood. Companies, fake created fake identities, repeatedly lied about who they , and secretly recorded planned parenthood employees without their knowledge or consent. These are facts that mr. Delight he admitted to. This is a lie that has gone on for the past three years. To entrap and parented into settling selling fetal tissue for profit. Selling it for profit. Andeceived, misled, connedally cant planned parenthood employees to achieve his goal. He gave been illegal contract proposals. He offered them huge sums of money. And he pursued them relentlessly. Some would say he was obsessed. Despite his best efforts, he failed. There is no cut of all evidence reported that any planned parenthood employee agreed to any proposal to sell fetal tissue or forprofit in violation of the law. Republicans keep making this claim over and over again. But that does not make it true. He will face with the failure of his threeyear relent. He did not instead he took the video footage he had, manipulated it, and put it out to the public. Timemoved every single planned parenthood employees rejected his offers. He edited out all the exculpatory evidence and twisted what was left to distort the truth. Something is awfully wrong with that picture. Last week, ill the Committee Members on this side of the aisle asked for him to testify here today. Since his videos are the fundamental basis of this investigation, we wanted to ask questions about his tactics and his evidence. That is only fair. Other republicans refused. Not one of them testified. They dont want to subject him to the difficult or uncomfortable questions that relate to the actual facts. But the facts are critical. Here are some of the key facts we now know. Federal law authorizes Fetal Tissue Research, and expressly allows for regrouping reasonable cost. That is a fact. By Congress Passed with strong bipartisan support, based on the work of president ronald reagan, Blueribbon Panel on Fetal Tissue Research in 1988. This is also a fact. Receives nonthood federal funding for fetal tissue and only 1 grams, of Health Centers even participate in these programs. Those are facts. Unfortunately, i suspect these facts will have little impact on the republicans talking points. They will just keep accusing planned parenthood of selling feel tissue for profit. Todays hearing is supposed to be about federal funding. Let me highlight one more fact. Republicans have been saying planned parenthood received half 1 billion in taxpayer funds. They make it sound as if the federal government writes a check to planned parenthood here teaching year. The vast majority of that approximately 400 million, comes from reimbursements from individual Health Services under medicaid. Medicaid provides Health Care Services for people who are poor, elderly, and have disabilities. In my home state of maryland, banning funds for planned parenthood would have a negative and disproportionate impact on poor women who rely on planned parenthood for a host of Health Care Services, including cap tests, breast exams and cancer screenings. Mr. Chairman, as i listened to you talk about cancer and Breast Cancer, i agree with you. We need every dollar we can get for research with regard to these diseases. I will bew on friday, motherinlaw, who was very dear to me, who died from Breast Cancer less than a week ago. I understand what youre talking about. I get it. A lot of people need the services, they are the people who live in the district and living areas where they do not have the services. Imviced richards sure ms. Richards will testify to that. Money poor women, and parenthood may be one of their only sources medical care in undeserve underserved or rural communities. That brings us to the big question for republican colleagues. This . Really want to do do you want to align yourselves with radical extremists who manipulate the facts . And most importantly, do you want to attack millions of women who have a constitutional right, affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States of america to make their own Health Care Decisions with the advice of their doctors . Based on the evidence of last week, it appears that you do. You threatened to shut down the government. You ousted your speaker. And now you want to set up yet another select committee to investigate. It looks like you have made your choice. I think your, actions will result in even more chaos in this court in this congress. Which is exactly what the American People do not want. They do not want the discord. Ms. Richards, i want to thank you very much for being here facts. O give us the your group has been extremely helpful during this ofestigation, providing tens thousands of pages of documents. Your cooperation stands in stark notable to mr. Whose absence speaks volumes. With that mr. Chairman, i yield back. Rep. Chaffetz we have agreed to make the subcommittee chairman to make statements. Mr. Jordan of ohio for Opening Statements. Mr. Jordan thank you, thank you for this hearing and thank you remarks inartfelt your opening statement. Here is the troubling truth. A picture is worth a thousand words. You can say all you want, that these were heavily edited, but if thats the case, why did this richards apologize for the videos two days after they surfaced . Are,one knows these videos barbaric and repulsive. This argument that we keep hearing from the other side, republicans want to shut down the government. Are you kidding me . We want to fund the government at the levels everyone agreed to. The levels of president agreed to. We want to shift the money from an organization caught doing what they were caught doing and give it to the community Health Centers. Shifted from the planned parenthood clinics, give it to the 13,000 federally approved community Health Centers. Take the money from the guys doing the bad things and give it to ones who are not here it take the dollars from one private company doing what the speaker and givebaric things, it to federally approved community Health Centers. If the democrats insist in spite of all that, this organization should still get tax dollars, and that that is more important than funding troops and veterans and Womens Health issues, if that is their position, they can go defend that position. Lets be honest here. This is what this is really all about, plain and simple, money and politics. Heres how it works. Politicians give money to planned parenthood, who give it back to politicians at election time, who get elected and give it back to planned parenthood, and give it back to politicians and the game goes on. Cycle, in that election planned parenthood spent almost 12 million in advertising. ,052 went to democrats. No wonder they are defending this repulsive game. Politicians give money to planned parenthood, they give it back to politicians, and it keeps on going. The nice thing about these videos, it has lifted the curtain. We can now see what is going on there. That is why we should fund the government and shift money from disorganization that organizations who did not do this kind of behavior. I yield back. We recognize it is no money of new york for her Opening Statements. You and welcome his richards. Last weekend, democratic members warning thattee, a the Relentless Campaign by the conservative House Freedom caucus to attack planned parenthood was in fact part of a broader power struggle to unseat led by anehner extreme wing of the republican party, that is using this issue to force a government shutdown, unless the speaker bows to their demands. Proved prescient. On friday, Speaker Boehner announced he would resign at the end of next