[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] heres a look of some of what is ahead on sees him. Janeidge along with harman testify on the threats the u. S. Is facing 12 years after 9 11. The remarks from another Homeland Security person. A little bit later, a dc circuit of appeals argument in the case of verizon versus the sec. We will look at whether they should treat all traffic equally. , leadershis week awarded the congressional gold medal to the four girls who died in the earning of Church Bombing in 1953. See the ceremony tonight starting at 835 eastern here on cspan. Thisg up tomorrow, continues. This video competition is underway. It is open to all and high school students. We are doubling the prize money. Most important issue you think congress should consider in 2014. You should show varying points of view. Need more information . Visit studentcam. Org. Testifies onridge the type of threats the u. S. Is facing 12 years after 9 11. They spoke earlier for about 2. 5 hours. Welcome for this important hearing. I was reminded 12 years ago what was going on. But a datay sad day is not without hope. A day for reflection. That brought a sense of unity that we do not in this country. There will be a moment of silence a bit later. Withl asked to start this our witnesses. First, a moment of silence. Thank you. Things our chaplain, he always encourages to pay pray for wisdom. That is probably a good thing for us remember. On this anniversary, it provides us with important opportunities all the efforts undertaken to secure our country since that Beautiful Day as well as the challenges that lie ahead. We have a Remarkable Group of witnesses. We will share their thoughts and counsel. We are honored that you are here. Inc. You so much or joining us. The department of Homeland Security turned the end result. We can all agree the department can do this, do a better job in certain areas, we should not forget about the remarkable progress thats been made in keeping america safer since tom ridge helped to open that new department lo those many years ago. Theres no doubt that we are safer today than we were then despite the greater threats to our nation and well being. Id like to take a moment to recognize some accomplishments. We have a more riskbased, Intelligence Driven airline safety, screening passengers roughly four days before they board an aircraft. We improved our preparedness for and ability to respond to disaster while cutting red tape at the federal level. We saw the fruits of these efforts following the Boston Marathon bombings and also the natural disasters that struck my part of the country, including Hurricane Sandy. Weve increased security of our nations borders to historic levels through manpower and resources and built up cybersecurity capabilities to work with the private sector and federal Government Agencies in preparing for and responding to and mitigating against the evergrowing number of sign attacks. Is there still room for more improvement . I would say, you bet there is. One of my favorite saying is the road for improvement is always under construction. Thats true in this venue as well. One way the department can improve is ding a better job of preparing for tomorrows threats today. We do a pretty good job in this country of fighting the last war and preparing for the last type of attack but we must do a better job of preparing for the next type of attack well face. Today we can hardly go a day without reading about a cyberattack or hearing about a cyberattack in the news, often many attacks. To respond to the challenge of everchanging threats, we need a department of Homeland Security thats flexible and ready to adapt when necessary. Sometimes we just need to use some commonsense. If a program is not work, we shouldnt just keep throwing good money after bad. Rather we must work smarter with our limited resources and find ways to get ever better results for less money or the same amount of money. Thats why dr. Coble and i are holding this hearing and a series of others today. At the beginning of the year he suggest wed focus on reauthorization, weve never done a reauthorization of the department of Homeland Security and he suggested a way to do that would be to do a yearlong series of hearings that are relevant to the department and its if you thinks and this is one of those hearings, a really important one. Were doing this top to bottom review of the department to learn where it succeeded and where it comes up short. This information will help taos better focus our scare resources on what works. As the committee conducts its review process, well be looking to ensure that the department is making smarter acquisition decisions, developing even more agile and capable work force and improving its Financial Management systems. This review will also look at how we can strengthen the defenses of our homeland against very sophisticated and highly agile threats. One of the most important things we can do to improve Homeland Security is to come together to pass cybersecurity legislation either in pieces or together as a comprehensive approach for our country. The threat is too great and the consequences of inaction are too severe to do nothing. Enacting a thoughtful, comprehensive cybersecurity policy has not been easy, as we know. But we have a shared responsibility, both democrats an republicans, house and senate, government and industry, to get this legislation across the goal line and into the end zone, hopefully this year. We already saw many of the different parties come together to pass comprehensive Immigration Reform in the senate a few months ago. I dont agree with everything in that bill. I know my colleague here dont agree with everything either. But i believe its vastly prefer to believe our current immigration system, the failings of which undermine both national and economic security. Its my hope that the house will pass its own version of Immigration Reform so we can go to conference and make it even better and pass the kind of historic piece of legislation our country needs. As we remember 9 11 and we discuss the challenges that lie ahead, we must seek to recapture that spirit of unity that prevailed 12 years ago today. And we need that if were going to succeed in making not just the department of Homeland Security stronger over the next 10 years but but our nation stronger Going Forward into the future. I lock forward to working with dr. Coburn, with our colleagues, even senator johnson who is so good about coming to these hearings and asking questions. We look forward to working with the administration and the witnesses and a whole lot of other folks who will help us to do this job. With that said, ill turn it over to dr. Coburn for nizz comments. Thank you, senator. I have a statement ill place in the record. I have a lot of concerns with Homeland Security, one of the editorials in the New York Times today talked about the lack of focus on multiple committees, the focus on multiple committees instead of single committees of jurisdiction and i know its difficult for Homeland Security to answer all the questions from the 88 different committees and subcommittees that they have to answer to and thats one of the things we ought to be about changing because our frustrations are we cant ever get answers and im sure its not always intentional that we dont get answers. Sometimes it is. But its because were asking so much information all the time where the people who have responsibility to Homeland Security cant do their job. Because theyre busy answering questions of members of congress. The disorganization. The other concern i have with Homeland Security is its turned into an allhazards agency which was never its intent. Its abandoned riskbased policies putting money where risk is rather than money where risk isnt. The politicians in washington have very much accounted for that. In my Opening Statement that ill put in the record, there are large number of areas where we are in where we are incompetent. Whether it is in materials of either metrics or effectiveness and we have not held the hearings that are necessary to straighten that out. I would welcome all of our panelists, thank you for your service in multiple areas for our country and hope that you can give us some wisdom. Ive been through your testimony, hope that you can give us some wisdom, thousand streamline and not undermine the goal and the longterm changes that need to be made in Homeland Security to get us back to a riskbased agency instead of a grab bag of political benefits agency. The final point i would make is the transparency is important. And the difficult job you had, governor ridge, in terms of bringing these agencies together, weve had good Homeland Security directors but and secretaries. But the idea that you can effectively manage thising and we have all the data to say were not effectively managing it system of my hope today out of this hearing is that well hear some great ideas on how you change the structure and the final point id make is we have 15 open, 15 of the top 17 positions at Homeland Security open and to my knowledge we only have two nominees pending in that area. And i may be wrong on that, thats my guess. Enge we have two. So leadership matters. And having people in positions instead of acting people in positions is very different in terms of accomplishing the goals that need to be fleshed in Homeland Security. I welcome you, thank you, and look forward to your testimony. Thank you. Thanks, dr. Coburn. At 11 00, theres going to be a gathering of members of congress, for member of congress, i think on the east steps of capitol, for an observance. My hope is to work right up to just before that time and hopefully well be in position to adjourn, if were not, i may ask you to adjoush briefly and come back within an hour. I know at least one of you has a tight schedule. All right. I want to briefly introduce our first not so briefly the first witness. Tom ridge and i came to the house together in 1982. 30 years ago today we were both in our mid 20s. Maybe early 20s. But we ended up serving on the we served in the vietnam war together. He had a real distinction. Just a hero. And very modest about it. We ended up on the Banking Committee together. I think in the 102nd congress we ended up leading the Banking Committee, we had a subcommittee on Economic Stabilization and people said to me, tom, in the past years, what did you accomplish in those two years that you and top ridge led that committee . We lead the foundation for the longest running economic expansion in the history of the country. We stepped down from our responsibilities. In 1993 we were on our way to eight glorious years. He went on to become after that become governor of pennsylvania. Our neighbor to the north. And first secretary of the department of Homeland Security. Since stepping down as governor, hes not only led the department, but hes also served as chairman of the National Security task force at the chamber of commerce and on boards of the institute of defense analysis, the center for studies of the presidency and congress and chairman of the National Organization on disability. Meanwhile, he travels the world as head of his firm, ridge global, and any other number of entities. Somewhere along the line he convinced a woman named michelle marry him. They have two wonderful kids that weve been privileged to know, leslie and tommy. Delighted to see you and thank you for your friendship and extraordinary Serve Service to our country. Next, jane harman, former congresswoman from california, 36th district. During her tenure in the house of representatives, congresswoman harman distinguished herself as one of the top National Security voices in the house servicing on the House Armed Services committee, intelligence, and Homeland Security committees. Shes also one of the principal authors of the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004. Congresswoman harman serves as director of the Woodrow Wilson center. Also member of the external Advisory Board for the department of defense, c. I. A. And does a million other things. So its great to see you. We welcome you warmly. Our next witness is one with facial hair. I wouldnt have recognized you had i not known it was you and you were coming today but its great to see you. And you are a hero in this country, the hero in the coast guard and department of Homeland Security. Enormous respect and affection to you as you know. Thank you. I wish you as well as i understand executive at booz allen hamilton. And the admiral recovered from hurricane katrina. After the first couple of weeks, the initial response was the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill and for that service and a million other things that youve done and continue to do, we welcome you. I want to thank your family for allowing you to serve our country. And last witness, are you partner i understand you have a book out. Author of a book. I love the title skating on stilts why we arent stopping tomorrows terrorism. . In his position, mr. Baker established the departments policy office. He led successful negotiations with Foreign Governments over data sharing, privacy and visas. Established a secure visafree travel plan. What years did you serve in the Bush Administration . Thank you for that. And i want to thank, again, all of you for being here. Your entire statements will be made part of the record. Feel free to testify. Well lead off with governor ridge. I want to say to senator, nice to see you. Welcome. Its a pleasure. Our senator from new jersey, great addition to this committee and to this body. Governor. Congressman. Thank you to my former colleague and my friend, its a great pleasure to appear before you. Senator coburn, as you say, let me associate myself with the gentlemans remarks with regard to a riskbased approach, with regard to consolidating the incredible labyrinth of jurisdictional maze that the secretary and his or her department have to continually respond to up here on the hill. I mean, one of the recommendations of the 9 11 commission and 10 years later that one and the other recommendation they made with regard to a broadband Public Safety network, thats 10 years in the making. Theres some legislation a long way from execution, so i really appreciate your words in those regards and other members of the committee, its a pleasure to spend this morning with you on this historic day and important day. I appear before you in a wonderful personal capacity as a private citizen as well as the chairman of the u. S. Chamber of commerces National Security task force. The task force is responsible for the development and implementation of the chambers homeland and interNational Security policies. Frankly, its a voice for businesses across america. It certainly informs my perspective on many issues, but it doesnt dictate it because my work is strictly voluntary. Im happy to advocate when we share them. I welcome the opportunity to appear here to examine the ways which we can secure americas future. Since we have limited tied, id ask permission to revise and extend my remarks. Before i begin, i want to on this anniversary acknowledge the families that lost loved ones on september 11. We all know where we were. I had the opportunity to visit shanksville a couple hours after that plane went down. So the reason were here is to Work Together and to do our best to ensure that such events do not happen again and that other families dont have to suffer like the families of our 9 11 heroes. With your indulgence, id like to make a few general observations first and what i believe is a crosscutting issue that both d. H. S. And the broader federal government has faced in the past and has the potential to complicate our security forevermore. First of all, briefly, its becoming clears that members of this body is attempting to pass some Immigration Reform. I think its relevant. D. H. S. Components can be expected to play a significant role in implementing these reforms. My position is that the time has come, the time has come to grant status to those who wish to enter our country legally, to work lawfully, to pay taxes and deal with the issue that we talked about for 10 years and that is the undocumented individuals who are here. I think we can be done. I hope this congress does it. But i also think congress has to balance this responsibility with providing adequate resources to the department of Homeland Security in order to affect the outcomes that the broader American Public want to achieve. We can talk about reaching consensus in washington, but unless any reforms are resourced appropriately, d. H. S. Components will be saddled with an Impossible Mission in the critical are