And for the prosecution of the relating crimes. It is something that is a significant challenge for our community as it is from baltimore to miami to wisconsin, all over our country. We really are seeing a significant shift from the Prescription Drug epidemic into her oh win. Let me turn if i might, to a program mentioned before by senator bozeman. Oakland, chicago detroit, camden and wilmington delaware. The office of National Drug control policy which is under the Financial Services subcommittee, and their hida program is newly engaged in the work in wilmington, delaware, despite our fairly small size relative to detroit or chicago wilmington has one of the highest rates of Violent Crime and murder in the last few years. And a newly energized and engaged mayor and police chief and statewide elected officials and Community Leaders are tack tackling this challenge effectively. I would like to hear from each of you. What youre hearing about progress in wilmington, what you think are the resource challenges that might remain, and if youve got any input for me on whats going to be critical to turning the corner. The reports im hearing so far about the federal role is very positive. So my simple input is to say thank you for the resources being delivered. The advice, the mentorship and guidance to my hometown. But if there are other things that i need to hear or things we can do to strengthen this network, i would really appreciate hearing it. Director . One of the things about the vrn is it will give us an opportunity to enhance the collaborative effort. I think in wilmington delaware and i have been up there, ive met with our resident agent. We are having some enhancements in terms of permanent personnel, which is a big part of our request in this budget is to get us healthy in terms of our special agent codre. Were starting to see the results when we have groups like in wilmington that have been working for a long time in single digits. And enhanced with the officers, barely holding it together to actually get new atf agents up there. Our focus in wilmington is really two fold. One is partnering with the Police Department to make sure that when there are shooting incidents, that we are on them very fast and following leads to identify the trigger pullers. The other aspect of what weve had, some in success not only in wilmington, but up and down the eastern seaboard is the traffickers. The iron pipeline up i95, where there are guns that are available in some quote unquote, Source States that travel up, and wilmingtons along the pipeline to do what we can to disrupt the firearms trafficking networks. And weve had some success recently in wilmington with people who are essentially unlicensed dealers, for lack of a better term. And so that effort, focusing on crime gun, draining the crime gun pool helping the local Police Department identify trigger pullers through leveraging technology and training folks so its sustainable, really is the shortterm focus of our efforts. Thank you. Better ballistic training use of guns, better use of data analysis, i hear all of those have been making a difference. Im grateful for your personal engagement. I have relatively little time left if any of the three of you would like to contribute to it i would appreciate it. Senators, i hope you know in our wilmington office, we have a 22member violent gang safe Streets Task Force thats part of the Violence Reduction network effort. Were focused on as director jones said were trying to focus on the trigger pullers who are part of these neighborhood based gangs. Not big fancy national gangs, but thugs who are a set or crew in a particular neighborhood. Were trying to be strategic work with the intelligence that the locals are generating and focus on them in the community to hope that the good people will fill in the space and make the community safer. Ive got 22 folks focused on it. Its too early to tell you what success weve had, but well watch it closely. The cdc has recently completed a fairly thorough review of the data set from a Public Health perspective as well as from a criminal justice perspective of whos the universe of folks actually committing the Violent Crimes and what interactions do they have with education, health care and with Law Enforcement. Its been fascinating data sets that the governor and his cabinet and i went down with the other day. Do i have time, mr. Chairman, if the director wants to offer an answer . As it relates to the Violence Reduction network were particularly focused on the larger cities, the tricity areas. Were operating out of camden and philadelphia and wilmington. We have over 684 violent criminals arrested, particularly associated with 89 of them gang members, 134 are sex offenders. But theres been 48 of them that are related to homicide arrests also. We work with the state and locals to bring those warrants in. Of course, were able with the fugitives to share information across to the investigative agencies. So i think the earlier questions of how we interface with each other, thats what we push out back and forth to each other. 27 firearms received, 1. 86 narcotics kilograms of narcotics received. Over 47,000 currency. That is all a part of dismantling some of these organized criminals that are opportunists who are seeking to push drugs out and across. So i think that collective work is really starting to prove beneficial in the violent reductions across the cities. Were focused all of us on attacking the corridors that run. So its not just the major cities. Camden can put out 400 officers, but all it does at the end of the day is push it down to wilmington. They can put their efforts greater to the investigation piece to dismantle. Were grateful for your partnership and support. I have a couple of questions that i want to submit for the record. One deals with the adam walsh funding, and the dea interNational Drug enforcement priorities. Ill submit them for the record and ask you to hopefully get them back to us within 30 days. Senator mccull ski . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Were now moved to the classified hearing. But and i do have questions for the record. I just want to say, again, to the men and women who work at these wonderful agencies we want to thank them not only for their service but we want to thank them there that are people in the United States of america who want to do this work. Who really want to do this work. And we owe them a debt of gratitude. Therefore, my comments about lifting domestic budget caps is not political grandstanding. If we arent going to lift the caps to defend in america theres a lot of defense right here in our country of our communities. The second thing is the issues of the appropriations committee, related to hiring and then sustaining the people we hire. My last point is technology. Im really proud of the labs, and other Technology Uses we make in our agencies. I think really about 9 11 and that the maryland state troopers stopped one of the terrorists. But at that time the databases were so skimpy you knew more about a deadbeat dad than somebody who was planning this horrific attack on the United States. Thats changed. And when we looked at the sniper, the beltway snipers, when this whole Community Came to a standstill, when someone who worked at the fbi in a supportive service, killed coming out of home depot this community, i mean, were all victims of crime, but because of the lab, we didnt know was this terrorism, we didnt know if these were multiple killers, but thanks to this lab, and the way we could work with the fbi we were able to have local Law Enforcement in charge and we were able to be able to catch the people of these terrible acts. So what you do and i could go through each and every one is just amazing. And we really need to support you. And i look forward to doing it. Another question . Actually i have a comment that i would like to make to follow up on something that administrator lenhart said. I was just at a hearing in the Armed Services committee with thnewhth southern command. And one of the things he was talking about was the their work to interdict drugs coming into Central America, and mexico. And the impact that additional sequestration cuts are going to have on their ability to continue with that interdiction and support those countries in Central America that are trying to and mexico that are trying to address this effort. And i just think its important for us to recognize that thats going to have a huge impact on the efforts that were not just if those cuts go forward, the impact on the National Security side because of the drugs coming in. But that will then have an impact on the work that youre trying to do that all of you are trying to do if we cant address and roll back those cuts from sequestration. So i thought it was important, mr. Chairman, to point out that this has huge domestic potential impact. Thank you. Thank you. Thank the witnesses. Well now temporarily recess and reconvene in a closed session as soon as we can get back over to the capitol. The committee is in recess. Attorney general eric holder commented on wednesday nights shooting of two Police Officers in ferguson, missouri. Heres a look at his brief remarks from the Justice Department. The heinous and cowardly attacks that occurred against two brave Law Enforcement officers in ferguson, missouri, just last night. I want to be very clear here. I unequivocally condemn these repugnant attacks. I know all of us in the Law Enforcement family and all americans really across the country are praying for the safe recovery of their those two officers. I stand ready to offer the full investigative resources of the United States department of justice, the fbi, to solve this crime. And to hold these perpetrators fully, fully accountable. My brothers a retired Law Enforcement officer. And he always tells me that cops have the right to come home at night. You know . And thats exactly right. These are people who protect us, keep us safe, and they have the right they have the right to come home at night. You know seeing this attack last night kind of really turned my stomach. Because in the last week since the Justice Department released its pattern and practice report on ferguson i thought we had begun to see important signs of progress. They were good faith steps being taken within the citys leadership to move in a new, more cooperative direction, that i think is beneficial to Law Enforcement and to community residents. But make no mistake we still have a long way to go to bring about this systemic change that is needed and that is long overdue in that area. But i think the early indications have really truly been positive. But what happened last night was a pure ambush. What happened last night was a pure ambush. This was not someone trying to bring healing to ferguson. This was the punk who was trying to sow discord in an area that is trying to get its act together and trying to bring together a community that has been fractured for too long. This really disgusting and cowardly attack might have been intended to unravel progress that exists, but i hope that does not in fact happen. Incidents like the one witnessed show into sharp belief that conversations like the one weve convened today, and that were going to be having they serve are really so important. Out going attorney general eric holder could be replaced as early as next week when Loretta Lynchs nomination come to the senate floor for expected debate and possible votes. See live coverage on cspan2. Here are some of the our featured programs for this weekend on the cspan networks. Saturday starting at 1 00 p. M. Eastern cspan2 book tv is live from the university of arizona from the tucson festival of books. Sunday at 1 00, we continue our live coverage with panels on the obama administration, the future of politics and the issue of concussions if football. Saturday morning at 9 00 eastern on American History tv on cspan cspan3 were live from Longwood University from the civil war seminar talking about the closing weeks of civil war in 1865. Sunday morning we continue our live coverage with the immigration of confederates to brazil. Let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400 or email us. Join the cspan conversation like us on Facebook Follow us on twitter. Transportation association holds its annual legislative conference on transportation and infrastructure funding. This portion of the day long event is a discussion on surface transportation legislation. It runs about an hour. Good morning after. Hows everybody doing . Had a great, great session already this morning 7 30. Who was all in there to eat breakfast . All right. Welcome to the 40th annual legislative conference and to our nations capitol. Yesterday was some great sessions, werent they . With the mayor of washington, d. C. And various speakers. It was just wonderful. Thanks to everyone for being here. The conference really comes at a momentous time in the industry. We have a lot of things to do this week. Were gearing up for a new Service Transportation bill out there. In this session well hear from the president and ceo. Also pete ruhan. First, our sponsor this morning help me welcome joseph hills. Vice president for Business Development who will share a few comments on teenage here. Joe joe. Thank you. My name is joe hughes. Im Vice President for three parts of the software. Product management Customer Relations and Business Development. As a brief overview we provide software for Public Transit in both rural and urban areas. We figure that weve worked with many, many people in this room. Phil, to begin with and many other agencies here in the office here. We come to this event because it is the epitomy of the pure partnership. Its the most important event for transportation. It represents a group of people that go off and do their own business separately. Were very excited to be a part of this. We would like to think that we can help in any way we can, but we hope to get to work with all you guys for the next two days and learn a little bit about where things are going, and hopefully make some impact for the greater good of the whole industry. So with that in mind, i have a couple things. One, dont forget while youre here that the purpose of this event, and it reads to direct the industrys advocacy efforts and legislative strategy. The key words i saw there were the advocacy, so everyone here is an advocate. And second is that youre doing it for the industry. And so please look out for your cohorts, your friends, the other guys who couldnt be here. Dont forget the rural folks who dont get to come to these things as often, and make sure you remember that as a partnership thats the way we believe it works and we would like to see that from everybody here. And finally, please participate if you havent signed up for the stand up for transportation day on april 9. We think that will be a great thing coming out of here in terms of momentum. Again, thank you, apta, thank you, phil, thank you, everybody, for being here. I do believe this is the most important event of the year. Thats why we come to sponsor and look forward to seeing you guys in the next two days. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you, joe. Really appreciate your sponsorship of this opening session. Before i get too far in the program, i want to recognize the apta executive committee, the board of directors and past apta chairs. If youre in that group, please stand up so we can give you a round of applause. [ applause ] thank you for all your work and all your service. Many of the leaders in this room i was let me say i was honored to share the apta Strategic Planning effort about a year ago or so. We got it approved by the full board of directors. This plan really sharpens our focus, guides our operation for the next five years. This is the cover of that document. I think the marketing folks did just a great job in putting this together. Five significant challenges that we put forth, and we were calling these mega trends, sort of the environment that we believe that we will be working in for the next five to ten years. Just very quickly, and you wont see them this is just the cover of the Strategic Plan itself, but safety and security was the first one. Resource advocacy or funding. Weve been talking about that all week. Work force development, demographic shifts and technological innovation. And so those five things we identified in our Strategic Plan as mega trends that we will be facing over the next five years. And i have to say, weve been having conversations about funding for quite a while. Weve been talking about safety and security. We had a great session yesterday that i sat in on positive training control. All of these things, these five mega trends that i just laid out are so, so significant. So youll see these off and on for the next year or so as we work on these issues and look to address these issues. You can go to the apta website. This document is on the apta website, and you can read it, support its objectives and help us address them. Let me talk just a little bit about funding, and ive been talking about this for the last six months or so. Youve heard me talk about rebuilding our co