Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 2015

In mexico through our consulates and the role they play. Now the United States, i think, mr. Starr has widely tried to involve itself in reform of the criminal Justice System in mexico itself. In order to truly get at drug trafficking, gun trafficking, organized crime which, of course, is always at the top of our agenda. And id like to ask you in that regard about the socalled midira initiative. Which is charged with disrupting criminal organizations, strengthening institutions in mexico, improving stability in the surrounding communities. Does that sound like what the madeira finiifinisinitiative is . Weve been work iing with mexico extensively since 2008. Weve invest ed about 1. 4 billion in trying to secure the situation in mexico by working with the Mexican Government and we have seen areas where we have made progress. Our Law Enforcement officials, military officials can work with mexican counterparts to give them advice, to lend assistance when they need it to provide training when possible because of the funding provided by congress which were grateful for where weve been able to make some inroads and help mexico establish the rule of law and the system that they are seeking. I think it would be tragic not to have our colleagues down in mexico. They work every day with counterparts all over the country and is the consulate where theyre based . Theyre based at the embassy primarily but also based in several of our consulates, yes. In some of the cases where weve had the most success is where our officials were working locally, so, yes, it would have an impact. What impact has it had on security in the region . We believe the strong presence helps establish the security. Not only are we providing for the security of american officials, american citizens who are there, but we can work with local authorities and, as i said, to help them rebuild their institutions and help Mexican Government achieve. Our colleagues are working all over the country all the time with the Mexican Government and were trying to help them achieve their goals. Mr. Carter, five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You said environments such as this such as that involve constantly shifting threats, agile Decision Making and diplomacy. You went on to say its not enough to improve physical security. Were training the Foreign Service community on how to b better respond in these environments. Since 2008, the state department has been has had a plan to build a Diplomatic Security Training Center. And included in that has been the curriculum, the infrastructure and the personnel. Both the omb and gao have come out with reports on this. And during that during those studies, those studies the omb and gao came out with, the report has not been released. I have seen the omb report. And my staff has seen gao reports. Both of those reports cite the lack of cooperation by the state department in trying to come up with proposals for this facility to be built. Can you tell me on a facility thats this important, on a facility thats this expensive why the state department would be uncooperative in addressing this . Can you tell me why the federal Law Enforcement Training Center in georgia was only given 60 days to respond to this . Dont you think that they deserve more than 60 days . Dont you think the taxpayers of this country deserve to know exactly apples and apples whats going to be the best facility . What are we going to get the most from our taxpayers dollars . Would you agree with that . Yes, sir, i would. I believe that its clear that spending money on something that doesnt meet our requirements is not going to be a good investment. In previous hearings and in previous discussions they could not take our entire program and dont have the facilities that we need for the types of weapons that we use at the facility. They proposed using the towns bombing range which is about 60 miles north that is a marine corps bombing range that is at the moment under consideration of going from a nonlive munition bombing range to a live munition bombing range. I understand that, mr. Starr. If i could cant use it, therefore, we believe that the picket site is the best. Mr. Starr, let me ask you, mr. Starr, did you make this clear . Do you think they had all the information . When you talk about the curriculum requirements for the Training Center, both the omb report and the gao report, and i quote here, it says the information is only in the minds of the instructors and providing it would cause a delay in security operations. How can we get a price on the curriculum, how can we get an idea, when its only in the minds of the instructors . Im sorry, sir, thats not correct. This comes right out of the report. We have extensive records. We have provided the curriculum. We have this is not just in the mind of instructors, sir. Then why is that in the report . And can i ask you, mr. Starr, i have seen the report. Mr. Starr, ive seen the report. Which report, sir . The omb report which you have denied to be released. I found nothing in there sensitive whatsoever. There were six comparisons done. Two of them were even and one of them favored ft. Picket. Can you tell me why that report is not being released . Sir, the omb report is a preliminary study. Preliminary. Why is it not being released . I dont know, sir. Thats an omb report. I can tell you that the gao report does not reflect that. The gao report has been finished. It has not been released yet either. I think that it is probably wise to wait until that report is released. Mr. Starr, you would agrow this is important, protecting the lives of our Foreign Service members is very important. Protecting their lives. And training is very important. We all agree with that. This is easy. This is easy when we sit here and when we sat here a couple months ago and talked about afghanistan and said, hey, we spent too much money. We should have, could have, would have, but whats not easy is to do something about it and to learn from it and to have an apples to apples comparison. You need to go back. You need to compare the two sites, compare them fairly. If youre right, then i will be the first one in line to support you in that. But im telling you, you have not done that yet. The state department has made up their mind, theyre not going to change their minds, it can only be built near washington, d. C. , because, after all, everything comes from washington, d. C. Thats the only way it can ever work. Mr. Starr, this is not this is not right. You need to go back. You need to make an applestoapples comparison. If we sit here and we say we shouldnt have spent this much money but we dont learn from it and we dont do something about the future, then were all at fault here. Mr. Chairman, i yield the remainder of my time. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Cartwright, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And i thank all the witnesses for coming today. This is an enormously important discussion were having. We heard from you, mr. Harris, and particularly from you, mr. Johnson, some really vivid testimony about the level of violence that were seeing connected with the border. The level of criminal that were seeing at the border. But, really, chairman chaffetz called this hearing in large measure to talk about whether we ought to close those three consulates that he discussed and actually my colleague, mr. Mica is calling for the closure of all nine consulates in mexico. What i didnt get from you, mr. Harris, or you, mr. Judd, was the nexus between the level of violence youve been talking about. How does it cut, starting with you, mr. Harris, how would closing these three consulates that chairman chaffetz is talking about, how would that cut on the violent situation there . Im not familiar with the office and pay systems and all of that. Ill just say that in terms of my business, our relationship with mexico and our ability to protect and promote u. S. Interest is critically important tore Border Security i work with the state department and the country team in mexico city, so having our people deployed in a way that we can best protect to promote the interest of the United States is critically important. Mr. Judd . I came to testify about violence on the border and keeping u. S. Personnel safe. As far as the mexican consulates go, i have no idea how to do that. All i can tell you is im an expert in Border Security and what comes across the border and how we can better secure the border. Thats what im giving testimony on. Its a separate discussion that you are giving us. I appreciate you coming. Those are sobering comments that both of you gave us. In february of this year, in fact, right at the time of the spike of the violence, i spent time with my dear friend and colleague in south texas. In fact, we were right across the border at the time in february. I met with individuals from cbp who worked tireless ly to ensur our border is secure. Something that almost never gets mentioned its keeping our border secure from insects that would protect our crops. How important our trade relationship is with mexico. The u. S. Is mexicos largest foreign investor, more than 18,000 u. S. Companies operate in mexico. My state of pennsylvania exports billions of dollars worth of goods to mexico every year, so that accounts for 246,409 pennsylvania jobs. So this is a subject of interest to me. On my trip i learned about the role of the factories where mexican workers assemble products for foreign companies. Most are u. S. Owned or were subsidiaries and employ american managers and engineers many of whom work in the mexican factories as managers, middle managers, by day and come back over the border to places in texas where they live. Our working relationship with mexico is enormously important to our economic security. And as i witnessed the work of the consulates is vital to that mission. Now, in your testimony you recognize the importance of the bilateral relationship between the u. S. And mexico. You stated quote, twoway trade topped 500 billion in 2014 with 80 of that crossing the u. S. mexico land border. Ms. Saarnio, how do consulates work with our trade relationship in mexico . Our consulates are active with the Business Community on the ground. They deal with Security Issues and also in promoting the trade and the business that goes back and forth. The u. S. And mexico share this very close north American Trading relationship thats gotten deeper in the last 20 years after nafta. They support business documents need to be signed. They need to be notarized. They need to help moving freight across the border. If something gets stopped because of the lack of paperwork, theyll work with them to help facilitate and make the trade more efficient on a daily basis. Our consulates are working with that and the Business Community is very supportive of an active presence by the consulates in those rejops. Those regions. Thank you. I yield back. Now the gentleman from texas, mr. Hurd, for five minutes. I would like to thank my colleague from pennsylvania, mr. Cartwright, highlighting the problem of insects on the border. Its something we deal with all the time. I represent over 820 miles of the border from evil pass on the mexican side to el paso on the mexican side. We represent all of the texas borders. So this is something that we engage in on a weekly basis. I dont have much time. So my first question is to you, mr. Judd, and im going to try to keep our little tetatet tight. The interior i was down on the border last week and one of the challenges i heard was lack of manpower in the locations especially a place like presidio. Can you tell us about what this means from an operations perspective . And if you can keep that answer tight. Absolutely. Without the manpower on the border we cant properly we just physically cant secure the border. We need men and women on the borders. When you have the Living Conditions are absolutely horrendous, its nearly impossible. A couple years ago they took away the diagnosis from presidio. Youre reading my mind, brother. And so my understanding that some of these locations have changed your status from hardship. Ive seen a disproportionate share of agents leave or transfer out. Part of the move away from hardship designation was an effort to save money. Is the union open to some form of solution that would allow an agent to move up in terms of eligibility or preference for the next post if they spend a certain amount of time in a hardship posting . Weve been pushing the agency for that and, unfortunately, they havent reciprocated. Excellent. I think well have more conversations on that. Mr. Starr, ambassador moser, i want to thank you and your organization and your predecessors for what you do. I spent nine years as an undercover officer in the cia. I was in some really dangerous places like pakistan, afghanistan, and, you know, ive been in embassy that is have been bombed. Ive been in embassies that have been shot up. Ive been in embassies where thousands of people have marched on it. And because of the work of your organizations, you have mama hurds youngest son come home. My only concern is the cost of some of these embassies, texas a m university built 110,000seat stadium for about 450 million. I think theres some expertise we can rely on there. But one of the problems that i have and what i appreciate you all do with the travel advisory in mexico, the advisory in mexico was the only advisory where you split it up by state, right . And i think that shows the important relationship that we have with mexico. We cant secure our border. I know mr. Judd and his colleagues are working hard every single day and we can facilitate the movement of goods and services at the same time. We must and thats super important. So juarez 2008, the murder capital of the world. 2010, its half as many murders as detroit and new orleans. Okinaga, theres less murders in okinaga than there are in 2014 than there were in baltimore. So my concern is when we talk about mexico is a big place. 80 of the violence is in 20 of the country. If you break that thats five states. If you break that down into municipalities, its about 20 municipalities out of hundreds. And i get frustrated when we try to talk about mexico as one place. And its not. And so im just looking to work with youall on making sure the travel advisories in some of these cities are reflective of the needs on the grounds. And i made a comment when i was in okinaga. Ive been in some dangerous places and its not one of them. Im looking just for youalls opinion on being able to ensure that those travel advisories reflective of those communities. On the border its not two communities. Its one community. And the importance of trade and people, goods and Services Going back and forth, is so critical to this country. Whats good for northern mexico is good for the southern United States and good for both countries. And mr. Starr, your comments, please. Thank you, congressman. Specifically to that topic both osac and the warnings that we work with from each individual consulate and the osac Country Councils and the City Councils look specifically at the areas. The consular warning sheets are countrywide, but there are also post security bulletins that come out from the consulate and i think this is one of the arguments why we have consulates in different places. American citizens can go to that website for each individual consulate and look at whats going on in that immediate area. I recognize that, yes, sometimes the consular warning sheets are a blunt tool because we have, i think, sue, was it over 25 million americans a year visit mexico . And we do have to give them honest and open advice. We also further break it down for those people in specific areas. We try to do that. But i will take your concerns back with me. Thank you very much. And my last point, im already over time, i apologize chairman. Ms. Saarnio, sometimes the Foreign Service are overlooked in the difficulty of their job. Theyre doing it in hard places. Theyre working hard every single day to export our soft power around the world and they do it in tough places. I recognize that. Ive had the honor of serving sidebyside with many of those. Thank you for what you do and please communicate that back. I recognize ms. Kelly for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Everyone would agree the Mexican Government must work to enhance security in their country. The Violent Crime that takes place in some places in mexico, taking into consideration what my colleague just said, often resonates across the border here in the United States and cannot be ignored. We know that american firearms often turn up at crime scenes in mexico. In march the report out of 104, 850 guns traced between 2009 and 2014, 70 originated in the United States. Mr. Harris, im sure customs and Border Patrol encounter many guns at the border. Do you agree the consistent flow of firearms from the u. S. Across the border to mexico is a serious problem . Yes, maam. I responded to a previous question. I think our men and women do a great job on inspections. The personnel doing sometimes random southbound inspections are augmented by Border Patrol agents detailed over to assist with that effort. And the firearms that are seized during southbound operations without the aid of intelligence or investigative information are largely due to the hard work of the men and women. However, as im sure you know, we do not have the same level of technology and inspection capabilities going southbound as we have northbound. And i think if we would have some similar technology, the back scatters and other nonintrusive inspection capabilities to augment the great work of the men and women on southbound inspections probably would help us do a better job of seizing more weapons going into mexico which, as you indicate, is a problem. Thank you. In 2008 the mexican ambassador to the United States<\/a>, i think, mr. Starr has widely tried to involve itself in reform of the criminal Justice System<\/a> in mexico itself. In order to truly get at drug trafficking, gun trafficking, organized crime which, of course, is always at the top of our agenda. And id like to ask you in that regard about the socalled midira initiative. Which is charged with disrupting criminal organizations, strengthening institutions in mexico, improving stability in the surrounding communities. Does that sound like what the madeira finiifinisinitiative is . Weve been work iing with mexico extensively since 2008. Weve invest ed about 1. 4 billion in trying to secure the situation in mexico by working with the Mexican Government<\/a> and we have seen areas where we have made progress. Our Law Enforcement<\/a> officials, military officials can work with mexican counterparts to give them advice, to lend assistance when they need it to provide training when possible because of the funding provided by congress which were grateful for where weve been able to make some inroads and help mexico establish the rule of law and the system that they are seeking. I think it would be tragic not to have our colleagues down in mexico. They work every day with counterparts all over the country and is the consulate where theyre based . Theyre based at the embassy primarily but also based in several of our consulates, yes. In some of the cases where weve had the most success is where our officials were working locally, so, yes, it would have an impact. What impact has it had on security in the region . We believe the strong presence helps establish the security. Not only are we providing for the security of american officials, american citizens who are there, but we can work with local authorities and, as i said, to help them rebuild their institutions and help Mexican Government<\/a> achieve. Our colleagues are working all over the country all the time with the Mexican Government<\/a> and were trying to help them achieve their goals. Mr. Carter, five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You said environments such as this such as that involve constantly shifting threats, agile Decision Making<\/a> and diplomacy. You went on to say its not enough to improve physical security. Were training the Foreign Service<\/a> community on how to b better respond in these environments. Since 2008, the state department has been has had a plan to build a Diplomatic Security<\/a> Training Center<\/a>. And included in that has been the curriculum, the infrastructure and the personnel. Both the omb and gao have come out with reports on this. And during that during those studies, those studies the omb and gao came out with, the report has not been released. I have seen the omb report. And my staff has seen gao reports. Both of those reports cite the lack of cooperation by the state department in trying to come up with proposals for this facility to be built. Can you tell me on a facility thats this important, on a facility thats this expensive why the state department would be uncooperative in addressing this . Can you tell me why the federal Law Enforcement<\/a> Training Center<\/a> in georgia was only given 60 days to respond to this . Dont you think that they deserve more than 60 days . Dont you think the taxpayers of this country deserve to know exactly apples and apples whats going to be the best facility . What are we going to get the most from our taxpayers dollars . Would you agree with that . Yes, sir, i would. I believe that its clear that spending money on something that doesnt meet our requirements is not going to be a good investment. In previous hearings and in previous discussions they could not take our entire program and dont have the facilities that we need for the types of weapons that we use at the facility. They proposed using the towns bombing range which is about 60 miles north that is a marine corps bombing range that is at the moment under consideration of going from a nonlive munition bombing range to a live munition bombing range. I understand that, mr. Starr. If i could cant use it, therefore, we believe that the picket site is the best. Mr. Starr, let me ask you, mr. Starr, did you make this clear . Do you think they had all the information . When you talk about the curriculum requirements for the Training Center<\/a>, both the omb report and the gao report, and i quote here, it says the information is only in the minds of the instructors and providing it would cause a delay in security operations. How can we get a price on the curriculum, how can we get an idea, when its only in the minds of the instructors . Im sorry, sir, thats not correct. This comes right out of the report. We have extensive records. We have provided the curriculum. We have this is not just in the mind of instructors, sir. Then why is that in the report . And can i ask you, mr. Starr, i have seen the report. Mr. Starr, ive seen the report. Which report, sir . The omb report which you have denied to be released. I found nothing in there sensitive whatsoever. There were six comparisons done. Two of them were even and one of them favored ft. Picket. Can you tell me why that report is not being released . Sir, the omb report is a preliminary study. Preliminary. Why is it not being released . I dont know, sir. Thats an omb report. I can tell you that the gao report does not reflect that. The gao report has been finished. It has not been released yet either. I think that it is probably wise to wait until that report is released. Mr. Starr, you would agrow this is important, protecting the lives of our Foreign Service<\/a> members is very important. Protecting their lives. And training is very important. We all agree with that. This is easy. This is easy when we sit here and when we sat here a couple months ago and talked about afghanistan and said, hey, we spent too much money. We should have, could have, would have, but whats not easy is to do something about it and to learn from it and to have an apples to apples comparison. You need to go back. You need to compare the two sites, compare them fairly. If youre right, then i will be the first one in line to support you in that. But im telling you, you have not done that yet. The state department has made up their mind, theyre not going to change their minds, it can only be built near washington, d. C. , because, after all, everything comes from washington, d. C. Thats the only way it can ever work. Mr. Starr, this is not this is not right. You need to go back. You need to make an applestoapples comparison. If we sit here and we say we shouldnt have spent this much money but we dont learn from it and we dont do something about the future, then were all at fault here. Mr. Chairman, i yield the remainder of my time. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Cartwright, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And i thank all the witnesses for coming today. This is an enormously important discussion were having. We heard from you, mr. Harris, and particularly from you, mr. Johnson, some really vivid testimony about the level of violence that were seeing connected with the border. The level of criminal that were seeing at the border. But, really, chairman chaffetz called this hearing in large measure to talk about whether we ought to close those three consulates that he discussed and actually my colleague, mr. Mica is calling for the closure of all nine consulates in mexico. What i didnt get from you, mr. Harris, or you, mr. Judd, was the nexus between the level of violence youve been talking about. How does it cut, starting with you, mr. Harris, how would closing these three consulates that chairman chaffetz is talking about, how would that cut on the violent situation there . Im not familiar with the office and pay systems and all of that. Ill just say that in terms of my business, our relationship with mexico and our ability to protect and promote u. S. Interest is critically important tore Border Security<\/a> i work with the state department and the country team in mexico city, so having our people deployed in a way that we can best protect to promote the interest of the United States<\/a> is critically important. Mr. Judd . I came to testify about violence on the border and keeping u. S. Personnel safe. As far as the mexican consulates go, i have no idea how to do that. All i can tell you is im an expert in Border Security<\/a> and what comes across the border and how we can better secure the border. Thats what im giving testimony on. Its a separate discussion that you are giving us. I appreciate you coming. Those are sobering comments that both of you gave us. In february of this year, in fact, right at the time of the spike of the violence, i spent time with my dear friend and colleague in south texas. In fact, we were right across the border at the time in february. I met with individuals from cbp who worked tireless ly to ensur our border is secure. Something that almost never gets mentioned its keeping our border secure from insects that would protect our crops. How important our trade relationship is with mexico. The u. S. Is mexicos largest foreign investor, more than 18,000 u. S. Companies operate in mexico. My state of pennsylvania exports billions of dollars worth of goods to mexico every year, so that accounts for 246,409 pennsylvania jobs. So this is a subject of interest to me. On my trip i learned about the role of the factories where mexican workers assemble products for foreign companies. Most are u. S. Owned or were subsidiaries and employ american managers and engineers many of whom work in the mexican factories as managers, middle managers, by day and come back over the border to places in texas where they live. Our working relationship with mexico is enormously important to our economic security. And as i witnessed the work of the consulates is vital to that mission. Now, in your testimony you recognize the importance of the bilateral relationship between the u. S. And mexico. You stated quote, twoway trade topped 500 billion in 2014 with 80 of that crossing the u. S. mexico land border. Ms. Saarnio, how do consulates work with our trade relationship in mexico . Our consulates are active with the Business Community<\/a> on the ground. They deal with Security Issues<\/a> and also in promoting the trade and the business that goes back and forth. The u. S. And mexico share this very close north American Trading<\/a> relationship thats gotten deeper in the last 20 years after nafta. They support business documents need to be signed. They need to be notarized. They need to help moving freight across the border. If something gets stopped because of the lack of paperwork, theyll work with them to help facilitate and make the trade more efficient on a daily basis. Our consulates are working with that and the Business Community<\/a> is very supportive of an active presence by the consulates in those rejops. Those regions. Thank you. I yield back. Now the gentleman from texas, mr. Hurd, for five minutes. I would like to thank my colleague from pennsylvania, mr. Cartwright, highlighting the problem of insects on the border. Its something we deal with all the time. I represent over 820 miles of the border from evil pass on the mexican side to el paso on the mexican side. We represent all of the texas borders. So this is something that we engage in on a weekly basis. I dont have much time. So my first question is to you, mr. Judd, and im going to try to keep our little tetatet tight. The interior i was down on the border last week and one of the challenges i heard was lack of manpower in the locations especially a place like presidio. Can you tell us about what this means from an operations perspective . And if you can keep that answer tight. Absolutely. Without the manpower on the border we cant properly we just physically cant secure the border. We need men and women on the borders. When you have the Living Conditions<\/a> are absolutely horrendous, its nearly impossible. A couple years ago they took away the diagnosis from presidio. Youre reading my mind, brother. And so my understanding that some of these locations have changed your status from hardship. Ive seen a disproportionate share of agents leave or transfer out. Part of the move away from hardship designation was an effort to save money. Is the union open to some form of solution that would allow an agent to move up in terms of eligibility or preference for the next post if they spend a certain amount of time in a hardship posting . Weve been pushing the agency for that and, unfortunately, they havent reciprocated. Excellent. I think well have more conversations on that. Mr. Starr, ambassador moser, i want to thank you and your organization and your predecessors for what you do. I spent nine years as an undercover officer in the cia. I was in some really dangerous places like pakistan, afghanistan, and, you know, ive been in embassy that is have been bombed. Ive been in embassies that have been shot up. Ive been in embassies where thousands of people have marched on it. And because of the work of your organizations, you have mama hurds youngest son come home. My only concern is the cost of some of these embassies, texas a m university built 110,000seat stadium for about 450 million. I think theres some expertise we can rely on there. But one of the problems that i have and what i appreciate you all do with the travel advisory in mexico, the advisory in mexico was the only advisory where you split it up by state, right . And i think that shows the important relationship that we have with mexico. We cant secure our border. I know mr. Judd and his colleagues are working hard every single day and we can facilitate the movement of goods and services at the same time. We must and thats super important. So juarez 2008, the murder capital of the world. 2010, its half as many murders as detroit and new orleans. Okinaga, theres less murders in okinaga than there are in 2014 than there were in baltimore. So my concern is when we talk about mexico is a big place. 80 of the violence is in 20 of the country. If you break that thats five states. If you break that down into municipalities, its about 20 municipalities out of hundreds. And i get frustrated when we try to talk about mexico as one place. And its not. And so im just looking to work with youall on making sure the travel advisories in some of these cities are reflective of the needs on the grounds. And i made a comment when i was in okinaga. Ive been in some dangerous places and its not one of them. Im looking just for youalls opinion on being able to ensure that those travel advisories reflective of those communities. On the border its not two communities. Its one community. And the importance of trade and people, goods and Services Going<\/a> back and forth, is so critical to this country. Whats good for northern mexico is good for the southern United States<\/a> and good for both countries. And mr. Starr, your comments, please. Thank you, congressman. Specifically to that topic both osac and the warnings that we work with from each individual consulate and the osac Country Councils<\/a> and the City Councils<\/a> look specifically at the areas. The consular warning sheets are countrywide, but there are also post security bulletins that come out from the consulate and i think this is one of the arguments why we have consulates in different places. American citizens can go to that website for each individual consulate and look at whats going on in that immediate area. I recognize that, yes, sometimes the consular warning sheets are a blunt tool because we have, i think, sue, was it over 25 million americans a year visit mexico . And we do have to give them honest and open advice. We also further break it down for those people in specific areas. We try to do that. But i will take your concerns back with me. Thank you very much. And my last point, im already over time, i apologize chairman. Ms. Saarnio, sometimes the Foreign Service<\/a> are overlooked in the difficulty of their job. Theyre doing it in hard places. Theyre working hard every single day to export our soft power around the world and they do it in tough places. I recognize that. Ive had the honor of serving sidebyside with many of those. Thank you for what you do and please communicate that back. I recognize ms. Kelly for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Everyone would agree the Mexican Government<\/a> must work to enhance security in their country. The Violent Crime<\/a> that takes place in some places in mexico, taking into consideration what my colleague just said, often resonates across the border here in the United States<\/a> and cannot be ignored. We know that american firearms often turn up at crime scenes in mexico. In march the report out of 104, 850 guns traced between 2009 and 2014, 70 originated in the United States<\/a>. Mr. Harris, im sure customs and Border Patrol<\/a> encounter many guns at the border. Do you agree the consistent flow of firearms from the u. S. Across the border to mexico is a serious problem . Yes, maam. I responded to a previous question. I think our men and women do a great job on inspections. The personnel doing sometimes random southbound inspections are augmented by Border Patrol<\/a> agents detailed over to assist with that effort. And the firearms that are seized during southbound operations without the aid of intelligence or investigative information are largely due to the hard work of the men and women. However, as im sure you know, we do not have the same level of technology and inspection capabilities going southbound as we have northbound. And i think if we would have some similar technology, the back scatters and other nonintrusive inspection capabilities to augment the great work of the men and women on southbound inspections probably would help us do a better job of seizing more weapons going into mexico which, as you indicate, is a problem. Thank you. In 2008 the mexican ambassador to the United States<\/a> pled with the u. S. To help stem the flow of weapons into his country saying, and i quote, between texas and arizona alone youve got 12,000 gunshots along the border with mexico and a lot of the gunshots provide weapons that feed into organized crime in mexico. So we really need the support of the United States<\/a>. Ms. Saarnio, do you agree with that, that american firearms are contributing to the violence in mexico, or some parts of mexico . Thank you, congresswoman. I think the problem in mexico and as it crosses over the United States<\/a> is a problem that we share with mexico. We share a common border. We share many issues. Theyre multifaceted issues. I think we have to deal with problems on our side of the border and the mexicans have to deal with problems on their side of the border and we do work closely with them on it. I am sure that if we were to deal with some of these issues in our society they would be appreciated in mexico. This is a tremendous problem because one of the principle ta tactics used by criminals to obtain the weapons is store purchasing. I know my colleagues have already raise this had issue and im proud to join Ranking Member<\/a> cummings and Carolyn Maloney<\/a> to introduce a bipartisan gun trafficking prevention act of 2015, House Resolution<\/a> 3455. I feel this bill will close this glaring loophole and help with the issue. So thank you and i yield back. Id like to make a note here that the from Homeland Security<\/a> customs and Border Patrol<\/a>, this is the number of seizures of guns on the southwestern border in 2015, 60. 60. Thats it. If you look at the atf statistic, some 8,200 traces in a category called u. S. Firearms. I want to be careful because u. S. Source under the did he have nigs provided by the atf refers to those firearms determined by atf to be manufactured in the United States<\/a> or legally imported into the United States<\/a> by an ffl, a federal firearms licensee. So legal transportation of it, they may have been used in a crime but if they were manufactured in the United States<\/a> they would also fall under that statistic. So i think its a little bit high. And if anybody on this panel is concerned about the illegal flow of guns, then youve got to look first at what the Obama Administration<\/a> did in fast and furious. In this panel, this Oversight Committee<\/a> asked for the documents from the state department and from the department of justice, i should say, about fast and furious. Did the Administration Work<\/a> with us in an open and candid way . Did they provide the documents to congress . No. We had to take them to court. That is still pending because the government through the department of justice knowingly and willingly gave the drug cartels nearly 2,000 weapons. So we can drag up mr. Holder and other people in the Obama Administration<\/a>, but they gave out nearly 2,000 ak47s to the drug cartels and we want to look at that. We have held the attorney general in contempt of congress. We had to go to court to get those documents. We still dont have those documents. So for people to say were worried about the drugs that are going back and forth, lets look at what our government did in a complicit way to provide the drug cartels those weapons. That is an investigation this committee will continue. Its still in the courts and its one of the most outrageous things to happen. I would agree with the gentlewoman but it shouldnt start with our government knowingly giving those weapons to the drug cartels. Thanks, everybody, for their indulgence. I recognize the gentleman from north carolina, mr. Walker, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate your passion on this issue. I want to talk a little bit about Human Trafficking<\/a> and human smuggling, if i could. And i want to tie it into the Border Crossing<\/a>. What is the risk of these thieves able to duplicate these cards . Is it possible with the 11,500 that were made . I have a card here as well. And its a card that inuse here in d. C. Sometimes ill use it to vote. Other times i just show it and im kind of granted access here. So help me understand. Can that be duplicated . Sir, they have features in them that make it very difficult to do a photo substitution or duplicate them. I think the other thing thats important to remember on the cards that were stolen that anybody thats actually trying to do illegal activity would not want to use one of thoets cards that was stolen because every one of those is registered electronically as a stolen card. If they show it, it rings a bell and these people will be doubly inspected. We have a high degree of confidence the cards stolen, the majority have been recovered. Those that havent been very difficult to duplicate and likely the cartels or anybody else engaged in illegal business would not want to use them. Rfid can be turned off remotely, so are we under the impression is this something we can go on record those are 100 inoperable, the cards are rendered completely useless . They would not be used by someone trying to smuggle human beings. Is that fair to say . I would think, sir, that nobody thats in the smuggling business is going to try to go legally across the border would want to use one of those cards thats entered as stolen. As i said, that would raise the profile. What they would want is to steal a card from a legal user thats not been declared stolen, that has a similarity on it to the person on it but, still, even the biometrics are not going to be the same. Its not just something they could use ever as far as an i. D. Card or passing through anything . These cards now once theyve been deactivated, so to speak, if thats the right terminology, theres no way they could use that any place or location for whatever purpose . Sir, i wouldnt go that far. Along the border where theres active inspection of them, i think theyll be detected very quickly. I think people do use them for other purposes but, again, if the photograph doesnt match and theyre very hard to do photo substitutions without destroying the card, it would be very difficult. Okay. Mr. Judd, do you have any concerns or comments on that . No. The ports of entry i dont work at the port of entry. For me it would be very difficult if somebody took a card from, like, for instance my card. If somebody took my card and i encountered them, theres no way to run that through the checks that mr. Starr currently referred to. Im satisfied with that answer. Let me ask you this. In moving forward, have we pretty much solidified this mistake is now moving forward this wont happen again . Is that something weve looked into as far as how this was broken, stolen, how they got loose to begin with . I visited the transit facility that they went out of, sir, talked with the employees there. There had been a very hard look at how we were moving those cards. We have made some changes in how theyre delivered. We are now only i would prefer not to speak about some of the ways we have gone into making some of those changes, sir, but we did look closely at it. I think our consular sheets are still accurate, that hijacking and carjacking can still be is a problem in mexico. We have to watch out for that. But we are taking additional measures to try to ensure this doesnt occur again. I appreciate it. Human trafficking, in my state of north carolina, even that far away from the border is now number nine in the country. We were able to pass early on trading for Border Security<\/a>, that piece of legislation is now law. This is a very tech logically advanced even in our own research here. Some of your reports showing these arent just ma and pa. Theyve been assimilated with large organizations. We want it to shut that down at the border. I appreciate you helping. With that i yield back. The gentleman for yielding. How many are there in circulation . Do you have any idea . Millions, right . Millions, sir. Tens of millions. So the idea is that mexican nationals can get a Border Crossing<\/a> card that is valid for 24 hours is it 24 hours in the United States<\/a> . Its a day pass basically. By state there are instances had he could go within a certain state with limitations on them. The idea is you could go for the day, go shopping and then come back across the border. But there are millions of them. Theres no exit program, correct . Do you have any way, mr. Judd, are you scanning how many of the Border Crossing<\/a> cards that are used daily scanned on exit . That im aware of, none. How many are scanned on the inbound . All of them. So we have statistics about how many come into the United States<\/a> and zero statistics on how many actually leave the United States<\/a>. Whats the consequence of being caught in the United States<\/a> with just a Border Crossing<\/a> card . Next to none. We give out millions of passes, we have no exit program, we have no way of verifying, and theres no consequence if you do it anyway. And so thousands of them get stolen. Im still worried that theyre used in many ways as a flash pass, yeah, im here legal, just here for the day, even though in some places you can only go 25 miles into the United States<\/a>, other places its up to 40 miles, if im not mistaken. But its not supposed to be your free entry into the United States<\/a> of america, and yet its just inexcusable to have no exit program to be able to scan these passes. I field back. My apologies. Youre now recognized for very generous five minutes. I like that. Good afternoon to all of you. Im sitting here and i know that were talking about consulate construction, but i just came home from the u. S. Virgin e islands which is now along with puerto rico considered the fourth border. And we had a weekend of violence that was profound. With a young man being gunned down in a daycare parking lot while his wife went to pick up their child. 100 shots being fired in the early evening in another part of town. And then the following morning in front of a high school at 9 00 in the morning granted it was a saturday another individual being gunned down. And i understand that a lot of this is, one, due to economic nonopportunity, failing schools but, also, because of the guns and drugs that come through borders like my own. And when i look at in 2007 the u. S. And mexico began what i hear is called the Merida Initiative<\/a> which, according to the state department, is an initiative with four general goals to disrupt criminal organizations, strengthen judicial institutions, improve border infrastructure and technology, and improve stability in the mexican community. I wish places like puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands had an initiative with its own government like that. But when i see some of the bills that are coming through and the lack of appropriations and the lack of support im getting from many of my colleagues on that, it makes me question if any of thats ever going to happen. But i know were here supposed to talk about consulate construction and progress in mexico. And so ive digressed and ill get back on topic to what i was supposed to be talking about. I was fortunate to go with my colleague, mr. Chaffetz to mexico in may because i was interested in seeing how borders and consulates operate to stem not just the tide of Illegal Drugs<\/a> and guns and individuals coming undocument ed into this country but also the amount of work and cooperation thats done in agriculture as well in places between mexico and the United States<\/a>. And the amount of trade and consumer goods and commerce that happens in these areas. And so we went and we visited the site where the new new mexico city is supposed to be built. I understand there are a lot of consulates in this area because of the amount of commerce and trade along with individuals that go on in these areas. So i wanted to ask and i think mr. Moser, you would be the appropriate person, the three consulates in dangerous areas near the border, tijuana, monterey, they all recently have been completed in 2008, 2011, and 2014 respectively. Is that correct . Yes. Okay. And all of these three consulates meet Security Standards<\/a> . Maam, i cannot build a building without mr. Starrs explicit approval. So, mr. Starr, did they meet your approval . Yes, they do. And theres another consulate thats currently under construction thats estimated to be completed in 2017, mr. Starr, is that correct . Is that accurate . Yes. And then the consulate and embassy in mexico city are also supposed to soon be under construction . Yes, maam, thats correct. The four remaining consulates are in the site acquisition phase, correct . Thats correct, maam. And as for the completion time lines when we raveled to mexico city they were told that the consulate was estimated to be completed in 2019 and Mexico City Embassy<\/a> estimated to be finished in 2020. Are those time lines still in place . Yes, maam. They do depend somewhat on mexico citys case about when we will receive the site. As i recall, the clean site was not for the entire space. It was for a portion of that embassy . For a very small portion, the southern corner of the site. And we have an idea when mexicos government will give that . Maam, we are working with our seller in order to obtain the clean site, and we are working currently on a time line for the delivery of that, and we expect it to be some time in the fall of 2016. Okay. And can you explain how state is respond iing to the delays asid from just responding to the seller . If you mean how were responding, i will say this. You know, we looked for ten years, over a decade, at 20 different sites in mexico city to find one that would meet our very robust and by this hearing everyone acknowledges very important diplomatic platform that we have in mexico city. When we finally identified from our seller the site which is a short, couplemile distance from our current location, we realized this would actual ly fulfill all of our programmatic needs from providing an effective platform for our Law Enforcement<\/a> agencies to our traditional diplomatic activities to even providing space for a Benjamin Franklin<\/a> library, which is very important for our Public Diplomacy<\/a> outreach. Yes, there have been delays in acquiring this site. But we still feel that within this time line that this is sufficient for us to build a building from the time we receive the site and get it up and operational and that construction time line is around 50 months. And when i talked with the people on the site primarily one of the main reasons why this was such a great site is because the ability to buy land of that size from multiple sellers is almost impossible. Yes, maam, that is correct. One of the things i want to note here, you know, it would have been possible, of course, to find a green filled site if we wanted to be well outside of mexico city. But to the extent that we need to engage with our colleagues and the Mexican Government<\/a> and in businesses, we need to be in an urban location that mirrors our present diplomatic platform. Okay. Thank you so much. Ive exhausted my gracious and generous time, and thank you, mr. Chair, for your generosity. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. Hice, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Judd, is it your understanding and i know you said you dont work at the ports of entry but is it your understanding that the cards can be used by individuals illegal ly to get into the country . If the bbc cards, if somebody is not properly looking and inspecting who the person is, for instance if you come through the port of entry and present your card and they dont look at you and just swipe it and its a good card and pass you through, absolutely they could do that. But the cards really are, as mr. Starr said, very good cards. Theyre very difficult to duplicate. But if you have somebody elses card and they dont properly inspect you, you could get into the United States<\/a>. Is there any evidence, mr. Starr, that has ever happened . Not to my knowledge yet, sir, no. So you would say that no one has ever entered this country with a stolen card . Sir, that would be very hard to say absolutely. Yes, it would. It would be very difficult. It would be very difficult because from what i understand that has happened and there are times inspectors dont check the cards properly so there certainly are occasions where as the chairman brought up earlier theyre used as flash cards. How often does an individual just flash the card and theyre waved on into the country . Sir, i can only tell you i spent about three hours at the san ysidro Border Crossing<\/a> with the personnel that were there. I saw an incredibly dedicated group of people with very many duplicate stops where theyre checking the people, they check the cars. I cant tell you because its out of im with the state department but i have to tell you i was exceptionally impressed. Did they know you were there . Yes, they did. That probably has something to do with it. Is it true that the cdp was only able to read the cards or validate cards about twothirds of the time . Im sorry, sir, i dont know the answer. Its my understanding the cards dont always work properly. So my question ultimately is coming to if the cards dont always work properly then the stolen cards could still be used. Mr. Harris, youre nodding your head. Well, i department notiidnt doing that but, okay. It was an accident, i guess. Im not a port of entry expert but ill defer to my area of responsibility and what im focused on which is targeting the criminal network. I will tell you through investigative means. I dont talk about here. Were getting much better at identifying and routing out those individuals who are using Border Crossing<\/a> cards for criminal purposes. Weve identified as a starting point in south texas a little bit less than 1,000 individuals, probably about half of those are Border Crossers<\/a> and were systematically removing the cards from those individuals when they cross the border. I think the technology that you all have supported us with are much better with being able to identify the people using the cards for illicit purposes versus for a legitimate reason. So none of you have any awareness if the cards are not working . No, sir, im not aware theyre not working. I think we have a very high degree of confidence in the card and a very high success rate with that card. Okay. Mr. Starr, do you have any idea how many, or any of you, for that matter, how many u. S. Citizens have disappeared, been kidnapped, abducted . I dont have the figures in front of me, sir, no. Who would have those figures . Sir, i have some figures from last year and this year. If were talking about u. S. Citizens . Thats correct. We believe from the reports we have that in 2014 we had a total case of 146 kidnappings reported, u. S. Citizens, and this year through september 8 weve had 64 cases reported. Okay. What about other crimes . Other crimes are also down in terms of Violent Crime<\/a>s. We look at murder cases. Last year we had about 100 murder cases reported, homicides involving american citizens. This year were counting 89 so far today. Is there any evidence of americans being targeted . Not to my knowledge, no. Okay. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I know my time is up. I would just like to add that i have put forth mr. Judd mentioned a while ago that the horrible crime committed in montana after a person was in your hands, and i put forth a bill track, tracking reoffenders. I would ask you to check that out. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. And we dont have the necessarily the proper panelists to deal with this part of it, but to lead to follow up to what you said, one of the most infuriating parts of this are the people who are here illegally and commit crimes only to be released back into the interior of the United States<\/a> of america. For fiscal year 2013 and 2014 the Obama Administration<\/a> released roughly 66,000 criminal aliens. According to enforcement removal operations there are 925,000 people with final orders to be removed from the country who have not been removed. There are people here illegal and and there are people here that are illegal and commit a crime. To not focus on those people and make sure they leave the country and then when they do, to find that a huge percentage of them get picked up and come back across the border, i mean, how do you look people in the eye and say 925,000 people are here illegally or ordered to leave the country and they did not . And then you add on top of that the number of other criminals. Theyre in our possession. We have them. They were caught. They were convicted, and we said, go ahead. Youre released. And we have horrific stories in just about every single state you can think about. And its just horrendous. Were now pleased to recognize mr. Claire who lives in texas. Hes very dedicated on this issue. We appreciate him. We now recognize mr. Cuellar. Thank you for allowing me to be back in my former committee and i thank the Ranking Member<\/a>, also. I want to thank the witnesses, thank you for the good job that you do. I know its a difficult job. We appreciateharris, who moved to the northern part of my district, its always a good pleasure to see you and all the good work you did down there. Mr. Judd, all your men and women that work for Border Patrol<\/a>, that work along with you and robert and all that, they do a good job. Thank anybody on the border. As you know, my brother is a border well, a border sheriff, down there on the border. He and i, we have lived there all of my life. Like i said, i drink the water. I breathe the air down there. My family lives there. I go back every weekend back to the border. I do want to say thank you for all of the work that you all do. Again, mr. Chairman, i know theres a couple issues. I think theres some things i would like to work with you as we talked a while ago. I want to talk about danger pay. I think danger pay for the folks at the state department, i think we need to talk about it. I think thats something that i think congress will probably be involved in this issue. My understanding, you already let some your employees know you have let us know. Congress will probably have a say so on this. Not that we want to micromanage, but i think its part of the appropriations process will be involved. The issue of cost of construction i understand ive been to the one in mexico. I understand what they are doing over on the other end and other parts of the world. I think the cost of construction is extremely high. Sometimes people i think they charge us because were the federal government, they charge us more. I understand about security and you have do this. I understand all of that. But i still think theyre high. On the issues of closing the consulate, i think we disagree on that. I dont think were should close the consulates. Let me try to address fsh if you allow me a few minutes beyond my five minutes. I think everybody is gone except you and i. Let me talk about the border. I want to go from the border and into mexico. If you look at the fbi statistics, the border crime rate or the National Crime<\/a> rate is about 4. 5 murders per 100,000. My hometown is about 1. 5 murders per 100,000. You take the border crime rate, its lower than the National Crime<\/a> rate using fbi stats, murder, assault, rape, name them. If you look at the top ten cities with the highest murder rates in it the u. S. Per 100,000 population, none of them are on the border. None of them are on the border. If you look at one of the ngos that looked at the top 50 cities with the highest homicides per 100,000, and if you look at it, you have san pedro this is from 2011 to 2014. Number one is honduras. You had acapulco, 104 murders per 100,000. There was 171 per 100,000. Then you go on sorry if there are any of my colleagues, san lewis was and then detroit number 22. Then the numbers have gone down number 27, then you had number 34. Then you had baltimore, number 40 and then go all the way down to mexico on that. Again, i would ask to you look at some of this numbers. Theres always the reality and the perception. Being on the border, i will be the first to say, mr. Chairman, you know, there are problems like any other city. But its not the way some people paint it to be. Travel warnings, again, if we go based on travel warnings we pulled out the travel warnings that the state department has. Yes, i do see mexico here. But i do see so many other countries where there is travel warnings. If we go on the basis of travel warning, mr. Chairman, i think we have to close consulates. Theres 2 1 2 pages of countries that we probably have to include, including one of the ones that were dealing with this week, or maybe i note that we might postpone the israel issue. Even the west bank gaza, theres a travel warning there. I can go on 2 1 2 pages of countries if we happen to go on that. Why do we need consulates on that in places like mexico . Two reasons. One is the trade and the relations that we have. But the other one has to do with immigration. Before i go on that, let me talk about mexico. In 2008 we worked with the ambassador, president bush, roberta jacobson, will soon be the am boss door of mexico. Shes a good lady to know. You might know her. She will be a great ambassador to mexico. We were giving 36 million a year. We give israel 3. 1 billion a year. Here is mexico, which is one of our greatest trading partners. I think you highlighted some of the numbers. Let me talk about loredo for example, it handles, 40 of all the trade between u. S. And mexico. 12,000 trailers a day that we have there. If you put the trucks, line them up up and down the border on a day basis, all the trucks loredo on one day would go from there to a little south of san anto o antonio. Put all the trucks on a monthly basis going through just loredo, it would go from there all the way to bolivia. If you go on the number of trucks that pass loredo on a year, they almost will wrap around the world twice. It gives you the half trillion dollars of trade we have every year. It show u. S. Ws why mechl yxico important. If an import comes in from china, it has about a 4 American Parts<\/a> on it. If something comes in from canada, number one trading partner, will have a 25 parts. If something comes in from mexico, an import comes in from mexico, it will have a 40 American Parts<\/a> with it. So that shows us the connection that we have with mexico. Trade. Let me go into immigration. Robert, you and i spoke a lot mr. Harris, we spoke about the unaccompanied kids come in. We have seen the numbers gone down. They have gone down, theyre about half. But we can add more Border Patrol<\/a>. I agree. I want to see men and women in blue, the customers officers. But if you look at something thats happened ive always said we cant play defense on the one yard line, which is called the u. S. Border. We spend 18 billion for Border Security<\/a> across the nation. If we just play a little different defense on the 20 yard line and last year the appropriations we added i think we worked with you, we added 80 million to help mexico secure the southern border with k guatemala. We ought to look at the southern border with mexico. If you look at it the from october 2014 to april 2015, mexico apprehended over 92,000 Central American<\/a> migrants. 20,000 more than we do in the u. S. So if we would if mexico would allow those 92,000 Border Patrol<\/a> would have been dweealin with those folks more. We need to work with them. Construction costs, a degrei ag they are high. Closie ining the consulates, ba mistake. I want to work with you. We need to talk about certain parts of mexico where i think they deserve danger pay. Thank you so much for allowing me to be back. To all the witnesses, thank you so much for all of the good work that you do. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I now recognize the gentlemen from wisconsin for five minutes. I hope i dont repeat some questions. First of all, i want to point out overall we are highlighting mexico here. Just reviewing the murder rates around the country, mexico is far from the most violent country in the world. Right . You have countries like jamaica, el salvador, twice the murder or honduras, which is four times the murder rate of mexico. Mexico does have a high murder rate. Its over four times the i would say four times the american rate. I wonder if you could comment on the differences in some cities compared to other cities and whether you think it is right now particularly dangerous in the cities with the higher rates themselves. Sir, i think the embassy in mexico city and the different types of agencies that are represented there closely follow where we have rising narco trafficking drug violence. I think thats what fuels a lot of the murder rates. As we said earlier, 25 million americans visit mexico every single year. Very few of those people have any type of problem there. Tourism is a big business. Were aware that certain places where the drug cartels one is trying to take over another or theres a split in the organization and thats what happened over the last year essentially. The violence can certainly spike. I think its i think we do try to differentiate between those places where the vie slens going up and make sure thats reflected in our warnings and tell people that. I think we try to be accurate about what the real threats are to americans there and give thechl a general idea. It is not a level of violence that is all over mexico. It is in different cities and primarily where the drug traffickers are contesting territory. Do we have a facility in acapulco . We have an agency there, not a consulate. We have an agent there. Thats an example that looks to be a very, very dangerous city. Could you let me know . Is that some American Cities<\/a> where overall its dangerous but there are a lot of areas that are okay . That is one just pulling it up thats just i think the murder rate is three times that of milwaukee where im near. Thats not a very well run city. Do you feel that our people are safe in a city like that . If you stick in the right areas. Sir, we provide guidance in our travel advisories by state and by city. There are is specific guidance for acapulco. Im not sure what it is right now. Typically, we advise people, stay off the streets at night in these dangerous places. Stay closer to home. If we know of a particular type of violence thats going to occur, we will issue a warning. I think we think its manageable. But we do have to monitor the situations. We have to monitor the risks to take measures to mitigate against the risks. By point of reference, of all the we will leave this hearing at this point and go live to capitol hill where epa Administrator Gina Mccarthy<\/a> is testifying at a Senate Environment<\/a> and Public Works Committee<\/a> on the august Hazardous Waste<\/a> water spill caused by an epa cleanup team in a mine in colorado. They caused a rupture in a holding pond in silverton, colorado, that released 3 million waste water from the mine which contained lead and arsenic. Gina mccarthy is back on capitol hill to testify tomorrow. She will be testifying on the same issue. She will be joined by the interior secretary. We are live on capitol hill this morning as we await testimony from gina mccarthy. She is testifying this morning before the Senate Environment<\/a> and Public Works Committee<\/a> on an august Hazardous Waste<\/a> water spill caused by an epa cleanup team at the Gold King Mine<\/a> in colorado. Along with testimony from epa Administrator Gina Mccarthy<\/a>, we will hear from senators gardner, bennett, udall and heinrich. They have just gavelled in. Live coverage on cspan3. We have senator boxer and i, we will withhold our Opening Statements<\/a> until we hear from the four senators who have made a request to be here. Senator gardner first called this to my attention. What were going to is hear from start with you, senator gardner, and go across and hear from those who have the special concern and interest. And you are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ranking member boxers and other members for holding this hearing today, to examine the august 5, 2015 spill that took place at the Gold King Mine<\/a> in southwest colorado. Also appreciate the committee for providing senators bennett, heinrich, udall and me to make statements about the impact this has had in our states and the representatives here who will testify. The spill had an impact on the southern indian tribe and the Navajo Nation<\/a>. From the outset of the spill, it was crucial that the environmental and public the epa full focus be on mitigation and slowing the flow of contaminants in the river. Water testing shows that the surface water of the river has returned to preincident levels. Many uncertainties remain regarding future monitoring. If anybody has seen the pictures of recent days when you can go in and disturb and disrupt the riverbed bottom, you can see material still being kicked up. Once the National Press<\/a> das peepeer disappears, there are concerns that exist for communities downstream that the epa must address. Although the epa has acknowledged the magnitude of the crisis, its suitable for oversight. They deserve accountability in the events surrounding the spill, particularly in understanding where epa was during the first hours and days following the spill. For example, the Colorado Department<\/a> of Public Health<\/a> and the environment was the first to notify the city of release on august 5. The Colorado Department<\/a> of Natural Resources<\/a> was the first to notify the southern indian tribe of the release on august 5. The Sheriff Office<\/a> closed Public Access<\/a> to the river on august 6. The questions that we must ask today, where was the epa during this initial notification and closure of the river . Did the agency follow National Contingency<\/a> plan for notification and implementation for response on this disaster . Did they follow the same requirements that would have been in effect for a private sector actor . Was there anyone within the epa with Crisis Management<\/a> experience for a spill of this nature dispatched to the area or made aware of the spill . These are a few of the questions i hope administrator mccarthy will address today. In the first few days, it was largely state, local and tribal officials responding. It was not until august 10 that the epa established a unified command center in durango. Along with the confusion over epas lack of notification, frustration began for a release of a simple, state forward interpretation of the Water Quality<\/a> monitoring data from the epa. My personal experience is the epas response monitor that of local communities. Upon first learning of the spill, i attempted to speak with the administrator but was told she was unavailable. After pushing back, i was told the regional director would contact me. That came several hours later. I visited the spill site with senator bennett. This is four days after the 3 million gallons of water was released. The epa did not have an appropriate Crisis Response<\/a> plan or team in place. In fact, it was that sunday morning briefing where we were sitting with the epa officials who couldnt answer basic questions, including how much water at that point was still leaking into the river. From the outset, i said the epa should be held to the same standards as they would hold a private company for spill. Which means investigations must be conducted, people must be held accountable and tough questions must be asked. Whether those questions get asked, there must be answers. Among the tough questions that must be asked, a few are whether the epa knew it was likely that water was behind the gold king mind portal and a blowout was possible. Whether the health and safety plan for the mine work was adequate. Why did it take several days for the epa to revise the amount of contaminated water. They said the amount was i believe 1 million gallons. Several days later said the surge consisted of 3 million. What data does the epa have . How long is the agency been tracking the drainage and measuring it . Mr. Chairman, before concluding i request the statement of mr. Michael okein be included as part of my testimony for todays hear. Without objection. He will be testifying this afternoon in front of the Senate Indian<\/a> Affairs Committee<\/a> on the Gold King Mine<\/a> spill. Lastly, i thank you, mr. Chairman and your staff for being responsive during this time. While this hearing is to examine this incident and epas response, this shows a need for legislation that would allow Good Samaritans<\/a> to clean up the abandoned mines. I hope we can continue to Work Together<\/a> on this effort. The four of us have done that so far. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I look forward to hearing the epas answer answers. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you the Ranking Member<\/a> for allowing us all to speak this morning. Its a privilege to be here with my colleagues from new mexico and senator gardner from colorado. Mr. Chairman, the blowout at the Gold King Mine<\/a> was a disaster that affected many communities in colorado and new mexico. Although the epa was trying to remediate the mine, theres no denying that they caused this spill. Thats entirely unacceptable. Its also clear that the agency was slow to communicate, as senator gardner said, with local governments and didnt obtain Water Quality<\/a> results or bring water to formers who needed it quickly enough. When senator gardner and i traveled to durango four days after the blowout, the river was bright orange and closed to the public. The river really is the life blood of durango. Rafting companies lost business, farmers couldnt water crops and moms are still keeping their kids out of the water. These families deserve to have the full attention and dedicated resources of the administration committed to the cleanup. In the week after the spill, we spoke with administrator mccarthy and wrote to the epa and the president. We appreciate that administrator mccarthy listened to our call and came to colorado to view the area and address the community. Following a crisis like this, its tempting to point fingers. We must hold people and agencies responsible for any egregious mistakes or negligence they committed in the days and hours after the spill. As the communities recover, its also critical to look at the bigger picture. Lets identify what went wrong to make sure it doesnt happen again. We also need to put this in context. The blowout released 3 million acid mine drainage. This was already being released from the Gold King Mine<\/a> about every week. In the four mines in the area, they release more than 300 million gallons of acid mine drainage into the river every year. This has been going on for more than 130 years. In 1902, the Water Quality<\/a> was so bad that durango switched to another river for its main Drinking Water<\/a> supply. That decision largely protected the Drinking Water<\/a> from the most recent disaster. There are more than 23,000 abandoned mines in colorado, including 400 in the san juan mountains. We need solutions to address the acid mine drainage coming from these abandoned mines. In the upper watershed we need an immediate solution. Thats why we asked them to pr prioritize this. We worked with senator boxer, udall and the epa to establish guidance for Good Samaritans<\/a> to allow them to do cleanup work without being liable. Unfortunately, that didnt provide enough certainty and hasnt encouraged action. Last Congress Mark<\/a> udall, scott tipton and i worked on a bill. We are working to reintroduce the bill. We need to refine the mining law to make sure Companies Pay<\/a> royalties to taxpayers. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you, senator bennett. Senator udall. Chairman and Ranking Member<\/a> boxer, thank you very much for folk using on this issue. Its a very important issue not only for our states but its also an important issue for the nation and for the west. I first of all would like to because this impacted in new mexico the Navajo Nation<\/a>, i would like to recognize the president of the Navajo Nation<\/a>, who is here. He is seated in the row right behind the two colorado senators. They in particular have been very concerned and on top of this. And he is going to testify this afternoon in the Indian Affairs<\/a> committee. Sitting back and looking at this and trying to give all of you the big picture as you listen to the two colorado senators who were working closely with here you have Big Mining Companies<\/a> who have been extracting minerals we use in everyday life. Many of us believe some of these are very valuable and we need them. But who says that they are entitled to pollute the sacred with a tef waters of two tribes . Who says that they should be able to pollute Drinking Water<\/a> that our two states use on a daily basis . That really i think in the big picture sense is why we are here, to fix this, to make sure that it never happens again. Thats a big task. Because this has been going on for a long time, this mining and the pollution from it. People have been working on it for decades. We have not we have not been able to solve this problem or really come to grips with it. In the west, rivers are our life blood, our Drinking Water<\/a>, our irrigation, sport fupport for agriculture. The river that was mainly polluted here and the san juan, the San Juan River<\/a> is an important part of the navajo tradition when i talked about the president and the navajos have a saying, water is life. Our Hispanic Community<\/a> in new mexico says the same thing. And so we all know how important water is to the west and to all of us. So this is a disaster on many levels. To our water, to our economy, to our culture. I just very much appreciate working with this committee and with these senators to try to get to the root of what we need to do. I appreciate very much, as the two colorado senators have said, epa taking responsibility for the spill. We all know mistakes were made. There were delays in notification, confusion across three different epa regions. There were also delays in testing and providing much needed water for irrigation and other supplies. And epa has accepted responsibility here also. At the same time, epa is not the only responsible party. What happened at the Gold King Mine<\/a> is part of a much, much bigger problem. Abandoned mines on the west in the west are a ticking time bomb, slowly leaking Hazardous Waste<\/a> into our streams and rivers. The mine owners that left this mess are no longer around. Epa is not in the mining business. Its in the cleanup business. And just to show you the wakeup call that all of us are facing, there are ten mining projects very similar to this that epa analyzed that said they believe there are similar conditions. There are ten of these mines that have the work has been suspended so we could see something similar to this happen. Three of those are in california. Senator boxer, four in colorado that the colorado senators know very well. Two in montana and one in missouri. So this is a big national issue. And it needs to be addressed. Let me just finally say that one of the key parts of this, which we all, i think, have been battling for a long time is the 1872 mining law. That law continues to allow mining corporations to take Hard Rock Minerals<\/a> like gold, silver, copper and uranium from public lands without paying my royalty, zero royalty. Coal, oil and Gas Companies<\/a> have been paid royalties for many decades. Thats the crux of what we need to do here. Senator heinrich has been working on this issue for a long time. Im going to be working very closely with him to make sure that we put in legislation very soon on that and very much appreciate once again you holding this hearing. Senator heinrich. I want to thank you chairman and Ranking Member<\/a> boxer for holding this important hearing today. I want to thank all of my colleagues up here as well as the president of the Navajo Nation<\/a> who joined us for the work they have done to shine a light on this and to begin dealing with the policy issues that require legislation around this. We have had a good team effort from the colorado and new mexico delegations, including some of our colleagues in the house of representatives as well. Last month, a large plume of bright orange mine waste i will give credit to the president sharing this with us spilled into the creek and then into the animas river and then into the san juan. And polluted the entire four corners region. And i share the enormous anger and frustration over this terrible incident. When i toured the effected areas following the spill, i visited with impacted residents, including farmers in places like a a a aztec. Water is our most precious resource. So you can imagine the kind of impact that this disaster has had on our communities in colorado, new mexico, the Navajo Nation<\/a>, arizona. Just take a look at this photo. I have demanded that the epa act with urgency to protect our health and safety and to repair the damage inflicted on this watershed. This must be our first and our top priority. And oversight of the epas response is completely warranted and appropriate. But we must also look over the horizon and take action to address the hundreds of thousands of other similarly contaminated mines that literally litter the west and are leaking toxins into our watersheds. There are estimates that 40 of western watersheds have been polluted by toxic mining waste and that reclaiming and cleaning up abandoned mines across the west could cost upwards of 32 to 72 billion with a b. I want to share with you a couple of maps. These are two impacted state here, colorado and new mexico. And as you can see from these maps, they show all of the abandoned Hard Rock Mine<\/a>s and the waters impacted by hard rock metals. You can see that in southwestern colorado, for example, where the Gold King Mine<\/a> is, there are literally thousands of unreclaimed Hard Rock Mine<\/a>s. You can see scattered through the mountainous portions of southwestern colorado. If you look at new mexico, you will see a similar state. And if you look across the west, the maps would not be dissimilar. In 1975, in an even larger accident than the gold king blowout, a larthere was a 50,00s of spilled into the animas water. In 1979, a dam broke. It sent more than 1,000 tons of solid radioactive waste and 93 million gallons of acidic region into the river. For decades before the spill last month, the Gold King Mine<\/a> leached water laced with heavy metals and sulfuric acid into cement creek. Over the last ten years, an average of 200 gallons of highly polluted water per minute or more than 100 million gallons a year have flowed out of the this mine and into the animas river via cement creek. Beyond the immediate cleanup of of this spill, its high time that we overhaul our abandoned mine cleanup policies to make future disasters like this less likely. While developers of resources like oil, natural gas and coal all pay royalties to return a fair value to taxpayers for our public resources, hard rock Mining Companies<\/a> can still mine valuable minerals for free. A comprehensive approach to mining reform should include the establishment of a hard rock reclamation fund, funded by a fair royalty on public minerals. Good samaritan authority to allow third parties to clean up mine sites that they had no role no creating and comprehensive a comprehensive survey of abandoned mines and a plan to clean them up. I appreciate the value of hard rock mining and what it means for families. My father and my mothers father both made a living in this industry. This industry continues to provide good paying jobs throughout the west. But passing long overdo reforms to our federal mining law, which has not been updated since 1872, is critical if we want to address the root cause of this disaster. Thank you, senator heinrich and all four of you who have come and expressed your feelings. Were all very much concerned about this. You are free to leave. But certainly, invited to stay if you are able to do that. At the time of the spill, the epas contractor was investigating the amount of water that had pooled behind the collapsed entrance of the Gold King Mine<\/a>. Epa authorized this investigation as part of a cleanup action to address acid mine drainage from the nearby abandoned red and bonita mine. Based on the committees oversight to date, its clear the epa knew that there was likely to be a significant amount of water behind the collapsed Gold King Mine<\/a> entrance and that there was a risk of a blowout. Given these facts, its unclear why epa and the contractor did not exercise more care when working at the gold king site. Epa has said that it has already spent 8 million responding to the spill. Thankfully, no one was killed order injuries. But a number of important questions remain unanswered about what led to the spill and how epa responded. Since this bill, epa has conducted a preliminary evaluation of the causes and has asked the department of interior to conduct an independent investigation and report its findings later this month next month. But i question whether the interior department has the independence and expertise necessary to conduct this review. The epa office of Inspector General<\/a> is also conducting a review of this of the spill. I would also like to thank administrator mccarthy for agreeing to testify today. Its important that we hear directly from the epas top official about what caused this spill. I think particularly since some of the comments were made by some of the senators who are here today, she may want to respond to some of those accusations. I think that would be appropriate. I would like to note that the area where the blowout occurred is in a historic mining district where local groups have intn working with the senate with the state of colorado and the epa to address the impacts of acid mine drainage from this and other abandoned mine sites for a number of years. When i was chairman of this committee in 2006, we passed a bipartisan bill that would have promoted the cleanup of these sites by Good Samaritans<\/a> in the years since this issue has received very little attention from congress or this committee. But as chairman for the second time, i again look forward to working with my colleagues from colorado and new mexico. And i think that we will this time do what should have been done ten years ago. Senator boxer . Thank you. I want to thank my colleagues so much for coming here today and just, of course, express my strong feelings for this issue. And i know we have a problem in california, a potential problem. And you have experienced it firsthand. First i would like to note that the mayor of the city of durango said the following in front of the house committee. It is tempting in times of crisis to point fingers and place blame. Attempts to blame single agencies or individuals are pointless and ignore the scale and complexity of the problem that needs to be addressed. So i want to point out that the mayor of durango said that, because i hope this doesnt turn into a finger pointing deal. Because it doesnt make any sense. It is important for us, as was explained by our colleagues, really to understand the root causes of the blowout at the Gold King Mine<\/a>. So that future accidents can be prevented. I hope that thats the point of this important hearing. Epa has already begun the process of improving its mine cleanup activities. They have conducted already a quick internal review. They have issued new guidance based on Lessons Learned<\/a> so far. Theyre not stopping and theyre there are other investigations. There are two ongoing independent investigations, one by the department of interior and one by the epas Inspector General<\/a>. I think those reviews are important and i look forward to reading both of them and implementing a lot of what they say. It is important to understand that acid mine drainage is not a new problem as was stated by our very, i think, intelligent colleagues. It has plagued the watershed in colorado for nearly a kcentury. Epa was at the site at colorados request to help find solutions to the longstanding problem of acid mine contamination. The mines in this area leak more than 330 million gallons of acid mine drainage into the animas river each year. Each year. Thats 100 times more than the spill that were looking at today. So this is a serious ongoing problem. Instead of scoring political points by blaming epa, congress could use this and should use this as an opportunity to focus on the longstanding issue of abandoned Hard Rock Mine<\/a>s that pollute our rivers and streams. We should ensure that polluters pay the cost of cleanup so that the american taxpayers are not stuck with the bill. Some argue that waving liability for cleanups is needed to address abandoned mine pollution. These socalled Good Samaritan<\/a> waivers, unless they are very carefully crafted, are not the solution. They need to be carefully crafted. Otherwise, what happens is theres no rules and there can be unintended consequences such as we have seen and cost taxpayers more. Some of the solutions are available to us, include use existing authority to facilitate cleanups, providing sufficient resources to epa. I think senator heinrich pointed out to us, this is a big problem. Its a big price tag. But we need to address this with serious resources and that we require oversight of cleanups and work to pass reforms that ensure polluters pay, not the taxpayers. These steps are necessary because these mines pose a serious threat to waterways that people use for recreation. It has been laid out by our colleagues. Mine waste frequently contain high leavels of dangerous heavy metals including lead and cyanide. In california, we have 47,000 abandoned mines. Nationwide, there are over 500,000 abandoned Hard Rock Mine<\/a>s. And, again, cleanup costs are in the range of 50 billion. Yet the federal government is barely making a dent. I can pontificate about how bad this is. But unless we spend some dough on this, we will face more of these terrible disasters. Epa spends 220 million per year. The bureau of Land Management<\/a> and forest serve, 5 million to 20 million respectively. Although, congress has appropriated even less in recent years. In president obamas budget, his Administration Proposed<\/a> reinstituting the super fund tax so that polluters pay for cleanup. They have also proposed creating a fee on hard rock mining that would be paid into a fund for cleanups. Unfortunately, we failed to act. Congress has failed to act. Yes, we are holding this hearing. I am for it. I thank my chairman. I think it is totally and completely appropriate. I would ask that the rest of my statement be included in the record. Lets really step up to the plate. Lets not just point fingers. Lets get something done. And stop these disasters from happening in the future. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Without objection that will happen. Thank you very much, senators. We will not welcome to the table the administrator. While shes coming in, let me share on the basis of the arrivals, on the republican side it will be rounds, sullivan, veraso, cabato and crapo, democrat side, boxer, berkeley and carper. And marky, too. And boseman. It should be boxer, carden and marky is my understanding. Okay. Tell me again. Boxer, carden and marky. Redo that. Outside of that, it was good. Okay. Ed administrator, mccarthy, why dont you give us your opening statement. You have heard a lot of comments being made by others. And we want to give you a chance to respond. Well, thank you. Good morning, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member<\/a>s boxer, members of the committee. Im the administrator of the epa. I thank you for the opportunity to appear today and to discuss the august 5 Gold King Mine<\/a> release and epas subsequent response. This was a tragic and unfortunate incident. Epa has taken responsibility to ensure that we clean it up appropriately. Epas core mission is to ensure a Clean Environment<\/a> and to protect Public Health<\/a>. Were dedicated to continuing to do so. Our job is to protect the environment and we will hold ourselves and continue to hold ourselves to the same high standards that we demand of others. Epa was at the Gold King Mine<\/a> on august 5 conducting an investigation to assess mine conditions and ongoing water discharges so that we could dewater the mine pool and assess the feasibility of further mine remediation. While excavating above the mine opening, the lower portion of the bedrock crumbled and approximately 3 million gallons of water discharged from the mine into cement creek which is atributary of the animas river. Before the plume reached Drinking Water<\/a> intakes and irrigation diversions and notification to other downstream jurisdictions continued the following day. Allowing for all of those intakes and diversions to be closed prior to the plumes arriva arrival. In the aftermath of the release, we initiated an internal review of the incident and we released an internal review summary report which includes an assessment of the events and potential factors that contributed to the incident. The report provides observations, conclusions as well as recommendations that our region should consider applying when conducting ongoing and planned site assessments, investigations and construction or removal projects at similar types of sites across the country. Epa will implement all of the recommendations from the report and has shared its findings with external reviewers. In addition to the internal review, the department of the interior is leading an independent assessment of the facts that led to the Gold King Mine<\/a> incident. The goal of the review is to provide epa with an nal sis of the incident that took place at the Gold King Mine<\/a>, including a contributing causes. Both internal and external reviews will help inform epa for ongoing and planned site assessments, investigations, constructions and removals. One of our foremost priorities to keep the public informed about the impacts from the Gold King Mine<\/a> release and our response activities. Epa has coordinated with our federal partners and with officials in colorado, new mexico, utah, the southern tribes and the Navajo Nation<\/a> to keep them apprised of sampling results which are routinely posted on our website. These results indicate that water and sediment have returned to preevent conditions and supported local and state Decision Makers<\/a> as they made the decision to lift water restrictions along the animas and the San Juan River<\/a>. I want to clarify that epa was working with the state of colorado to take action at the Gold King Mine<\/a> to address both the potential for a catastrophic release and the ongoing adverse Water Quality<\/a> impacts caused by the significant mine discharges in the upper animas watershed. Based po d upon 2009 to 2013 fl data, 330 million gallons of with a fe water was being discharged to cement creek. Thats 100 ty 000 times more th estimated release from the Gold King Mine<\/a>. Epa was and continues to work with colorado as well as the animas River Holding<\/a> group to reduce the discharges that are impacting these waters. I think its important to note that all across the country our Super Fund Program<\/a> has success it will l fully cleaned up Hazardous Waste<\/a> sites and responded to or provided oversight for thousands of removal actions to protect human health and the environment. That reflects our longstanding commitment to protect human health and the environment. All of the affected residents of colorado and new mexico and the tribes can be assured that epa has and will continue to take responsibility to ensure that the Gold King Mine<\/a> release is cleaned up. Thank you, mr. Chairman. That concludes my statement. Im happy to answer any questions that you or the committee may have. Thank you, madam administrator. Let me try to stake out where i think your position is and what your position is so that others can address that position. Both the epa and the contractor knew that there was a risk of a blowout at the Gold King Mine<\/a>. In hindsight, do you agree the epa should have spent the time and money to do the necessary engineering and water pressure tests before work began there . Yes or no. We dont need a long answer. My position is that the state of colorado, the animas river Stake Holder Group<\/a> knew it. It was in the work plan. We were actually there, sir, because of the danger of a blowout. Okay. So your answer is no . Did epa designate the cleanup here as a as Time Critical<\/a> to cut corners and avoid having to do a Detailed Engineering<\/a> study . No, sir, we did not. Why didnt the epa ask the Inspector General<\/a> or another federal agency or group like the National Academies<\/a> that does not have a conflict of interest there have been a lot of concern about a conflict of interest that would have been there with the doi. Im asking the question, why didnt you address one of them as opposed to the doi . Sir, its important for us to remember that we have also put on hold another similar mining responses that many of which are Time Critical<\/a>. We went to doi because it had the expertise. They are bringing the army corps in. We believe theyre independent. They will give us an independent assessment and that thats the most appropriate thing to do. The oig is investigating this incident as well. So you are saying then that doi, those who are saying that doi would have conflict of interest are not accurate . I do not believe they have a conflict of interest. They are independent and should do a good job. Have the recent problems with the epa office of management continued to the Gold King Mine<\/a> spill or affected epas response . Im not aware of recent problems with our office of environmental management. And then lastly, senator bennett made the statement that theres no denying that they that the epa caused this disaster. And senator gardner, in his statement, complained that you were not available for some period of time, your schedule was not to discuss this with senator gardner. Is that incorrect . Well, sir, we have taken full responsibility. I understand that. I was there on the 12th and 13th. The original response was quite hectic and ongoing. I certainly didnt want my presence there to confuse the situation. But im not aware that the senator reached out to me in any way prior to that that i didnt respond to right away. Did you hear a statement that he made . I did not hear his statement, no. You might look at that. On another topic i have a short while here. Its very important. While you are here, the department of justice recently told a federal court that epa would submit final carbon rules by sementptember 4th. Did the epa submit the rules to the federal register by september 4th . Im sorry, sir, i dont have those numbers in my head. I didnt expect this question. I know that. Its significant though that we need to know. That was a deadline that was given. Whether or not you complied with that deadline. I dont have the exact date. Do you have staff here that can tell you that . Im sorry . Do you have staff here who might be able to answer that question . We can certainly get you the answer as quickly as possible. I do not have any office staff here given the subject matter of the hearing. Are you aware that delaying publications to the end of october interferes with the ability of congress and the public to legally challenge the rules before the big show in paris . Sir, i am aware we want this in the federal register as soon as possible. Senator boxer. Thank you, senator. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Administratorccarthy, i want to point out that senator bennett said you were available. One said you werent. The other said you were. I think im moving on. I certainly had a conversation with senator gardner. Good. Im unaware of being unavailable. We will clear it up. The Super Fund Law<\/a> called for epa to issue rules requiring Certain Industries<\/a> to provide financial assurances for cleanups so that taxpayers are not on the hook. In 2009, epa identified the hard rock Mining Industry<\/a> as the first class of facilities requiring financial assurance rules. In other words, that they would be there should their action cause a problem. Epa is undertaking this rule making but now you are under court order to finish that rule by december 2017. Can you describe the steps epa is taking to ensure that these critical rules are promulgated according to the courts schedule . We have committed, senator, to an august 2016 draft. Prior to that draft, we intend to work with our sister federal agencies so that we can be assured that the financial responsibility rule will be as accurate as it can be in terms of how much responsibility those parties should take for cleanup and how best to assure that that financial responsibility will be solid and appropriate. Now, administrator, how will these rules help ensure taxpayers are not on the hook for future cleanups . Well, my understanding, senator, is that we do have an ability to require financial responsibility for our existing and active sites. The challenge for us are the legacies sites that were talking about like Gold King Mine<\/a> where we do not have a responsible party that we can lean to that we will not be able to address those issues with this particular rule making. Okay. Administrator mccarthy, in response to the Gold King Mine<\/a> spill, you issued a stop work order at all Hard Rock Mine<\/a> sites and you requested a review of whether those sites pose a potential for a blowout similar to what happened at the Gold King Mine<\/a>. I want to thank you for that. Because clearly, we dont want to play russian roulette with these mines. I understand that the review has resulted in the suspension of cleanups at ten sites, including three in california and four in colorado. Again, i appreciate your quick action to identify other sites that could present a concern. Can you describe what actions epa is taking to assess the potential risk at these sites . I can, senator. You are absolutely right, we were very concerned that any similar situation learned from the independent review that is being done from doi before they proceeded. So we have identified as best we can all of the sites that epa is engaged in, which is a small fraction of the sites that you would want to look at. But its over a couple hundred. Were looking at the similarities between this and the Gold King Mine<\/a> incident. And we are allowing sites to proceed where there is an imminent hazard. But if there is not, we are waiting for the review to be done so that we can make sure that similar sites learn the lessons that we are going to learn on the basis of what happened at the Gold King Mine<\/a>. And what the investigation by doi and other independent entities indicate. Thank you. I think thats very common sense and wise. Administrator mccarthy, one concern raised about cleanups by Good Samaritans<\/a> is who will be responsible if something goes wrong during the cleanup. This is my concern. I love the fact that people can come forward and clean up. But who pays if things go wrong . And something could easily go wrong. So if Good Samaritans<\/a> are not responsible, who would be on the hook for those cost ss . Would it not be taxpayers . It should be. Thats why i think its critical that we Work Together<\/a> to come up with some rules that make some sense so we can include Good Samaritans<\/a> but not have a situation where they just go in there look, if epa made this kind of mistake i know it weighed heavy on your heart. That epa is in there and look what happened. Now a Good Samaritan<\/a> comes forward without, you know, any of the expertise, it could happen again. So we have to be very, very careful about it. I just want to say, the Obama Administration<\/a> has proposed reinstating the super fund tax and establishing a fee on hard rock mining. And i just think it makes all the sense in the world to get ahead of this. Everything costs something. You cant just wish it away and wish that it would be cleaned up. So i hope as a result of this hearing and your openness to reform that we can make some good reforms within epa but also that we can have a new era where we Work Across Party Lines<\/a> to truly clean up these sites. Thank you. Thank you, senator boxer. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Administrator mckathy, i wouca mccarthy, the epa announced the department of the interior would conduct an independent investigation to the causes of the spill and issue a report by late october. Accidentally, doi announced the bureau of reclamation would lead the review. However, it appears there are several conflicts of interests that you have spoken about and you dont believe are involved. Youre disagreeing with there being conflicts. What im curious about is if this is an independent review, and were assuming thats the way you set it up to be, most certainly there would have been a contract or documentation as to what the expectations were from doi. Is there a memorandum of agreement or other documentation concerning what the doi would review . And if there is, why havent we received copies as requested by this committee . Epw staff has requested the documents or the scope of the dois work. But we have not received any of the information. This is as of last evening. Why has your agency not publicly released the documents, and will you commit to sending them to us following the conclusion of this hearing . Senator, we were as sensitive as you were to making sure this review was truly independent. One of the decisions we made to ensure that was for epa not to actually ourselves control the scope of the investigation. We thought it was important for the independence of doi that they actually articulated that scope themselves so epa wouldnt be accused of narrow that inappropriately. Leaving that up to doi. I am happy to follow up to see if i can be helpful on getting information on how they have defined that. I know epa has not seen that documentation either. Im sorry. But you said you have an independent youre anticipating an independent review. Uhhuh. But you dont know if the epa has seen the document which lays out the scope of the investigation by an independent firm . Epa did not dictate the scope of that investigation. But most certainly you would have seen a copy of what would be expected of the independent agency. The inspect agency is going to dictate that themselves. We will live with whatever scope doi believes is necessary as an independent investigator. By now that document should exist, shouldnt it . The reason i am asking you have indicated you already stopped work at other locations. I have. Based on the preliminary report. But it must be based on some sort of understanding of the review in the first place. My understanding is that doi indicated that they would do the review. They understood that they were going to be establishing the scope. And its my understanding that they are intending to complete this review in october. So either the documents exist and your agency has not seen them or, second of all, documents are still being developed. We should be able to see a copy of them and it shouldnt be tough to get them. Im trying to make sure epa is not perceived as interfering in this investigation in any way that would question the independence of doi as review. And thats what we are going to continue to do. If its an independent review, though, it seems to me that the independent review agency would have at least provided you with a copy of what theyre going to be reviewing and how they would do it. In this case, i do not believe we have seen that type of documentation. You have not . Yeah. We have seen the press release. That is what we have seen. And i know that their review is is going to be looking at the incident itself and the contribute og factoing factors. Has there been a preliminary report issued to your agency from the independent doi . No, sir. The only communication we have had was to look at the press release that was issued. We are hands off on this to address the very issue that you are concerned about, which is our independence. But the reason why im asking the question is just a moment ago you indicated that you have already shut down work. I believe you shut down work at other locations based upon the information already received and learned. No. Did that not come from doi . That was our look from our own National Mining<\/a> subgroup or team, National Mining<\/a> team, at epa has done a review of all the npl, the mines that are on our np list. And they have taken a look at what might be closely similar to this effort. And they are consistently looking at those to see what should continue or not. But if there is any similarity or chance we need to learn lessons here, those reviews and assessments and work is on hold pending the result of this investigation. Would that report which created the need to suspend the existing operations, would that be available for this committee to review . That is available, sir. That is just a memo that i sent. It was a director to the agency, which i thought was appropriate to do to be very cautious that there was no way in which the gold mine release would happen again at another site because i was unclear, and i will remain unclear until the independent review is done, about what was the real contributing factor. What happened that we need to make sure will never happen again . Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, sir. Senator . One thing i would hope all of us would agree on is we do want the inspect review, and we want it done with the integrity of an independent review. Yes, sir. To understand what happened. As you said, to prevent this from happening in the future. I think we all support that. We appreciate your commitment to that independent review. I just want to ask a broader question. I was listen to go my colleagues testimony. Hard rock mining of course took place in many parts of our country. But clearly the states that were directly impacted the most are the ones we heard from today. And there are thousands of abandoned mines. All looks like create some environmental challenge. Some have been under control and have been pretty well understood. Others are much more problematic. And we are still evaluating the risk factors as to whether action is needed. And that was apart of the process that led to this particular episode. I was impressed by senator heimrichs comments that we havent reviewed the laws for a long period of time. I understand its difficult to pass new environmental laws or funding laws. But i would hope we would get your evaluation as to whether the current laws, either the clean water act or the blm rules for inactive mines, are adequate. Do we really hold the right person accountable for the reclamation . Do we need to have a dedicated Funding Source<\/a> to deal with these urgent needs in order to protect the environment and the water for the communities involved . It seems to me that considering the challenge, and if the senator is correct, we are talking about multitens of billions of dollars in outstanding needs, we need to be at least understand this and have more transparent awareness that there is ongoing problems every day. And yet are we taking appropriate actions to make sure that our communities are as safe as they need to be. How do we go about doing that senator, just to put this problem in perspective, 23,000 abandoned mines in colorado a alone. And more in the west and alaska. Clearly this is a large challenge. I would point to the fact that the administration in its fiscal 16 year would be on hard rock mining. It would allow us to do a better job at tackling these abandoned mines and the Continual Impact<\/a> they are having on Water Quality<\/a>. And i think its important to remember that many federal agencies have jobs to do in this. But those theres no leadership position that actually is the one that isabilitiable for the entire issue. And it makes it very difficult. From epas perspective, we really track mines which are only a small percentage out there in the abandoned mines make it to the npl list, which is our responsibility to monitor. But in this case it was a mine that is not on that list, that the local community didnt want on that list. But the state was unable on their own wherewithal to address this challenge. And we have been working 17 to 20 years to try to figure out how to address the 400 yards in the upper an muss river. When the epa responded for us to look at this issue, the pressurization around the Gold King Mine<\/a> which had been going on unattenuated for quite some time. We went with them on the site. We developed the work plan with them. It went to Public Meetings<\/a> to the Stakeholder Group<\/a> in the an muss river. It was completely open, completely transparent. Everybody agreed on the next steps and those are the next steps we took. I just ask that you advise us as to whether you have adequate tools. We talked about your budget with the dedicated Funding Source<\/a>. Bottom line, we want to protect the communities and hold those responsibility accountable for the reclamation. It seems the tools could be stronger. Yes, sir. 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