if you will bear with us for a moment i have asked chairman towns who is an ordained minister to do the opening prayer for this congress would you please all ri bow our heads because we need prayer here oh our creator and our god we gather in your presence to begin our work on behalf of the american people let the will to do what is right supercede the titles of democrats or republicans help us to understand that we are one nation under god let us realize how important it is that we work together understanding that there is no big i and little you help us almighty to use this opportunity to lift people up give us the wisdom and guide us to better stewards for our fellow citizens help to correct the mistakes we have made in the past and we are not able to agree help us not to be disagreeable because we know that the bigger we make your name the smaller our problems will become so we come today lifting up your name knowing the world will never be what it ought to be until we are what we should be o father as we close bless gabby giffords and her staff  family and bless the staff of this committee help them to stay focused and realize that many are depending on us to get rid of wa fraud and abuse in your name we pray a chairman before we begin and while there be no doubt you are still the chairman and always will be when i address you the committee would very much like to give you this ceremonial very big very heavy gavel with your name for your service to the committee thank you mister towns thank you very very much chairman before we begin the official work i would like to remind you that you are now only one artist rendering away from having your portrait in our committee quorum being present the committee meets today to consider a resolution adopting the rules of the committee for the th congress and to announce subcommittee assignments ranking member cummings and my fellow committee members i am proud to introduce the republican members of the committee on oversight and government reform of the th congress mr hconnie mack of florida has been a valued member of congress and is vice chair of theh oh i am sorry is the chair of the subcommittee on the western hemisphere at the foreign affairs committee notwithstanding those duties i look forward to working with him on the government oversight and reform committee and have asked him to take a vice chair role mr hwalberg has returned to the congress and we welcome him to the committee i know that he will be a strong voice on restraining government spending and glad that he joins us from south central michigan mr hlankfor as a new member is prepared to solve complex problems he will represent oklahoma well and has managed more people that are probably more difficult to manage than even members of congress mr hamash brings another perspective from michigan he understands how to engage his fellow citizens as a representative truly should congresswoman buerkle adds perspective from upstate new york to the committee something we welcome here additionally she is a former assistant new york state attorney general and a licensed nurse i look forward to working with her on multiple  obviously she has gleaned over her career mr hgosar of arizona brings his experience in dealing with the nation's health care system to this committee and we welcome him to the committee and have asked him to be the vice chair of the subcommitt mister meehan of pennsylvania brings his skills as a u s attorney and district attorney to the committee we need to ask questions and get to the heart of issues and i believe he has uniquely that talent for a freshman i would rephrase thath a unique talent from his district and a talent that we are adding to this committee on several of our new members mr  previously was held by another member of this  and welcome the gentleman from south carolina mr hgowdy is new to the committee he brings to all of us a perspective as i said not unique but unique from his district as a prosecutor he came to this committee by asking first to come to this committee because he believed that his background and his ability to look for the truth would benefit all of us and i agree mr hross is a skilled former state legislator and attorney he is ready to get to work for the people of florida and america and again has the kind of experience that will help us get to the truth mr  a former mayor of manchester and was picked by his community by a fairly large margin from a very large field of people who wanted to come and asked for this committee and i was thrilled to have him join us hdesjarlais has practiced medicine in tennessee for almost two decades and i believe that his commonsense solutions and understanding of what is likely to be the most complex issue faced in this congress i look forward to working with him to ensure that government lives within its means something that texans understand but perhaps is lost on many other states and certainly on this body in the past a fellow job creator mr hkelly of pennsylvania has answered the call to public service he is not young he is not inexperienced and he does not lack from a history of signing the front of a paycheck not just looking forward to the back with that i would recognize the ranking member mr hcummings for the purpose of introducing the democratic members mister cummings thank you very much mister chairman and first of all let me congratulate you on your towns let me welcome back all of the members our old members and our new members and mister chairman we on the democratic side have all but two of us served  district of kentucky they both previously served on this committee they are great members and we are happy to have them and i know that they will bring a lot to our discussion as we all join together addressing issues of fraud each office last friday in addition the drafts of the proposed rules have been shared with the ranking member mr hcummings and his staff for at least the last hweeks mr hcummings staff raised a number of concerns with proposed changes to the rules and we have worked in good faith to address those concerns it is my hope that throughout the congress we will be able to work together in this same way however the most significant and welcome changes to the committee procedures in this congress are not made here today but in fact were done januaryh with the adoption of the house rules the new house rules require hdays public notice of committee  after their adoption roll call votes are now required to be posted online within hhours of the vote and witnesses truth in testimony disclosures must be posted online the day after they testify i think we can all agree that these worthy and overdue reforms not only give the minority more notice and access but also make the committee more open to the public and after all if we are going to open government it should begin here in addition with the cooperation of the speaker's office we have made video of all the committees hearings available online as a first step and in what i view as a gesture of goodwill to the previous majority we are putting all of the hearings held in the last congress by chairman towns and his democratic subcommittee chairmen online as to subcommittees the most significant changes in the committee rules is the creation or if i will the recreation of seven subcommittees prior to the change hyears ago we had seven subcommittees however they have been reorganized as we have reexpanded to do more work at the subcommittee level the subcommittee on federal workforce and u s postal service and labor policy will have jurisdiction over the federal  service and the u s postal service as well as labor policy in general this subcommittee will be led by chairman ross and ranking member lynch and will have vice chairman amash  on board the subcommittee on government organization efficiency and financial management will have jurisdiction over the economy efficiency and management of government operations and activities federal property and reorganizations of the executive branch this subcommittee will be chaired by mr hplatts who has previously chaired subcommittees here and has returned to the committee i am informed that mr htowns will work as a partner in this as the ranking member and connie mack who i mentioned earlier will be vice chair of this subcommittee the subcommittee on health care the district of columbia census and the national archives will have jurisdiction over drug policy the district of columbia the census bureau and federal records in addition to oversight of federal health care and food and drug safety something that we began in the last congress on a bipartisan basis this subcommittee will be led by chairman gowdy and mr hdavis on the minority side and will be vice chaired by vice chair dr hgosar the subcommittee on national security homeland defense and foreign operations will have oversight over national security homeland security and foreign affairs stimulus oversight and government spending will have jurisdiction over regulatory procedures as well as oversight of the stimulus policy federal spending generally the subcommittee will be led by of public and private programs will have oversight of the financial and monetary policy banking housing and insurance regulation as well as financial crisis and rescues this subcommittee will be the subcommittee on technology information policy intergovernmental relations and procurement reform will have jurisdiction over public information federal information technology and data standards chairman will be mr hkelly and i might note that this subcommittee is the one that we spent so much time on a bipartisan basis trying at the full committee to get data standards and transparency embedded into government i look forward to being very personally involved in the committee activities because i personally think that this is the legacy that chairman towns and i leave behind if we can make government more transparent through the kind of  interoperable and transparent databases that we envision the background memo distributed to all members on friday describes all of the changes to the subcommittee rules and without objection it will be included in the written record hearing none chairman issa before yielding to the ranking member i want to address two issues the ranking member has raised proactively with regard to subpoenas the committee rule allows the chairman to authorize and issue subpoenas and it has not been changed the same rule has been in place since the creation of this committee in one thousand nine hundred and ninety five throughout both democratic and republican four other house committees also enjoy the same standard of the chairman being able to authorize subpoenas additionally other committees allow recess and other  cases in which the chairman can unilaterally issue a subpoena however let us understand we were the first to have this and it has seldom been abused education and workforce also has it foreign affairs has it ways and means has it the select intelligence committee in addition to our committee energy and commerce rules science homeland security natural resources and small business have slightly different but in some cases the ability to have a chairman issue a subpoena without a vote of the committee in a letter to me the ranking member said that my  additional process beyond consultation however in fact during the very good hyears that chairman towns and i enjoyed we had no such agreement and yet subpoenas were issued after consultation in most cases and i am not here today to complain about any differences that may have occurred i understand the chairman had a responsibility he met his responsibility and both sides worked with it  as you know again consultation is not required by the committee for myself or for my predecessors however i believe it is a worthwhile practice and it is my intention to consult prior to a subpoena being issued the ranking member has also raised concerns about minority access to committee records as many of you know this is a recurring and contentious issue for all committees the house rules on committee records are very general and of little help in crafting a practical policy on sharing committee records is up to the chairmen and ranking members together to strike an appropriate balance for sharing records on this committee in particular with its broad oversight powers to investigate any matter at any time documents received pursuant to committee formal document requests by myself a subcommittee chairman or ranking members should be shared with the other party i repeat documents received by a committee pursuant to a formal document request shall be shared with the other party however the ranking member has asked for copies of correspondence between myself actually issued while i was the ranking member and a growing number of private entities and individuals regarding regulatory barriers to job while it is and has been my stated intention to share these this correspondence with the minority and the public shortly i cannot agree to a policy that would require me to share a copy of every letter i receive with the ranking member nor do i think the ranking member is prepared to share with all of us correspondence between the nowminority and the white house in a realtime basis similarly the work product of the committee staff confidential disclosures by whistleblowers and other sensitive investigative materials should not always be shared nor do i believe the ranking member desires to share  everything his staff writes with me certainly whistleblowers contact both of us in the ordinary course there is fact checking and confirmation before that and ultimately the committee is always joint in granting whistleblower status i will continue to work in good faith with the ranking member on a reasonable and workable policy regarding committee records and hope that we will come to a mutually agreeable understanding of congress and i really mean that i have seen that already in the month that we have been working together and every one of us wishes you well in making our government more effective and efficient i can say for every single one of our  members we are very much concerned about waste fraud and abuse we are very concerned about government working properly and so we look forward to working with you as we address these major issues mister chairman you are now our chairman not the chairman of the republicansh you are the chairman of the democrats and the republicans and we are very pleased about that you are this committee's leader and chairman you are our chief spokesman your words carry the official imprint of the committee and your actions carry great weight and authority i know we will have our disagreements in fact we will discuss some serious concerns i have today regarding subpoenas and access to documents but i just wanted to remind the chairman of something that my two pentecostal minister parents used to say all the time they said you can go far if you go together you can go fast if you go alone before i took this position as ranking member i served as the chairman of the subcommittee on the coast guard and as a matter of fact i just left that position less than a month ago and that committee of course was a subcommittee of the transportation committee where i conducted strong bipartisan oversight as a matter of fact mister chairman the number one thing that i would say to the coast guard over and over again is that i refused to allow them to be caught up in a culture of mediocrity and they know that we held them to a very very high standard and we plan to hold this administration to a very high standard for example with regard to the coast guard i worked with the chairman and the ranking member of the full committee on transportation as well as my subcommittee ranking member to hold extensive hearings and investigations on the multibillion dollar deepwater acquisitions and the final version that we resolved with the senate passed the house by unanimous consent it didn't matter to me who was in the white house i sought out solutions and i achieved them working in close concert with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers so i was especially humbled when the coast guard announced last month that they were honoring me with the bertholf award their highest civilian award by the way we brought them kicking and screaming but we made a difference they present this award each year to a member of congress who demonstrates longterm vision and leadership and who makes substantial contributions to the men and women of the united states coast guard i often call them our thin blue line at se hope that you and i can work together in the same bipartisan and constructive manner and i commit that if i do disagree with you i will do so most respectfully always with the primary goal working out a solution that serves both of our interests but more importantly the interests and the integrity of this committee and more importantly the interests and the integrity and the goodness of the united states of america i want and we will hold the record open until the end of the day for members who would like to submit additional written statement we will now open the resolution for consideration without objection the resolution adopting the rules of the committee will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point the resolution has already been distributed to each of you and is in your folders the chairman first let me say that i appreciate your willingness to work with us on some of the rule changes you proposed in working with your staff we were able to resolve many of them including the rule on audiovisual coverage as you mentioned a little bit earlier and we really do appreciate that so thank you and i thank your staff for working so diligently but i do have an inquiry about opening statements earlier versions of the draft committee rules had prohibited members from making oral opening  we will ensure that we have an equal and back and forth opening statements it is the intention of the chairman when we have hearings in which they are time sensitive or which they are limited time or in which our guests particularly administration guests have limited time and remembering that there were changes back and forth there is always one side who would like to have a long statement bashing the administration and another side who would like to have a long statement defending and saying how bad it was that the other guy's opening statement bashed so for that reason it will be the ordinary and customary procedure to ensure that the chairman makes an opening statement or the subcommittee chairman his or her counterpart would make an opening statement and then it would generally be mutually agreed within the time whether they went further if it is an absolute constraint i will empower the subcommittee chairmen under the rules or myself to not go further and it has been the practice of this committee and i think all of us who are returning know it is a common practice of the committee when there is a time constraint to limit it to just the chairman and ranking member i have within the  rules and within the house rules the ability to deny myself an opening statement now as you know mr hcummings that is rare that any chairman does that but i will pledge to you that if i den myself one thus denying you one it will be because the importance of the individual speech is so critical that i forego the good work of my staff and your staff and we present it for the record it is my intention though to try to have as much listening to people and asking the questions as possible notwithstanding that i believe that if we go beyond the chairman and ranking member that is on a mutually agreed basis and  because i want to be thorough at any time in which a subcommittee has done work and it comes to the full committee it will be the ordinary practice to have at least four opening statements the chairman so i think you are going to find that there is no real change in the practical execution we don't intend on somehow denying people but we will always announce the start time and the anticipated finish time of the first panel and that will probably drive the consideration additionally if i may every committee has to deal with how people are received from a standpoint of when they will speak when they will ask questions it will be the policy of this chair subject to your deciding on your side of the aisle which has what has been normally the policy and mr htowns and i worked this out i will consider the people are present at the gavel and lists will be  brought to me from both sides i will call them in that order if you need to change that order that will be your decision for your side of the aisle i will always allow you to decide who speaks in which order but we will initially start with the order of their being present at the gavel on my side of the aisle i might note that i do not plan on having very many exceptions so those who are here first  especially the junior members down there you arrive on time senior members do not i do not intend to have a senior member arriving late immediately preempt you after you have been waiting for an hour but again i respect the fact that the ranking member will make that decision on his side of the aisle we will try to stick very very strictly to that because i want to reward the many members who picked this as their first committee and will be here promptly always i hope that concludes the question mister cummings if the gentleman will just yield for one will commit to you thath although when they are put in the record sometimes they look even better but i will commit to you that if we believe a hearing has a limited time we will notice that as quickly as we noticed the committee because at the point we notice the committee i would expect to be able to tell you an anticipated start time and finish time for our witness i would ask that if you have a similar situation on witnesses that you have asked to come that you also let us know that we not find your witness expecting to stay anyway he issued more than one thousand two hundred unilateral subpoenas during the clinton administration would not confer with the ranking member or a vote of the committee as widely reported this approach led to serious abuses and it was abandoned by representative tom davis a republican who became chairman in two thousand and two it is true that the rules provide the chairman with authority to issue unilateral subpoenas representative davis understood that issuing a subpoena is such an extreme exercise of congressional power that it should be undertaken only with agreement of the chairman and ranking member or the backing of the full committee i notice that you committee to vote on any subpoena he issued even if it was extremely controversial i think this is a mistake because it prevents an open and honest debate let me read what chairman davis said in two thousand and seven he said concurrence or a vote of the committee would ensure that the issues are fully aired so that our members and the public can fully understand what the committee is doing i completely agree mister chairman and the only reason not to adopt this approach is to avoid a full hearing before the committee and the public this is exactly what leads to abuses of authority therefore i ask the members to vote in favor of the amendment and mister chairman let me be real clear  included inclusion does not mean obstruction it means being a part of a process and you will hear me consistently talk mister chairmanh and i know this is something that you are very concerned about because we have talked about ith is the integrity of this committee and i would think that if there is disagreement between the chairman and most respectfully the ranking member that those matters will be brought before the full committee and to be frank with you i think it is a good idea to have the backing of the full committee when subpoenas are issued and with that i would ask the members to vote in favor of former chairman i will try to deliver some of the words that he may be too shy to deliver abraham lincoln suspended habeas and i understand stopped the post office from delivering during an insurrection no one looks at abraham lincoln and says my goodness he was a terrible president they consider the times now chairman burton probably made mistakes i understand that there were incorrect people on a couple of occasions who received subpoenas and it had to be corrected at the same time i will not judge the time when i did not serve in congress or what he faced i know that a great many people left the that as a civilian if you will and i watched his successors with successor presidents in many cases find other ways to do discovery other ways to get most of these things done i think for different times a different procedure is appropriate we are in different times today we are not investigating the white house i have no intention at this point i have no reason to investigate the white house we are requiring and insisting that government agencies be held accountable and we expect them to come before us voluntarily i do not expect to have the first solution to an agency or an individual working for the government or formerly working for the government to be a subpoena i certainly do not expect to have to subpoena people to hearings having said that every chairman faces a subpoena now and then some of them are because individuals say i can't speak unless you give me the immunity that a subpoena effectively gives me so that i can't be sued for coming and speaking about matters that others may find somehow private or not to be disclosed i have viewed the records and i find that it has not been the policy specifically in spite of that colloquy to do required votes for even when a ranking member objects having said that it is my intention to consult and to get your concurrence on most if not all subpoenas additionally i take seriously your statement which is that if we cannot come to an agreement a vote of the committee may very well be the most legitimate way to resolve a difference of opinion between us i don't see any of those here today i don't think you are going to like everyone who i ask to come quite franklyh and we had this conversation privately in the pasth there is a possibility you are going to want somebody subpoenaed and i may not want it this happened with my predecessor we resolved it it was contentious it was difficult and a threat of the full committee was part of the process chairman towns did the right thing and he did it on his own and he did it written the way he thought it should be written he did it to protect the integrity of this body the subpoenas have borne a lot of fruit from that lesson that ed towns and i have learned together i expect that if you want to subpoena i better take it seriously and if i want to subpoena and you really object i am going to take your thoughts on why you object seriously to been honest i will ask other members of my committee am i doing the right thing and seek their guidance and by the way not just former chairmen i will also undoubtedly talk to other members on your side and say am i nuts am i wrong is this somehow a subpoena that is outside the mainstream so i don't intend on simply writing subpoenas endlessly having said that there will be times times during recesses in which consultation will be over the phone and a vote would not be practical or even possible so i do intend and believe that we should maintain the rules as they are work together and bear in mind that if this doesn't work it will be very public and each of us would pay a price for being unreasonable in this case i believe it is reasonable to maintain the rules it is reasonable to pledge to you that i expect to consult with you more even than chairman towns did because i intend on notifying you chairman i would like to say that i agree with everything that you said i would just like to make one brief comment about the period within which i was chairman we had severe questions about illegal campaign contributions coming from all over the world and the reason i issued the number of subpoenas that i did was because we were trying to get at the bottom of that as a matter of fact we had over one hundred people either take the fifth amendment or flee the country because they didn't want to testify so it was ranking member's amendment and really place it in the context of what is happening in our country americans across this country are calling for a more civil political discourse they are calling for a more bipartisan approach which is resultsoriented not bickering and partisan attacks and i compliment you a lot of your public rhetoric has been very bipartisan inclusive you have stated on fox news you hope that this committee will be operate in a less partisan manner and i congratulate you on that but your actions today are very different they are not bipartisan at all you stated with this proposal and in a meeting yesterday with ranking member cummings that you will not seek democratic concurrence for subpoenas and you will not allow the committee to vote on subpoenas and so my question is how is this bipartisan and it also is very opposite to the tradition of this committee representative chairman clinger in a letter to ranking member cardiss collins explained his approach  rule memorializes the longstanding practice of this committee to seek a consensus on the issue of a subpoena i would like to say that in recent history two of the most contentio s committees that reviewed and went into depth on issues were the bipartisan commission and the iran contra bipartisan commission and they had an agreement that they would do everything together  subpoenas meetings everything was inclusive and i truly do believe that the work of these two committees was among the best that this congress ever did they came forward with really important proposals of how to make us safer and  upon the chairman to turn his rhetoric into the reality of the rules of this committee of making them truly bipartisan inclusive in the tradition of clinger and davis and some of the that what i said today was specifically to clear up a misunderstanding that the ranking member apparently had in our meeting yesterday i did not intend and do not believe i said that i would never seek just the opposite i would consider seeking full committee votes as a matter of fact i would consider seeking that even if the ranking member and i agreed on a subpoena because i believe that there is a high chance that a very significant subpoena will happen during the next two or  truly believed in being inclusive and bipartisan you would let the rule stand and not take away the respect that the minority has in terms of this tremendously important power of the subpoena i yield to my good colleague and friend from new york thousand dollars a year they have to get a lawyer so we have to be very concerned about using subpoenas and also i want to say one other thing this is not a super ethics committee and i want to make that very clear and so the fact that we don't get involved in terms of you know subpoenaing in that area and let's look at it very seriously have dialogue and i will say to you that in my  the point is that i think that there is no problem conferring you know with a subpoena i mean might delay it a couple of hours but the point is that what difference does it make when you look at a person that might have to get a lawyer is making sixty thousand dollars a year fifty thousand dollars a year or to come in and take time from his or her job and spend a day and you know it would take a day here regardless if you are coming from maryland or virginia or washington d c because once they my question is very straightforward do you intend as a general practice barring rare exceptions to seek the concurrence of the ranking member and  however there is a long tradition of consultation i intend to on continuing that consultation although it has not always occurred as we said i intend to do so chairman towns and i consulted a lot about subpoenas people coming before the committee and so on it is always in my estimation preferable to do it by a concurrence of the chairman and ranking member whether we come to a vote of the committee or not it is my recognition that eleven committees in some way shape or form in the congress have the authority of the chairman to write a subpoena that authority is no different than administrative law judges and all kinds of other people in government it should be taken some accommodations would have been found before today's meeting so that there would be an understanding that the general practice of the committee was not sought to be changed so that we course that is exactly what i am trying to concur with the lady on is that we intend on continuing within the parameters of the history of this committee i will not be exactly mr hburton i will not be exactly mr hwaxman i will not be exactly mr htowns but overall over the many years that this committee has existed since one thousand nine hundred and ninety five there has been a tradition of the chairman has the authority to write a subpoena the chairman most commonly informs in advance and has consultation with the ranking member and i expect to do that i also would say there has been an everdeclining number of subpoenas from this committee i would very much hope that we can continue that tradition my predecessor issued less than his predecessor and his predecessor lessh no let me rephrase that okay my predecessor less than his predecessor mr hwaxman succeeded mr hdavis however certainly all of them were less than mr hburton's time it is my hope that we will find tools other than subpoenas to get people to be before us and i might note if i could for the gentlelady that we have also made deposition reform that we insisted that the full house provide anyone who is being asked to be deposed which is in effect more common for this committee to have an absolute right to have members of congress present unless they waive those rights so we are trying even when we do have to ask somebody to make sworn testimony before this committee that we do it in a more fair way and i expect that we will continue a trend that mr htowns did which is less subpoenas more cooperation this section of the rules regarding subpoena the exact same as the last congress chairman issa it is identical mister mchenry well that is fascinating absolutely fascinating that the nowminority didn't see to change the rules when they actually had the votes to do it and had the majority to do it so i would just ask my colleagues to be aware of the history here this is the same operation of the rule same exact language as the rule in the last congress with a democrat chairman and a majority of democrats in the house and so accepting that same language i think was reasonable i certainly appreciate the chairman's change to the deposition authority i think that is important to note for the committee and for the public to know that that is a substantial  be placed in the record without objection so ordered the first time i got to do that chairman issa the fact is that that was an exception i don't know the details but staff sent it through the chairman obviously had to sign it it was a friday afternoon and we received it effectively after the fact and after business hours it was not an unreasonable subpoena it was not one in which we screamed and yelled how dare you go after this information but it was one in which there was no consultation it is my intent to make sure that we are very careful in light of that because the only thing that bothered us about this is that we got told after the fact and we didn't have normal consultation so as the gentleman from north carolina is acutely aware it is so much better to have the consultation that i expect to do it always i yield back mister mchenry reclaiming my time i certainly appreciate that and i express to my colleagues is important not just for this committee but for this congress to be able to have clarity about the process under which this committee will exercise the power that it is given by the congress and frankly with all due respect i don't believe that up to this point the chairman's explanations have added clarity to this debate over the cummings amendment that says that with the concurrence of the ranking minority member subpoenas will be issued now th making a point of order to the gentleman the point of order is please speak to the amendment not to general agreement i have myself allowed both sides to talk about general agreements if you would like to speak to the amendment the gentleman is rule requires that if a subpoena is required in the case of an affidavit or deposition of a travel office matter i shall not authorize such subpoena without your concurrence or the vote of the committee now the chairman in this debate has made the following statement that he would consider that he would consider consulting that it is his intention to consult that it is preferable to concur and to listen to the chairman's statements you would think that you would be supporting the cummings amendment instead what we have here is i think a rather dangerous equivocation on the issue of unilateral subpoenas this is not a small matter because this is not about you mister chairman with all due respecth and i do respect youh this is not about you this is about the power that this committee has working through the chair to be able to issue subpoenas and to do that without the concurrence of the ranking member and i would further say of the committee itself i think is to sweep aside the concerns that people would have about the constitutional protections of witnesses because this isn't just about us this is about the people we would call before us so i think that this is an issue that members of the committee ought to be exercised about because of the implications that the action that we will take today will have on the next hyears and on every hearing that follows this i am not someone who came here to cover up for the obama administrat anybody who knows me knows that when i say that if there is something wrong over there i will be the first one to call them on it but i am someone who believes that this process needs to move in a way that is fair and impartial and doesn't degrade the oversight capacity and responsibilities this congress has so you know we can quote abraham lincoln about his suspension of habeas corpus during an insurrection but barring  insurrection mister chairman i can't understand why you would not agree with mr hcummings amendment politico it said that chairman towns was not only fair but he lost his job because he was too fair now i don't think that mr hchairman that you are looking at any change within your caucus at this point but i do believe that this question that we are raising is one that we have established the precedent that republican chairs have gone along with concurrence now i  they want to amend the rules a rule that was their rule last congress is that correct i mean this is the same exact rule and now that they are in the minority they want to change it is that gentleman is correct mister mack so it seems to be a little hypocritical then to come in on the other side of the aisle and say the rules were good enough for us when we were in the majority but now that we are in the minority we want to change them you know i hear a lot on the other side about bipartisanship and the intentions of the chairman and the power of the committee but all i hear is this hypocrisy of on one hand the rules were good enough and on this hand now that we are in the minority there are not good enough it is really a shame at this point i mean i think if you really want a bipartisan vote stick with your votes in the past the bipartisan vote would be to defeat this amendment and let's move on to doing the people's business part of the reason why i came to this committee is because i am tired of people in the administration and other people avoiding when we have questions so m chairman with all due respect to this committee as a new member the hypocrisy of the minority now to say this rule was good enough when we were in the majority but now i want to change much i certainly understand the gentleman's concerns but we have been pretty much forced into this position because we are not talking about the rule we are talking about a practice and the practice of the committeeh and we wanted to to be hypocritical is what i am saying mister mack if i can reclaim my time you can talk about the intent all you want and i think you know we will be able to judge the chairman on that as we move on but you are looking to change the rules and mister chairman i  think that this is now becoming one of those things where one side doesn't like it the other side does like it i don't think we are going to get any further with any more debate on this and i would call for the vote chairman issa a call for the was made to amend and put the words in is because we haven't heard the words previous committees have customarily done in practice and i would hope that this chairman would consider to do that just tell us that it is your intention and you will consult with the ranking minority member and get his consent before the subpoenas are issued or go to a vote of the committee it has been the longstanding practice of that we wouldn't need to seek an amendment because we would take the chairman at his word if he did it just as previous members took the chairperson's word whether they were  democrat or republican in the past the only example that the current chairman cites of mr htowns not following that bipartisan approach is one letterh a late afternoon letter but i note that the chairman didn't object to that and in fact since then is on record on septemberhth of saying that ed towns and he worked really closely together that he being ed towns helped me get subpoenas and get the information time and time again we are supposed to do it together whenever possible the only other time that claim was made by the chairman is back in two thousand five in the case of terry schiavo in that case mr hwaxman did object on having a unilateral subpoena so essentially what we are just saying is we should not be about unilateral subpoenas we are more than willing to take the chairman's word that he will consult and get all time having expired the previous question is ordered are there any further comments i move the previous  would like to have clarification on what the new provision that provides when a member of congress or a member of the committee can be at depositions does that mean participate in the depositions or be present to observe the depositions staff or members alternating back and forth because we are an investigative committee we have a long set of procedures in which staffh and i will shortcut it we give hdays notice of the deposition  oth majority and minority show up and there is a whole procedure for back and forth and time limits your side obviously i suspect your staff would acquiesce to your taking their time if you wanted it but it would be the back and forth within that if another member arrives from the other side the same thing would occur if ten members show up they do not change the deposition it is simply a question of whose time are they speaking on alternating so it doesn't really change whether it is staff doing it or members what the full house did which i think is critical and i appreciate the gentlelady asking is they said a person being deposed must waive the right to have a member presenth one or more members present or they will not be deposed by staff and this comes from a series of depositions which were done staff only under a previous chairman in which it was believed by then the minority my side that there was a tendency toward potential abuse because staff have a lot of time they are not accountable to the voters they could in fact if you will be very tough on a deposition  somewhat abusing the fact that that person is paying their own money for their own lawyer and so on so we felt that if the light of day by being able to have a member of congress there the congressman's time probably on both sides being important that this would reduce or eliminate abuse that is the reason we lobbied the speaker for and got it into the rules it will apply to this committee all the time and apply to any other committee that may be granted deposition authority at some future t reclaiming my time if i understand you correctly then that means that the time allotted per side remains the same if a member of the committee chooses to participate  i think it is good to have certain limitations have members present if nothing else to make sure that the process is a fair one depositions can be very expensive number one you have to prepare the witness number two you have got to appear at the deposition you have got to prepare documents and then there is followup and things of that nature so a person could easily spend who is spending two hundred dollars an hour for various reason much higher than that in many instances that adds to being a lot of money and so i think trying to respect witnesses and trying to be careful mister chairman about who we are calling into these depositions i think the chairman has assured me that we will talk about those things and try to make sure that we are not  recognized for five minutes mister cummings thank you very much mister chairman i will be very brief and i think this is an amendment that we can all agree with mister chairman one of your primary objections to the previous amendment seemed to be that it would not allow you to issue emergency subpoenas and i can certainly understand that in other words there could be cases when an individual about to board an airplane out of the country in these cases waiting for the committee to vote on a subpoena could prevent us from obtaining the information we seek and as i have said to the chairman on numerous occasions those cases it requires the chairman to notify committee members within three days after the subpoena is issued about the nature of the emergency and the efforts to contact the ranking member it also requires the chairman to explain why waiting for a committee vote would prevent us from obtaining the information sought by the subpoena this is a commonsense compromise that i think you should be able to support mister chairman in fact let me give credit where credit is due this is the exact proposal you made this committee's organizational meeting back in two thousand and seven and this is what you said at that time and i quote i might just suggest that other committees on which i serve specifically the select intelligence committee have a procedure which i believe would if we cannot accept the concurrence their procedure is a consultation a full vote of the committee unless the chairman finds it to be extraordinary meaning that for some reason in this case the subpoena would have to be issued in a  the members to vote for it chairman issa the chair has no interest in changing the rules as they have been for the previous congress and would oppose the amendment i now call the all those in favor of adopting the resolution please signify by saying aye all those opposed in the opinion of the chair the ayes have it the ayes have it the resolution is agreed to ranking member is recognized for his gets them as i understand it that is basic fairness but certainly that is not what has been happening on januaryh you sent a letter to the department of homeland security secretary napolitano requesting information about the department's policies on the freedom of information act requests and i want to thank you by the way for getting that letter to us about half an hour before this hearing but you did not provide it to us before then and back on januaryh two thousand and eleven your spokesman state publicly that your letter was based on other documents obtained by the committee according to a press account on sunday oversight panel spokesman frederick hill said issa sent the letter and i quote because the committee has received documents that raised questions about the veracity of dhs officials on that matter and after reading this story my staff requested copies of both your letter to department of homeland security and the additional documents referred to by your spokesman and your staff did not reply here are my questions regarding the the gentleman's inquiry and this colloquy it is our intention to deliver all produced information on a bipartisan basis whether it is produced to the minority or the majority what i mean by that is that if the administration comes and gives you documents and those documents are pursuant to a request you must turn them over to the majority also if i receive such information i must turn them over whenever possible we are going to encourage the administration as they have done in some cases in the past to simply deliver duplicate copies to deliver to both of us so there would be no doubt and so it is relatively easy not to wait for a clerk to report it production made to the committee will be delivered to our nonpartisan staff their job will be in fact to determine whether it is a  record and distribute it we rely on them some of these people the clerks have been under mr htowns and myself and some of them even his predecessor so we are going to try to use that i look forward to working with  on coming up with a standard for correspondence it has not been the practice of this committee for correspondence to be shared fully whether it is from the majority or minority correspondence today as you know is primarily emailed there is a huge amount of it email has not been typically cc'd the same way so i look forward to working with you on how both of our staffs during the break to come up with a procedure to designate for all our subcommittee chairmen and ranking members how this is going to be worked because there is a vast amount of correspondence that goes on some of which probably will not be shared but i want to make sure that it is shared equally on a basis that is  agreeable to both of us so i look forward to working with you on correspondence when it comes to discoverable material i fully expect the nonpartisan staff to ensure that either a copy is made for the minority or that the administration or other a letter that goes out januaryh we get it on the th and how soon can we expect to get these documents that you were just talking about i mean in other words former chairman of the committee and i pledge to you that we will work toh because of the increased amount of digital data we are receiving in addition to paper to shave off even some time from what mr htowns was able to do more over as i said we are going to use our mutuallyagreedto nonpartisan staff to be the arbiters of making sure these things get copied and distributed in a timely fashion i think that is the most important thing is that we depoliticize materials which have been ordered through deposition subpoenas or other requests again i look forward to working with you on resolving a standard for correspondence mister cummings and when can we expect to get the documents connected with the your letter stated this and i quote it these materials are part of an ongoing oversight effort i have chosen to have my staff focus on receiving organizing and analyzing the response to these letters i expect to be able to make an letter that you wrote to us today does that mean that we are going to get the actual responses to those letters i just want to beh chairman issa i thank the gentleman as i said we do noth we clearly want to get to a correspondence understanding that has not previously been there so that we can have our staffs know when to share and so on however it does mean that the intention is to deliver all of our correspondence something that has not historically been done to you at that time the only reason that we want to finish the correspondence is quite frankly we believe that it is extremely important that when correspondence is released that it properly be vetted we are going through to make sure there is not something that if it became public would be inappropriate like any email or other correspondence i look forward to not only delivering this to you in its original form but also coming up with an agreement as to future correspondence both majority and minority mister cummings i appreciate that and one of the reasons is we didn't want to have to rely on the majority's analysis because we have got some pretty good people who can do their own analyzing so we appreciate that back are these recordsh are you claiming that because these records were done that is the letters were sent before you became chairman that they are not official records or they are