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35–719 2007

COMMITTEE FUNDING HEARING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MEETING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, FEBRUARY 28, 2007 

Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration 

( 

Available on the Internet: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/administration/index.html 


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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD, California, Chairwoman 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

SUSAN DAVIS, California 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

Ranking Minority Member 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

KEVIN McCARTHY, California 


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HEARING ON COMMITTEE FUNDING 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2007 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in room 1310, 

Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Juanita Millender-McDonald (chairwoman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Millender-McDonald, Lofgren, Capuano, 

Gonzalez, Davis of California, Ehlers, Lungren, and McCarthy. 

Staff Present: Charles Howell, Chief Counsel; Tom Hicks, 

Counsel; Matt Pinkus, Professional Staff/Parliamentarian; Kristin 

McCowan, Chief Legislative Clerk; George Hadijski, Minority Director of Member and Committee Services; and Peter Sloan, Minority Professional Staff. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Good morning. The Committee on House Administration will now come to order. 

It is great this morning to have all of our Chairs here to outline 

their agenda and talk about their budgets and the priorities for the 

110th Congress. It is customary for this committee to bring the 

Chairs before us to speak about this and to outline their budgets. 

I have been very impressed with what I have seen in reading the 

various letters and the outlines of the Chairs. As you know, in the 

109th Congress, there was not a budget; therefore, the committees 

budgets will stay pretty much as they were in the 109th Congress 

with just a tweak of perhaps a 2 percent increase. So we are very, 

very grateful to the Chairs for their tolerance on this. 

However, in the second half of the 110th Congress we will be reviewing the budget process again. And we have spoken with the 

Speaker, and she has consented to review that. 

So we do have the Members coming in order by time. We are 

sorry that we are running a little late here in getting started. But 

this morning we have with us Chairman Lantos and Ranking 

Member Ros-Lehtinen, both representing the Foreign Affairs Committee. And they are here this morning to present their agenda and 

their budget. 

Good morning to both of you. 

Mr. LANTOS. Good morning. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Good morning. 

The CHAIRMAN. Before we get started, though, I would like to at 

least have the Ranking Member make an opening statement before 

we move on. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 


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Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity, and I am sorry I held you up for 3 minutes. I was in the 

back room discussing, and I did not realize you were here. 

In the interest of time and since we have a number of people 

waiting, if you don’t object I will submit my statement for the 

record and just make a few very brief comments. 

I, first of all, want to thank all the chairmen for coming. I have 

been on this committee for 12 years now. This is an annual program that we go through. We listen in great detail to what the 

committee chairs and ranking members have to say and use our 

best judgment. 

This year is totally different than any I have experienced because 

we have very little judgment to exercise, because of the lack of 

money available. The decision was made by the Speaker to spread 

it across the board with the exception of some additional funds for 

the Armed Services Committee, which I have personally questioned 

because I think the work of every committee is equally important. 

Nevertheless, that decision has been made, so the only hope for 

salvation will be next year. I hope we do manage to pass a budget 

this year, and we will be able to consider your request in more detail next year. 

One last comment I would make: Something I worked very hard 

on when we took over the majority some years ago was to restore 

or to bring—not restore because it hadn’t been there—but to bring 

every committee up to a two-thirds/one-third ratio, majority getting 

two-thirds of the funds and the minority getting one-third. 

And it was a painstaking task because when we were in the minority, some of the committees only received 10 percent of the total 

budget. Naturally the members of those committees were not at all 

anxious to have the new minority get more than they had been 

willing to give to us. 

With Chairman Bill Thomas we worked very hard on this. We 

managed to get it through, and so a few years ago we reached a 

one-third/two-thirds for every committee. I would hope that every 

committee before us will commit to maintaining that ratio to the 

best of their ability during the course of the year. 

So I will ask that question of everyone. 

I also recognize that chairmen and ranking members have considerable leeway as to just how they worked this agreement out, 

because there are joint expenses and so forth and they have been 

very creative in that. It is very important that we continue the 

principle of two-thirds/one-third, not just for the benefit of the current minority, but for the benefit of the current majority for the 

time when they may once again be in the minority. 

Having said that, Madam Chair, I turn it back over to you. 

[The statement of Mr. Ehlers follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Ranking Member. 

And now we will go to the Chairman for his opening statement 

and then to the Ranking Member for her opening statement, and 

then we will proceed from there. 

Good morning to you both. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM LANTOS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. LANTOS. Madam Chair, Mr. Ranking Member, distinguished 

members of the committee, my colleagues, allow me to begin with 

a personal observation, which is also incumbent upon me to reveal 

the truth. The Chair of this committee and I have a special relationship. She is not only a dear friend, but a neighbor; and occasionally I have the privilege of cleaning her car, picking up her lost 

keys, opening the doors for her, and if she has a particularly heavy 

package, it is I who carries it in. 

So I ought to be entitled to special treatment, but I am not asking her for any. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I am grateful, however. 

Mr. EHLERS. I think this amounts to undue influence. 

Mr. LANTOS. I am just delighted to see this great colleague, a 

woman of great intellectual distinction and commitment, have this 

chairmanship. 

If you will allow me, Madam Chairman, I always also would like 

to reminisce for about 30 seconds. It was 20 years ago in this room 

that my wife Annette and I had the pleasure of hosting the Dalai 

Lama’s first appearance in the Congress of the United States. 

The administration wouldn’t touch him with a 10-foot pole. The 

leadership of Congress would not see him. And it was just a handful of colleagues who joined Annette and me in recognizing this 

great leader. 

Subsequently, he was received by the leadership of the Congress, 

the Vice President, the President. And his career culminated when 

Richard Gere, myself and the Dalai Lama appeared on Larry 

King’s program. You can’t get any higher than that. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. LANTOS. Madam Chair, members of the committee, this has 

been a very bipartisan committee under the leadership of our 

friend, Henry Hyde, and it will be an equally bipartisan committee 

under my chairmanship. I have great pleasure of serving with my 

most distinguished colleague from Florida, and you will hear from 

her in a minute. 

To indicate the degree of bipartisanship that is present in our 

work, there are eight shared staff Members—there were eight 

shared staff members of the committee under Chairman Hyde. I 

have eight shared staff members. I retained six of Mr. Hyde’s staff 

people because they have done an outstanding job and they will do 

an equally outstanding nonpartisan job as shared staff members of 

the committee. 

I don’t need to tell a group of your sophistication that for better 

or worse—and, unfortunately, for worse—Foreign Affairs has an incredible agenda. Whether you watch television or read the newspapers, whether it is 80 percent or 90 percent of the issues, from 


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Iraq to Afghanistan to Iran to North Korea to China to India to 

Russia to Europe, the issues are with our committee. 

We are realists. We are not asking for the kind of increase that 

in terms of our workload we would require. We are asking for a 

modest 4.9 percent increase for both the current year and the next 

year. 

Let me also mention that in terms of efficiency and productivity, 

Madam Chair, we have very bad distribution of offices. Speaker 

Hastert indicated to us that they would try to accommodate us. We 

have five of our subcommittees’ staff in the Ford Building; this 

makes it very difficult for us to operate efficiently. And I am just 

making a modest plea, I presume on behalf of both of us, that as 

possible, if you could, allow us a consolidation of physical space. 

I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity. I will be delighted to answer any questions after you hear from my friend. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. The Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Well, thank you so much, Madam Chair, 

Ranking Member Lantos, our friends and colleagues. 

I have a prepared statement that I would like to make part of 

the record, but I would also like to echo the remarks made by our 

distinguished chair. This is a truly bipartisan committee. It is a delight for us on the other side of the aisle to work with Chairman 

Lantos on difficult, thorny, complex issues. 

Today, for example, we have a full committee hearing on Iraq. 

In the afternoon, we have a full committee hearing on North Korea. 

Every day we are meeting the challenges that are presented before 

us, defeating the radical Islamic militant jihadists, dealing with 

nuclear proliferation throughout the world. But we do work in a bipartisan manner. 

It does not mean that we agree with all of the issues. But we do 

it—we disagree in a courteous and in a professional manner. So it 

is an honor for me to work with Tom and his staff on all of these 

issues. 

I echo his comments about our request for the funding, and most 

especially for a consolidation of space because going from building 

to building makes our work that much more difficult. But I also 

will just submit my statement for the record. 

Thank you Madam Chair, thank you Mr. Ranking Member and 

members. 

[The statement of Ms. Ros-Lehtinen follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much for both of you and your 

presentation today, and thank you for the brevity of it, given the 

time constraints. 

Mr. Chairman and Ms. Ranking Member, I hear you very clearly 

that there is a need for this modest increase. However, again, because of the budgetary constraints that we are under, we are trying 

our best to do whatever we can possibly do to give as much as we 

can for chairpersons this year. 

So I would have to say that, at this juncture, what we have afforded to you is the 2 percent increase for inflation—2.4 for inflation. But we can look at the physical space that you speak about 

and see whether the consolidation can be done. Of course, I would 

have to speak with the Speaker and see just where we are in terms 

of that. 

You said you had how many staffers in the Ford Building? 

Mr. LANTOS. We have five subcommittees in the Ford Building. 

We work on a very integrated basis, Madam Chair, and an enormous amount of time is wasted running back and forth. And this 

would just help us do our work somewhat more rationally. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. That, I can certainly—— 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Madam Chair, if I could just add to that, and 

also I meant to echo Ranking Member Ehler’s comments about a 

fair and equitable distribution of majority/minority funding, and I 

thank the ranking member for bringing that up. I know that Chairman Lantos is very cognizant of that and has been working with 

us on that point. 

Mr. LANTOS. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And you two have worked very well with that 

two-thirds/one-third ratio; that is very good, and we are thankful 

to you for that. 

I will again look into the consolidation in terms of your five subcommittees—— 

Mr. LANTOS. We appreciate that. 

The CHAIRWOMAN [continuing]. And see what we can do there. 

Outside of that, I am sorry that this year brings us to this point 

where we are trying to struggle with the budget, in light of the fact 

that there was no budget last year. So we are having to come in 

with the baseline budget from last year with a modest increase for 

inflation, and that is where we are at this juncture. 

And I would now refer to the Ranking Mmember for comments. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Very briefly, space is at a premium for every committee and most 

of the committees I am on have split their staff. If you could see 

the quarters that both the majority and minority staff of this committee have, you would be grateful for the situation. 

I realize that is small consolation. 

But one question I did have about you wanting to consolidate. 

Would you be willing to consolidate everything in the Ford Building, have all of your subcommittees and staffs in the Ford Building? 

Mr. LANTOS. I will be happy to take it back to my colleagues. I 

doubt that the answer will be in the affirmative. 


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Mr. EHLERS. I just wondered because there are a lot of people 

who would prefer more space in these three buildings. But I just 

wanted to know that. 

The other is a political statement. I supported the President’s 

surge in Iraq, but I have made it clear in speeches and in my 

writings that I felt we should have an equal surge in diplomacy. 

I am quite happy to argue, in your case, that if we are going to 

give more money to the Armed Services Committee, when everyone 

else is being held the same, that your committee should also get 

more, so we can increase our diplomatic efforts as well as our military efforts. 

Mr. LANTOS. If I may respond to my good friend, although I realize he was half serious and half witty, I have just come back from 

Moscow and had very serious discussions with the Soviet foreign 

policy leadership. Then I was in Western Europe. In many places 

I was asked, as the new chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, what is my number one objective, and I had very little difficulty answering it, Madam Chair. 

I said, when I came to the Congress, the reputation, the standing, the prestige of the United States was sky high. It is now the 

lowest that I can recall in my adult lifetime, which is a long lifetime. And I think our committee has a very heavy responsibility 

beyond any geographic location; be it North Korea or Iraq or Afghanistan, it is to work on restoring global respect and appreciation for the United States as the one remaining superpower with 

enormous global responsibilities. 

And your comment that you favor a surge in diplomacy is a comment I fully relate to and strongly approve, so I appreciate your observation. 

Mr. EHLERS. Well, thank you. I want to assure you that my comment about matching money for you with money for the Armed 

Service Committee, I was dead serious. 

Mr. LANTOS. I appreciate it. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. Lantos and Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, we do recognize that the 

issues you have are vast and very complex. And you do represent 

us well when you go abroad, and nationally, to speak on the issues 

of foreign affairs, so we appreciate the work that you do. 

I would like to ask if there are other members who would like 

to make comments before we move on? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes, Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Just briefly, I would say thank you to the chairman, who is, I am proud to say, from our great State of California, 

and to the ranking member, for the work they do for our Nation. 

It is really wonderful that we have Members who are experts in 

this field. 

When you think of diplomacy, you think, executive branch, but 

we also think legislative branch because we have an important role 

to play. 

My question is really generic, and I am not sure how it is going 

to be developed. But we have, and the Speaker has announced her 

interest in making sure that all committee hearings are webcast, 


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which I think is a great step forward, because then the public will 

be able to see the work that we are doing. 

Do you know whether that has been accomplished in all of your 

hearing rooms or do we need to do something more to accomplish 

that? 

Mr. LANTOS. I think we are capable of doing it. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If I could continue, Chairman Hyde—— 

Mr. LANTOS. Excuse me. Our full committee hearing room is fully 

equipped. The subcommittee hearing rooms are not yet, and I very 

much look forward to having all of our committee rooms—— 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If I could continue, I echo what the chairman 

said. Under Chairman Hyde’s leadership, we were able to modernize Room 2172 of Rayburn, and so that is fully operational. As 

the chairman points out, our subcommittees then meet in different 

rooms and they are not able to do that, like many of our subcommittees. 

Ms. LOFGREN. We want to make sure every full committee is capable of webcasting and then, as we move through this, that every 

subcommittee—— 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Many subcommittee hearings do take place 

in the full committee room. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Rather than bother all of the committee chairmen, 

I wonder if later the staff could give us a status report on where 

we are. And then, at a subsequent date, I am sure you will want 

to show the leadership on getting us there. And I just think—you 

know, if the public could see what this committee is doing, I think 

it would be a good thing for not only the committee, but for the 

country. 

So I thank you very much for your answer, for your service. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. And if I could 

point out that our committee is headed by a naturalized American 

and the ranking member is a naturalized American, and here we 

are talking about foreign policy. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. It doesn’t get any better than that. 

Thank you all so much. Because of time constraints and because 

we have chairpersons who are waiting in the wings, we thank you 

both so much and appreciate your tolerance with us on the budget. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you so much. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We would like to see now the Chairman of the 

Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers, and their Ranking Member, Mr. 

Smith. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here and if you would like to 

summarize your statements and submit your full statements for 

the record, we would appreciate that because of the time constraints. Good morning to both of you, and welcome. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. CONYERS. Good morning, Madam Chairman, to the Honorable Juanita Millender-McDonald; and our ranking member from 

Michigan, Vern Ehlers, and the rest of the distinguished—the 

former attorney general of California, of course; and Zoe Lofgren, 

who has been on our Judiciary Committee, as well; and our dear 


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friend from Massachusetts. We are all delighted to be here and to 

merely let you know of the good cooperation that is being enjoyed 

by the chairman and the ranking member on the House Judiciary 

Committee. I have been working with Lamar Smith in a very fine 

way, which makes our submission rather easy and simple. 

First of all, we don’t have any major requests compared to some 

that you are receiving. And I begin by reminding you, the Judiciary 

Committee is among the most active committees; 13 percent of the 

total legislative measures introduced have been referred to our 

committee. It has always been an active committee. And we have 

an even more ambitious agenda for the 110th Congress. 

Immigration is the biggie that we are all hoping now to repair 

and move forward from the 109th Congress. But we also have lobbying reforms, civil rights concerns, criminal justice, commercial 

and administrative law, patent and copyright reform, judicial security, and antitrust, among others. 

I might say that I also had a very cordial meeting with Attorney 

General Gonzalez yesterday in preparing him to come before the 

committee, and I think we are going to get more oversight than we 

have ever had before. 

And finally, consistent with past practice, Ranking Member 

Lamar Smith and I have agreed to allocate a third of the payroll 

to the minority, as usual, after first deducting shared administrative employees. We were at seven in the last Congress, we are 

down to six now; and this allows additional payroll flexibility to the 

minority. 

That is the bulk of information that I bring you. But I am happy 

to be before so many friends on this committee, including the honorable chairman. 

[The statement of Mr. Conyers follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. I thank the gracious gentleman from Michigan so much, and appreciate your very informative opening statement. 

You do have an active committee. And I tell you, you have the 

big guns—immigration, lobby reform and copyright. So we look forward to your leadership on those issues, along with our colleague 

on this panel, who will be working very hard on immigration 

issues. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. LAMAR SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you. Welcome. 

Mr. SMITH. First of all, may I have unanimous consent to have 

my formal written statement entered as part of the written record? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. You may, and thank you so much. 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to point out to Chairman Conyers that 

it looks like we have some favorable terrain here. Two members of 

the House Administration Committee are members of the Judiciary 

Committee. I have a colleague from San Antonio, who just left, who 

is also a member of the committee; and also a colleague from Massachusetts, who is the chairman of the House Ethics Task Force, 

that I serve as ranking on, is a member of the House Administration Committee, too. 

So I hope those friendships will be—not pay off, that is too 

crass—but will be recognized during the process. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We know how to pick them, right? 

Mr. SMITH. True. 

Madam Chair, I simply want to say that I support Chairman 

Conyers’ request for a very small—relatively small increase in the 

Judiciary Committee budget. That 4 percent is small compared to 

a lot of other committee requests, and furthermore, most of that 4 

percent is going for an increase in salaries, which is needed. 

It is my opinion that, frankly, most of the people who work on 

Capitol Hill are underpaid and overworked. And this allows the Judiciary Committee to raise the salaries of some of our hardworking 

Judiciary Committee members. 

So I am happy to be here to support the chairman and his request for the Judiciary Committee budget. And I will yield back. 

[The statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. And it is good to see the 

two of you working actively on an active committee, and that you 

are willing to share your employees to the degree that you can. 

I would like to have the Ranking Member make statements because we are on a tight schedule, but I would like to remind you 

that in spite of the budget constraints that we do have, and you 

come in first from the baseline of last year’s budget, we have only 

a 2.4 percent increase in your budget at this juncture for inflation, 

because that is the best we can do, given what we received from 

the appropriators. 

So that is the best that we can do. And if there is anything that 

comes down the pike, we will certainly look forward to working 

with you on it. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. EHLERS. Very briefly, I just want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for abiding by the two-thirds/one-third split. I personally 

worked very hard over the past 12 years with Chairman Thomas 

to achieve that goal, and we want to make sure we maintain it. 

Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. Anyone for comments? 

Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Having served on the Judiciary Committee before, 

and now, I appreciate the one-third split. I recall in the old days 

it was not that way, and I believe we got 20 percent of staff and 

11 percent of the funds. 

I wonder, do you have a number of what the ratio of personnel 

is, staff is, in this request? 

Mr. CONYERS. It is in here. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I was looking for it. I couldn’t find it. 

Mr. CONYERS. We have a total number of 86. So it is 51/21—25, 

excuse me. 

Mr. LUNGREN. 51/25. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that the time 

is short, but I just wanted to say, having been a member of the 

committee now for 13 years, this is an incredibly hardworking committee. 

I think, some weeks, it seems like every bill on the floor has gone 

through our committee, and especially the salary for the lawyers. 

I mean, we have kids coming out of law school that are being hired 

for far in excess of the experienced lawyers that we are trying to 

hire in the committee. So I think anything we can do today and 

also, hopefully, in the future would be paid off by good service and 

oversight; and I am hopeful that we might be able to do that down 

the line. 

I thank the chairperson for recognizing me. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

And I thank the two of you. It has been great seeing both of you 

so cordial to each other and working so well together in spite of the 

budget constraints. We appreciate the work that you do, the oversight that you have done; and we thank you so much for your time 

here with us this morning. 


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Mr. CONYERS. We hope your confidence in us will continue 

throughout the 110th Congress. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Indeed, it will. Thank you so much. 

The next committee is Financial Services, the Chairman, Mr. 

Frank, the Ranking Member, Mr. Bachus. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BARNEY FRANK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS 

Mr. FRANK. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for your 

patience. We know that you were here on time, and we are running 

a little behind. So thank you so much. 

Mr. FRANK. I believe we have submitted the budget request. We 

sent along, I am told, an iconic copy in a single PDF file. I have 

no idea what that is, but I am told we submitted it. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We have received it. 

Mr. FRANK. I have very able people who can do that for me. So 

there it is. 

And don’t try to explain it to me, Vern. It will be hopeless. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I know that is right. 

Mr. FRANK. We are here with our request. Obviously, I realize 

you are given a lot more demand than supply, and we certainly understand your difficulties. 

Our committee, like many others, has a heavy workload. There 

have been extraordinary developments in the financial services 

area—hedge funds, private equity derivatives—plus we inherit, as 

we take over—as you know, Madam Chair, because you have your 

own interest here—a serious deficit with regard to affordable housing. And we will be trying to undo a great deal of that. 

We are also trying to deal with a long overdue set of problems 

that remain after the hurricane in the gulf. So that there has been 

a significant expansion in our workload, and we hope that you will 

do the best you can in giving us the ability to deal with it. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. The ranking member, Mr. Bachus. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. SPENCER BACHUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA 

Mr. BACHUS. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, I 

fully support the budget request that the chairman has made. As 

he has said, there are many critical issues that come before the Financial Services Committee. CFIUS will be on the floor today, and 

we will have Katrina tomorrow. 

Our committee is one of the largest in the Congress, and when 

you actually divide the amount of money per member of the committee, I think ours will be the third from the bottom. 

So while I think it is a sufficient amount of money, I certainly 

don’t think it is excessive in any regard. 

I will close with that. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay, thank you so much. Thanks to both of 

you. 

And you certainly do have critical issues, and I appreciate the 

work that Financial Services has done. Your committee has worked 

vehemently with Hurricane Katrina in terms of trying to get that 

moving, in terms of affordable housing. I am very impressed with 


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the agenda that the Chairman and the Ranking Member have set 

forth. We just really are very impressed with your agenda. 

Unfortunately, the budget constraints have curbed anything outside of the 2.4 percent increase that we will be giving at this juncture, because we just do not have the money that is necessary to 

go any higher than that. 

Mr. Chairman, you want to make a statement? 

Mr. FRANK. I do, Madam Chairman. I was delinquent in not saying this before. 

We obviously have needs. Let me underscore one of the things, 

and I heard you talk about this, and I appreciate that with regard 

to young people coming out of law school. 

I think the greatest bargain the American people get—and they 

don’t understand it—is the willingness of so many talented men 

and women to work here for less than they can make elsewhere. 

And I am chagrined at our ability, or inability, to do more. 

One of the things I think we should be addressing is, I think the 

disparity between the people who work very hard on our personal 

office staffs and the committees, we don’t pay either adequately. 

We pay the personal staff even more inadequately. 

I would hope this is something we can address. I am embarrassed to be an exploiter of such talented, hardworking people. The 

system forces us to do this. 

So whatever we can do. And I would make that our highest priority. Don’t paint my walls and don’t replace my rug, but give those 

people a raise because they deserve it. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I do appreciate that and I could not agree 

with you more. We do have very, very talented staff that work on 

these various committees; and the pay is really something that we 

should be embarrassed by. 

Mr. Chairman, I have noted that, and I will talk with the Speaker about that when I talk with her about the various comments. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. BACHUS. I would just reiterate what the chairman said. 

When we recruit staffers, we are recruiting against Wall Street. We 

are recruiting against top banks. We are recruiting against securities companies, insurance companies. And financial services is actually the largest growth industry in America today. And we are 

competing against even foreign companies that are hiring a lot of 

our staffers. 

The demand in accounting, in all these fields, is great, so we— 

most of our staff have offers off the Hill at considerably more 

money, and—— 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Indeed. 

Mr. BACHUS [continuing]. We are struggling to maintain our expertise. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Ehlers. Comments? 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

On that last point, I think part of the reason for the underpay 

is that for years Members of Congress have felt—have, in fact, 

been paid less than they were paid before they got here. I think 

that just sort of spreads through the system, and it is very unfortunate. 


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In my opening statement, I emphasized how hard I had worked 

with Chairman Thomas over the past 12 years to get equity between the committees and establish a two-thirds/one-third ratio. So 

I am asking the chairman if he plans to continue two-thirds for the 

majority, one-third for the minority, and if that has all been 

worked out? 

Mr. FRANK. I would say—first, I do want to say, while I am not 

a deeply religious man, I assume you will be rewarded at some 

point for having worked closely with Chairman Thomas for that period. 

Secondly, we have I think worked in a completely bipartisan 

way. We have maintained that ratio and we certainly plan to continue to do so. 

Mr. BACHUS. Chairman Frank has been exceptionally fair in the 

process and in the transition. He really helped us to avoid some 

hardships, and I couldn’t be—— 

Mr. FRANK. Thank you. 

Mr. BACHUS [continuing]. More pleased or happy over his chairmanship, unless I was the chairman. That would be the only way 

I would be happy and content. 

Mr. FRANK. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. EHLERS. I just want to say, I enjoyed working with Chairman Thomas. I learned so much from him, both what to do and 

what not to do. It was a wonderful learning experience because he 

is a remarkable person. 

Last comment, you should not sell yourself short, Chairman 

Frank. I know that you are a very bright person, and PDF simply 

means portable document format. It is just a way to send a document from one computer to another computer. Very simple. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Designed by Adobe in my district. 

Mr. FRANK. I am pleased to know that. And I am confident that 

for as long as I have to send documents, I will have people to send 

them. And when I retire no one should expect to get any documents 

from me. 

Mr. EHLERS. Just so you don’t have to. 

Mr. FRANK. I do want to acknowledge, however, that since 2004, 

at the insistence of a member of this committee, Mr. Capuano, I 

do have a cell phone. 

Mr. EHLERS. I won’t try to explain JPG to you. I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Capuano, do you want to say something? 

Mr. CAPUANO. Since I have been dragged into this, I would also 

challenge the chairman to see, if he has a cell phone with him, if 

it is on. 

Mr. FRANK. I do. I do. Here it is. 

Mr. CAPUANO. Is it on? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And they have just summoned him to the 

floor? 

Mr. FRANK. No, they don’t have the number. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, and thank you for your 

tolerance. 

The next chairman and ranking member we have are from the 

Homeland Security Committee—the Chairman, Mr. Thompson, and 

the Ranking Member, Mr. King. 


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Gentlemen, welcome, and thank you so much for your patience. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know by sitting in, knowing the time constraints, we will ask that you summarize your statement and submit your entire statement for the record. 

Mr. Chairman, you may begin. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Chairwoman MillenderMcDonald and Ranking Member Ehlers. I would like to thank you 

and all the members of the committee for allowing me and Representative King to testify on the funding submission for the Committee on Homeland Security. 

As you know, our committee is the new kid on the block, having 

only been permanent, last Congress, to oversee the fledgling Department of Homeland Security. While new, I promise you that we 

are old beyond our years. 

That is because our first year as a permanent committee, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma struck. We found ourselves not only 

supervising a department struggling to merge 22 agencies, but also 

watching as it failed in its first significant post-9/11 test. 

So we have some challenges, and I would like to say that while 

I was ranking member, Chairman King afforded me the opportunity to work with him in a very collegial manner. We continue 

to do so. With the change here in leadership in Congress, we have 

managed two suspension bills on the floor, one as late as yesterday. 

We will do a number of other things around the jurisdiction of the 

committee. 

After receiving permanent jurisdiction, I would like to say for the 

record the two-thirds/one-third ratio will remain in effect. We have 

worked out all the administrative challenges around that, and as 

far as our position is concerned, everything is correct. 

The challenge we have is, how do we continue to make good policies toward keeping America safe? It is a challenge, to be honest 

with you. Bad people think 24 hours a day on how they can hurt 

Americans here in this country, as well as abroad; so we have been 

challenged. 

To that end, while we are not asking for any additional moneys, 

per se, we did receive authorization from the Speaker to increase 

the staffing allotment based on previously allocated moneys; and 

that has been granted. So from our standpoint, we are here asking 

for the continued support of the committee with a nominal increase 

for cost of living, salaries, and what have you. 

Apart from that, again, we are all very familiar with what we 

have confronting this committee and this Nation, and we look forward to working in a collegial manner with Chairman King—Ranking Member King. 

I just gave you a promotion. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Watch it now. 

Mr. THOMPSON. And I will yield if I might to my ranking member 

for any comments he might have. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The statement of Mr. Thompson follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETER KING, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank Chairman Thompson for his statement. I concur with everything that 

was said. And I particularly appreciate his reaffirmance of the twothirds/one-third ratio and emphasize again the bipartisan manner 

in which our committee has worked. 

And I know, when Ms. Lofgren and Mr. Lungren served on the 

committee, we did last year pass bipartisan port security legislation, chemical plant legislation, restructuring of FEMA, and 

worked together on many issues. 

And Chairman Thompson is now beginning a very extensive set 

of hearings on rail and transit security funding. So, again, the allocation of resources I believe is money well spent. It is—we are attempting to deal with an enemy which is anywhere, everywhere, 

and as Chairman Thompson says, works 24 hours a day. 

So I again thank Chairman Thompson for his cooperation and 

thank this committee for its indulgence. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And I thank the two of you, because as the 

chairman has said, and you have reiterated, Mr. Ranking Member, 

you do have a challenging committee. The challenges are vast, and 

trying to penetrate those persons whom we really don’t know, but 

we know what they will do and how they will do it, is really quite 

critical. 

[The statement of Mr. King follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. It is good to see the collegiality between the 

two of you, and that spreads into your committee. And that is very 

good. We are happy that you are considerate of the budget constraints that we have given this year. And so we appreciate that 

as well. 

I am happy that the Speaker was able to grant that staff allotment, and we hope that will work and help in some way. So we 

appreciate the two of you and the leadership that you are providing 

and the work that you are doing. 

Now I will turn to the Ranking Member for comments. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Very briefly, first of all, I want to thank you for the commitment 

to the two-thirds/one-third ratio. 

This committee worked very, very hard over the past 12 years, 

particularly the first 6 years after the Republicans took over, to 

achieve that form of equity. It had been very inequitable before, 

and this committee wants to make sure we maintain that particular equitable standard. I appreciate your commitment to that. 

The other comment is, I think it is unfortunate that we don’t 

have additional funds available. You may have heard my comments 

earlier about the Foreign Affairs Committee also deserving some 

additional funds—of those few additional funds that are being 

given to the Armed Services Committee; and I really think that 

your committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee also are extremely important and deserve recognition for that, too. 

In particular, I think your committee has more necessary oversight responsibilities than almost any committee in the Congress 

because of the newness of the department. You mentioned some obvious failures. I think there are a number of other failures, and 

clearly you need the funds to do good oversight. It is not easy to 

do oversight, but clearly you need it. 

Thank you for what you are doing and I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Other members? 

Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Chairwoman, just very briefly, I have had 

the privilege of serving on this committee since its inception, which 

has been a terrific honor. The chairman has done just a fabulous 

job, and the ranking member and he are coordinating, as you can 

see. It is really something Americans can be proud of. But I wanted 

to mention also just the outstanding staff that has been recruited. 

I see the staff director, Jessica Herrera, there, but really every 

member of the staff, both majority and minority, is highly professional; and if we have an opportunity to keep them through salary 

augmentation at a later date, the country will be well rewarded for 

that. It is really a credit to both of you that you have been able 

to attract and keep some of such really high-quality people. 

And I thank the gentlelady for yielding. 

Mr. THOMPSON. As a comment, Madam Chairman, I think Ranking Member King and I hear from people outside of Capitol Hill 

that very comment. They appreciate the outreach our staff is making toward coming up with best technologies and other things. And 

so, it is a struggle to keep good people. Talent anywhere is highly 

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tive to some degree, we stand the risk of losing good people because 

of that. 

Mr. KING. I shouldn’t say this with the people in the room, but 

the fact is, probably most of these people could leave tomorrow and 

go to the private sector and do far better, because homeland security is obviously an area where the private sector is looking for talented people. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Your thoughts have been reiterated by several 

chairpersons and ranking members, and we know the key to the 

success of any of our committees are those staffpersons who give 

so much and get so little. And so perhaps that is something that 

we will look into as we move on through this 110th Congress. 

Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I am proud to serve on this committee and I noted 

the comments that we had from the folks from International Relations, or Foreign Affairs, about consolidation of offices. I would just 

like the record to suggest we didn’t even have offices for this committee for some months. We then had offices that were over in the 

third Library of Congress building. We then moved over to the 

Ford Building. We did not have an anteroom to our hearing room 

until just 2 months before we lost our majority. But we fixed them 

up very nice for the chairman who now enjoys them. 

And so this committee staff has been working under some 

stresses and strains that others don’t, just because of the nature 

of the newness of the committee. 

Secondly, we have done a very good job in the area of aviation 

safety, port security. We, working with the now-chairman, produced a very good bill in terms of trucker safety. 

We need to do a lot more in cybersecurity. We need to do a lot 

more with trains and mass transit. And we need to retain and attract staffers who have expertise in these areas, Madam Chair. 

And so I would echo what has been said about the need to look 

at this committee maybe a little differently than others next year, 

when we have a little bit more money, because it had to get on its 

feet. It is on its feet now, but we find that the challenges are even 

beyond what we have already addressed, and it is very difficult. 

I know there was talk about financial services being the area of 

tremendous expansion. Homeland security is an area of tremendous expansion, and we are competing very much right now with 

the outside to get good people. 

So I understand the constraints we are under, but I hope this 

committee will seriously look at the Homeland Security Committee 

next year because of the unique nature of its needs. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Your thoughts are well taken, Mr. Lungren, 

and as we look at fiscal year 2008 we certainly will look into those 

things. We have heard from the chairpersons and the ranking 

members, and I have noted all of those. Surely a new committee, 

subjected to moving from one place to the other, is not conducive 

to productivity; and yes, they have been so productive in what they 

have done. 

We thank you so much for your time and your tolerance and look 

forward to working with you as the year progresses. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much. 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. I would like to just—has Ms. Lofgren left? She 

had mentioned how many committees were fully equipped and 

wired, and of the 21 committees that we have, 13 have been wired 

and fully equipped—or 121⁄2, if you will, because Agriculture is on 

its way; we are now in the process of wiring it. But once we have 

done Agriculture, we will have 13 of 21 fully wired for Internet 

broadcasting. 

So we are very pleased with that, given we are just into the 

110th Congress. So we thank the Superintendent and all of those 

who have made that happen. 

Now we have the next committee chairperson in the name of 

Transportation and Infrastructure, my chairman and ranking 

member. Welcome, Chairman Oberstar and Ranking Member Mica. 

And I say that because I sit on this Committee and am proud to 

be a Member on this panel. 

Good morning to both of you, and thank you so much for your 

tolerance. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES L. OBERSTAR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Good morning, Madam Chair and members on 

both sides, Mr. Ehlers and Mr. Lungren, Mr. Capuano. We appreciate very much this annual opportunity to come and present our 

case and advocate for the budget that our committee justly needs. 

You have before you our submission of documentation for our 

personnel compensation, our total budget request, our equipment, 

travel, oversight plan. And we have no plans yet for detailees, so 

that was left blank. 

We have a full agenda of work to accomplish in this Congress, 

a good deal of which was left over from the last Congress. By that, 

I mean bills that were bipartisan in nature that had either been 

reported from committee or passed the House, had gone to the Senate, had not been acted on or went to conference on which conference was not concluded. So we are recapturing those issues and 

bringing them back with every full intention to move that legislation. 

Now the House has been in session 19 days since this 110th Congress organized. Our committee has had 12 hearings, 3 markups in 

subcommittee and full committee; has reported 15 bills—6 have 

passed the House, 3 more likely to come next week. I learned this 

morning from our majority leader that he has agreed to our request 

to bring up the three water-related bills that we have reported 

from committee, combined sewer overflow, sanitary sewer overflow 

and the State revolving loan fund legislation, all of which have languished for quite some time even though they have had bipartisan 

support in the committee. So we look forward to moving that legislation. 

We have the major reauthorization of FAA, the Coast Guard— 

and that will be about a $14–16 billion bill—the Coast Guard reauthorization, which runs in the range of $8 billion. We will deal with 

Amtrak reauthorization. 


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We will have a number of oversight hearings, very—all of which 

are listed in our oversight plans submitted to this committee for 

your consideration. 

We have proposed a budget that stands with the practice of the 

past 12 years that minority is guaranteed one-third of the funding; 

and while we will not have a separate minority travel budget, we 

will continue the practice of the last 12 years to meet every request. As we were given that full consideration in the minority, we 

will continue that practice in the 110th Congress. We were satisfied with that approach. 

We are satisfied with the budget that was submitted in the past 

12 years. This budget has been developed in full coordination with 

the minority staff and in conversation with Mr. Mica and myself, 

and I submit our plan for your consideration. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And indeed you have an ambitious agenda ahead of you that you have already started on—12 hearings, 3 markups, 15 bills, 6 of which 

passed on the House floor and 3 still to come. That is quite an ambitious agenda, along with the major FAA legislation and—well, I 

have port security here because that is a very critical issue for 

me—but Amtrak and Coast Guard. So, you do have a very ambitious committee. 

Your committee is the largest committee; am I correct? 

Mr. OBERSTAR. It is the largest committee in the House. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. That is what I thought. Fine. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Ranking Member, Mr. Mica. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN L. MICA, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you, and congratulations, Chairwoman 

Millender-McDonald—— 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA [continuing]. On your important responsibilities in 

chairing House Administration. I have worked with you in the past 

in both your service here and on the Transportation Committee. 

Mr. Ehlers and other members here, I have a lengthy statement. 

Having served I think half—over half of my legislative career on 

House Administration, I am going to submit this—— 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We thank you very much. 

Mr. MICA [continuing]. For the record. 

But you do have an important role, and it is important that the 

money that the committees spend go through this process. And people on the outside don’t see this, but it is an important role of 

House Administration to conduct oversight and hearings and review even the expenditures of the committees in Congress. 

This is a bipartisan proposal before you. It does have some modest increases, which will help us; and that is the challenge we face 

right now, keeping good folks on the committee and in the Congress in service. And we may have to look at that because it is getting harder and harder to retain those folks when they can go out 

and make double the salary almost instantaneously. 

But, again, I compliment you on your good work. I will submit 

this, and I am pleased to be on this side of the table as the ranking 

member of Transportation. Thank you. 


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[The statement of Mr. Mica follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you both. I have a great deal of admiration for both of you, and as I sit on this side, I still know that 

I am part of that panel and will come to you for those things that 

I need as well. 

I thank you so much for the two-thirds/one-third agreement that 

you have put together and have agreed on, as well as the fact that 

we know that many committee chairs and ranking members have 

come to us saying that good staff is hard to find or to keep. We do 

recognize that, and in the very intolerable climate we find ourselves in, in terms of budget constraints, we are going to look at 

that. I will speak to the Speaker about this because so many of you 

have come before us today, to talk about good staff and how we are 

losing them because of salary competitiveness. 

Your words and your comments have been well received. 

You do know that because of budget constraints we can only go 

to a 2.4 percent increase, due to not having a budget last year; so 

we had to come in from the baseline of last year’s budget and just 

increase that modest 2.4 percent for inflation. We appreciate your 

tolerance on that. If we could do more, we would have done more. 

The fiscal year 2008 budget might present—and I think will 

present—as Mr. Lungren has asked that we look into with reference to staff increased salaries. So we will look at all of this as 

we move into that fiscal year 2008 budget. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Now the ranking member. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair, just very briefly I want 

to recognize the excellence of the committee and the excellence of 

the leadership, and I may be partial to this because I have been 

on that committee every second I have been in this Congress. It is 

a unique committee in two ways. It is almost entirely a bipartisan 

committee, it has a long history of bipartisanship, very few political 

squabbles. And secondly, it is the only committee I know of—I may 

be mistaken on this, but even though it is an authorizing committee, essentially functions as an appropriations committee on a 

major share of the budget when we are dealing with the surface 

transportation bill, for example, which is an excruciatingly difficult 

bill to put together. We are basically acting as appropriators in 

terms of allocating the money, and Mr. Oberstar has been a veteran of doing this many times. In terms of the size of the committee, if we increase it much more, it will be as large as the Senate, but even if we do that I think it will still be a lot more efficient. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. 

Mr. EHLERS. So I commend the committee for what they have 

done. I also appreciate the two-third/one-third commitment. This 

committee worked extremely hard to establish that over the past 

12 years, and we certainly want to see that continue. 

With that, I will yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. And I 

agree with you. You and I both serve on that committee still and 

so I agree with you that it is really one of the most talented teams 

we have around here, and they helped me get my teeth into all of 

this when I came in as a freshman member and went right to the 

Transportation Committee. They were so helpful in providing me 


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with some of those things I could take back to the district and brag 

about. 

Are there any other comments from any committee members? 

Mr. Gonzalez? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I just 

quickly wanted to acknowledge the leadership role Mr. Oberstar 

has played in that particular committee and commend you. I think 

of all the committees in my years in Congress, the most responsive 

has been the Committee on Transportation and especially on railroad prices and safety in San Antonio. Again, I surely want to 

make sure that you have adequate funding so that you hold that 

hearing that is scheduled in San Antonio in the month of March. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. We will do that. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you so much. I just want to say as the 

ranking member talked about how hard this committee worked to 

make sure there was a one-third/two-third ratio that prevailed with 

this committee, its predecessor committee back in the 103rd Congress before there was the changeover. So I recall serving that Judiciary Committee where frankly we got 11 percent of the budget 

and that was extremely difficult, and we looked longingly at the 

Transportation—well, I think it was called the Public Works Committee at the time—for the fairness of the treatment there. And it 

is an important thing whether you are Democrat or Republican to 

understand that you ought to allow the minority to have sufficient 

funds and sufficient staff so that they can make a real contribution 

to the work of the subcommittees and the committees, and this 

committee didn’t have to wait for a turnover and the big change 

that was pushed by this committee before they did it, and I am 

pleased to see that you are continuing to do that. And thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. And Mr. Capuano, did 

you want to make? 

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you. No questions from me. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Just roads and bridges and harbors. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We thank you so much for coming before us. 

It is good to see you and continue the good work that you do. When 

you see my seat empty, it is because I am here trying to do the 

House business, but I shall be there whenever the time permits. 

Thanks again so much for your tolerance and understanding of 

budget constraints and hopefully we can do better. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, committee members, it seems that we 

have come to kind of a lull here before the next group of our chairpersons arrive. So we are going to recess for a while. With unanimous consent, we will recess the Committee until around 11:15 

when the other set of members will be coming through. It will be 

about 11:15 when they arrive so with unanimous consent we will 

recess the Committee until then. We will see you at 11:15. Thank 

you. 

[Whereupon, at 10:40 a.m., the committee was recessed, to reconvene at 11:15 a.m., this same day.] 

[11:22 a.m.] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Good morning. We will reconvene the Committee now to further hear from the chairpersons and ranking 

members who come before us this morning. We appreciate your 

coming before us to outline your budget and your very ambitious 

agendas that we have seen and have been impressed by. We have 

before us at this juncture the Armed Services Committee Chair and 

Ranking Member and, gentlemen, welcome. Mr. Chairman, Mr. 

Skelton, you may get started. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI 

Mr. SKELTON. Thank you very much. I am delighted to be here 

with my companion Duncan Hunter, former chairman and now 

ranking member, and we are here on a bipartisan basis, Madam 

Chairwoman, Ranking Member, and we appreciate this opportunity 

to appear before you and the other members of your committee. 

Over the course of the 110th Congress, we are requesting for our 

committee budget purpose $7 million in 2007 and $8.6 million in 

2008. Now, this does represent a significant increase if we were to 

receive it. Nevertheless, we would still be around with six other 

committees ahead of us with dollars. And I would like to point out, 

Madam Chairman, Ranking Member Ehlers, that we authorize on 

a yearly basis over 50 percent of the discretionary portion of the 

entire Federal budget plus some mandatory spending in addition 

thereto. 

I look back, I have had the privilege of being in Congress now 

a good number of years, and I remember very well during the Les 

Aspin era when he was the Armed Services Committee chairman 

and at that time there was a good deal of oversight and analytical 

work running up to the Gulf War, 1990, 1991, and the committee 

staff at that time numbered 82. We are seeking to bring the staff 

numbers back at the end of this Congress to the level of 83 staff 

members, which still would leave us far below the staff members 

of other committees. Today our staff is at 67, increased modestly 

over the last two Congresses from 60 to 67. May I also point out 

that we have re-established the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, and we have staffed that out of hide. And when Chairman Hunter expanded one subcommittee in 2003, the committee 

was granted four additional staff for that, and thus far we have 

just staffed the new Armed Services Investigative Subcommittee 

just out of hide and it is quite difficult. 

Now, we have a nonpartisan staff. However, we have increased 

the dedicated staff for the minority from 11 to 14. However, we all 

work very well together. You can’t tell one from the other, and it 

is working very, very well. All committee operations, pay, equipment, travel, training, equipment, office space, everyone is treated 

in the same manner, and it worked well when he was chairman; 

and now that I am chairman. 

The only other thing I wish to point out, we have some real professionals on our staff that are very, very knowledgeable and very, 

very good at their specialty. No one can be a specialist—excuse 

me—specialize in everything regarding the military and I just can’t 

tell you the caliber we seek and that we need, and I must tell you, 

you have to pay them to do this. And a good number of very able 


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folks, because it is a public service fortunately for us, will take a 

pay decrease to come to join us. Nevertheless, we still have to pay 

them top dollar to get them. And that is why I am hoping that we 

can seek one more staff person this 2007 because the continuing 

resolution, we are somewhat limited there, but bring it up to a 

total of 83 in the next year, 2008. And frankly, we need them, and 

we are not here to have any gravy. It is all meat and potatoes. It 

is all the real stuff. 

So I would ask my cohort Duncan Hunter to follow through. 

[The statement of Mr. Skelton follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman and 

Mr. Ehlers and my good friend Susan Davis, who I know will give 

a good plug for us as a member of the Armed Services Committee. 

I want to just join Ike, Mr. Skelton, my great friend, and we are 

partners in this endeavor to protect our country, and we have an 

extremely bipartisan committee. When partisan issues come up and 

you see us on the House floor on some of the national issues, we 

arm wrestle. On the other hand, we resolve back into our committee to find common ground, to protect our troops, to give them 

what they need for quality of life, to make sure they have the 

equipment for their mission. And it is a lot of work, and we have 

now—we have always had a major budget. 

Mr. Skelton, Chairman Skelton talked about this big piece of the 

discretionary budget. It really is the majority of the discretionary 

budget and now bigger and now more complex because of the two 

war fighting theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global war 

against terror. And against that backdrop, we have this great team 

of professionals, many of whom have continued in service for a 

number of years whose average salary is less than most of the professionals in the committees on Capitol Hill, and we have the lowest number of staff in proportion to the size of our committee and 

certainly in proportion to our budget authority. I think that we 

have a lower number of staff members than almost any committee 

in the House. I believe Financial Services and Small Business may 

have a lower ratio, but they are the only two. So we have enormous 

work in front of us, and we need the extra—I totally support Chairman Skelton’s request for additional money and for additional staff 

members. We have an enormous oversight burden, and you know, 

we have lots of issues, and we send—our people get into these 

issues. And they get into issues on force levels and on being able 

to protect our troops, equipment systems that are extremely complicated. 

So we have got a lot of work to do, and we have wonderful folks 

helping us. So I think if there was ever a time in history when the 

Armed Services Committee needed more resources, this is it. 

So let me just add my thanks for having us before you, and I 

strongly support all of Chairman Skelton’s requests, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Hunter follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you both so much, and thank you for 

the enormous work that you do on Armed Services. The threats 

that we have around the globe, the threats that we have right here 

at home certainly signify the great need for what you have come 

before us with. When the Chairman came to me and asked for 

extra slots as well as an increase, I found that to be something 

worthy of conferring with the Speaker on, and the Speaker has consented to that. 

Now you are today at 67 staff positions, and you are trying to 

increase that to 83 staff positions, am I correct, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SKELTON. Next year, yes. We would ask for one this year, 

and we will increase up to 83 next year. Yes, ma’am. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay. Fine. And the nonpartisan aspects of 

this—what is the ratio, did you say 11 to 14? 

Mr. SKELTON. Dedicated minority. Although they act like they 

are—everybody owns everybody in reality, but dedicated to minority is 14, that is correct. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay. Well, one thing is for sure, when you 

get into the crux of the problems that you guys have in this committee, there should be no partisanship in my opinion because we 

are all trying to see where the threats are and trying to see what 

we can do to eradicate those who are threatening this country and, 

in fact, the world and so we are clear on that. 

Now, I do know that the Committee has gotten the $500,000 increase that the Speaker had suggested that she would give, and 

that is to further your needs. 

Mr. SKELTON. That would be for this year. Yes, ma’am. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I am told that moving forward, that would go 

on ad infinitum. So that is something that we really do anticipate, 

given the fact that you have this oversight, you have re-established 

the Oversight and Investigatory Subcommittee. 

Mr. SKELTON. Yes. And Marty Meehan is the chairman of that 

subcommittee and it proves to be a very active one, and we have 

just taken the staffing out of hide for him. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay. And the two-third/one-third ratio, you 

are committed to the degree that you can with the other things 

that are working here that you have to deal with, two-third/onethird commitment? 

Mr. SKELTON. Not quite. 

Mr. HUNTER. We actually operate on what we call our—have always had as our nonpartisan/bipartisan basis. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. But both of you are agreeable to whatever 

that—— 

Mr. SKELTON. Yes. 

The CHAIRWOMAN [continuing]. That scenario is, you are amenable to that? 

Mr. SKELTON. Yes. Everybody in essence is bipartisan with the 

exception of 14 who work directly for Mr. Hunter. But you can’t tell 

them by the numbers because everybody works for everybody, and 

it is pretty interchangeable, but technically he owns 14. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And the results are there. The results are 

there. The one thing that you have said, that you have stressed 

that a lot of members, committee chairs and ranking members 

have stressed, is having this extraordinary talented staff with salaVerDate Aug 31 2005 01:51 Jul 12, 2007 Jkt 035719 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A719.XXX A719

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ries that are below par. So I have taken that under advisement, I 

have noted that. I will be consulting and conferring with the 

Speaker on this because we cannot continue to have committees 

that are so crucial, so important as this to have turnovers. Staff 

have just been burned out, not necessarily because of the work that 

they do, but because of a salary that is not conducive to the work 

that they do, so we have taken that under advisement. We thank 

you both for being here. Let me turn now to the Ranking Member 

for comments that he might have. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. I once again want to reiterate what we are asking every—I will wait until the chairman is 

free to answer this. 

Mr. SKELTON. Excuse me. Thanks to my staff. We are asking for next year, for 2008, $8.6 million so we can increase the staff size, 

which of course would help with the oversight and investigation. 

For this year, $7 million which, of course, we included in that as 

the $500,000. But for next year so we could raise the numbers up 

to 83 and be back where Les Aspin was, we would seek the $8.6 

million. I hope that is clear. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Ranking Member, did you want to consult 

with me? 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, yes. I just wanted to make sure you 

were finished. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I did hear what he said. And while that is the 

request, we are not sure we can get to that bottom line. 

Mr. EHLERS. I am quite sure we can’t. But next year may be a 

different story, and we hope to have a budget done in regular order 

next year. 

I just wanted to reaffirm that this committee has worked very 

hard back in the days of Bill Thomas and Steny Hoyer and ever 

since to ensure that we had a one-third/two-thirds ratio from the 

minority to the majority. I understand you are committed to continuing that practice. Is that correct? 

Mr. SKELTON. Excuse me. We never have worked with twothirds/one-third. Just that we have had dedicated numbers to the 

minority, but everybody works for everyone. You go in and just 

grab a staffer and in all probability they will be a professional 

staffer that assists both Democrats and Republicans. I am not sure 

how much clearer I can be. Duncan. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yeah. Let me make a point here. If you look at the 

numbers, you would think that the Republicans would be critical 

here because we have got—with the number of staff members that 

we have under what you would call minority control, that is folks 

that are kind of dedicated to us at 14, and we would get—ostensibly we would get more if we had a two-thirds/one-third majority. 

But what we have, Mr. Ehlers, is we have a tradition of working 

in a bipartisan way where everyone, all the staff members actually 

work for everyone and are very responsive. And it is almost as 

much cultural—so it is a little tough to explain it when we are 

dealing with ratios. It is as much cultural and as much a product 

of what I would call the bipartisan ethic that is demanded of 

Armed Services because we are all supporting the troops, as it is, 

anything that is a function of a ratio. So even though in theory if 

we went to a hard two-thirds/one-third thing, we could have more 


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staff dedicated to us, we like the idea—a lot of folks that do a lot 

of the hard work and the meat and potatoes work of this committee 

and developing what we need for the Armed Forces are really staff 

members who respond to everybody. So you do have to have staff 

that are dedicated to you because when we do have a split on a 

principle and we do need to each have our sides and we need to 

have the representative of the respective support for our positions, 

and we do need to have quick response, both Republicans and 

Democrats, we both like this system. In fact, when I was the chairman, Mr. Skelton testified in favor of it, even though ostensibly he 

could have had more people who by name were considered to be 

Democrat staff members. And in fact we have a number of members who are considered to be majority staff members now who 

were considered to be majority staff members when the Republicans had the Chair in the committee. So it has worked very well. 

I think the real recipient of this, the beneficiary has been the men 

and women who wear the uniform of the United States. 

It works well, and the chairman and I work well together. Our 

subcommittee Chairs work well together. We have so much work 

to do and we always get a defense bill out, which is a massive bill, 

we have so much work to do that we have to have this culture of 

cooperation. And so this has always worked for us. 

It is a little tough to explain in terms of ratios because it looks 

like the minority is getting short shrift, but we really aren’t, although I can assure you that I will now lean on Ike to get more 

people dedicated on the basis that I have defended his position 

here. 

Mr. EHLERS. Well, if you are happy, we are happy. But I would 

recognize it is a unique circumstance in your committee. 

Mr. SKELTON. At the end of the day, it does work. 

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. Now the question is, do you have detailees 

from the services branches on your staff? 

Mr. SKELTON. No, sir. I am not sure—maybe once upon a time 

we did, but it has been quite some time. 

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. That answers my questions. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. Under the 

House rules it has been such where we have had partsian and nonpartisan professional staff, and it has worked to the betterment of 

the Committee as a whole for the work that you do that is in a 

sense a nonpartisan type of a work that hopefully we can all recognize and appreciate, and so the House rules permit this to happen. 

Mrs. Davis, do you want to make comments? 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair, I 

would be happy to do that, and to Mr. Ehlers as well. I wanted to 

say that as a freshman and now as someone who has been on the 

committee for a few years, I really appreciate the help of the staff. 

I mean, I think what is a little unique about this committee, which 

is not to say that other committees don’t need members to get up 

to speed, but whether or not you have been in the State legislature 

or whatever you have been doing, you might have touched on 

issues of health or education, what have you. I think what is 

unique is that very few members come into that committee really 

being schooled in the issues that we deal with, and so we have to 

rely on staff to bring people up to speed, and I personally can speak 


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of my learning curve and I can’t imagine having done that, and 

that was certainly under Mr. Hunter and the majority staff at that 

time. That was very helpful. 

The other thing that I saw being played out was the fact that we 

have to go on a number of field visits, as you will. Our field visits 

are to Iraq and Afghanistan and to places that we need staff members there to help us out as well. So I want to speak to the fact 

that I think the staff is unique in that regard and I have never 

been able to distinguish. Quite frankly, I know who sort of the 

head staff are on the majority and minority, but I really just felt 

that everybody was there all the time. The other thing, just to 

mention, is how important the continuity is of the staff, and without that continuity, I think we would all be at a great loss. You 

can’t have that continuity unless you have people who don’t feel 

drawn to the private sector, and clearly that is a real problem as 

well. 

So I wanted to just mention that, to thank all the staff for being 

so tremendously helpful to me and that bipartisan nature that they 

represent. I think people respect one another a great deal, and we 

know we have tremendous work to do with great sensitivity to our 

troops and to the families that we all represent. So I want to thank 

both Mr. Skelton and Mr. Hunter for representing that through 

their staff. And I know, Madam Chair, I don’t know how much of 

that you got, but I just feel so strongly that the continuity on the 

staff—that is important, not to draw people away and the need 

that they have to help all of us get up to speed as new members 

on that committee and continuing members where we have not 

probably in the past with the exception of some new members this 

year I think who really have such a deep acquaintance with the 

issues that we have to face. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I couldn’t agree with you more. And with the 

vast complexity of the issues that are before this committee, you 

certainly do need those professional staff members irrespective of 

whether they are partisan or nonpartisan. And of course the rules 

suggest that you will have nonpartisan as well as partisan staffers. 

But we are happy that we were able to increase staff to the levels 

that we were this year. And if the appropriators come up with a 

magic trick, or pull something out of a hat, whether it’s a bunny 

rabbit or whatever, we will certainly give strong consideration to 

the Committee again. 

We thank you both so much for being here. We appreciate the 

work that you do for all of us Americans. 

Mr. SKELTON. Thank you. 

Mr. HUNTER. You are very kind, Madam Chairwoman. Thank 

you, Mrs. Davis, for your kind remarks too. We appreciate it. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Now the hour has come, and the Chairman of 

the Education and Workforce Committee is here; welcome, Mr. 

Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member. Mr. Ranking Member, thank 

you for your tolerance in waiting the few minutes for the Chairman 

to get in. We thank you both for being here this morning to present 

your budget and your agenda. We have been quite impressed with 

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So at this point, we will listen to the Chairman and then to the 

Ranking Member for your statements. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. GEORGE MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. MILLER. Well, thank you so very much, and this is my first 

time before this committee with you as Chair, Madam Chairman. 

Congratulations to you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. MILLER. It is quite exciting to see you sitting there, knowing 

your long history in election reform and fairness, which will be critical in front of this committee this year after you pass our budgets, 

which is very critical to us, but it will be very exciting for you as 

Chair of this committee, and we both congratulate you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. MILLER. We have worked with your ranking member Mr. 

Ehlers before and when I was the ranking member, and this committee I think has made many changes in the committee budgeting 

process that have been very good for this institution. And I am delighted to be joined here with my senior Republican, Congressman 

McKeon, in support of this request. 

As we have in the past, we have tried to work in this budget 

process on a bipartisan basis, going back and forth with the professional staff, trying to determine the needs of what our committees 

on both sides of the aisle will be. We have tried to adhere to the 

requirement of one-third/two-thirds and also the idea of the shared 

staff, where possible, to work on that in a joint fashion, and I think 

that is why we have been able to submit to you a budget that is 

very lean, but I think it deals with the needs that we have to conduct the committee business through this year, which includes a 

heavy legislative oversight schedule. 

As you know, we have a number of major pieces of legislation before this committee, the No Child Left Behind, the Higher Education Act, the Innovation Agenda, job training, Head Start and a 

number of other issues, and also a pretty robust oversight schedule 

anticipated. So I want to thank Congressman McKeon for his support on this, and we look forward to answering whatever questions 

you might have. 

[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 

Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, members of the 

committee. This is also my first appearance here. In my short tenure as chairman, I never had to have this opportunity. I want to 

thank you for having us here today. I am not going to read the 

statement that I have in the file. Let me just say that I am in total 

agreement with Chairman Miller on this issue, and I really appreciate how he has worked with us and it has been a bipartisan 

basis, and I appreciate that he has let us be a part of it, and I also 

want to commend him for being very frugal in his request. I think, 

as I have reviewed all the committees, he has asked for the smallest increase, and I think it is needed, especially with all of the 

things that he has in store for us. 

So I urge the committee to give your fair consideration to our request, and I am prepared to answer any questions. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, I thank you so much. And I do appreciate the bipartisan nature by which you two work. I am happy to 

know with this robust agenda you have, of course No Child Left 

Behind has been buzzing throughout the country for over a year or 

so. So you now have the opportunity to make good of it. Along with 

the Higher Education Act and the innovation agenda, Head Start 

is also important. So you do have an agenda that speaks to the 

needs of the American people. Your budget is very lean and while 

we recognize that, we also recognize the fact that we did not have 

a budget last year, and therefore, we are coming in on your budget 

from the last year baseline and then increasing that by a very modest 2.4 percent for inflation which perhaps may not come up to the 

levels that you might want, but that is the best we can do, given 

the budget constraints that we are under. 

So we appreciate your tolerance and your consideration for that. 

If something else comes down the pike, you will be among those 

chairpersons who are considered for that. I am happy to know that 

you are a two-thirds/one-third commitment committee that works 

very well together because it is important that that happens. So 

with that, I will allow the Ranking Member to say a few words. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I agree with Chairman Miller that it is exciting to see you in the Chair here, and it 

is a great honor. Somehow I found it more exciting when I was in 

the Chair, but nevertheless we are happy to see you there. 

[The statement of Mr. McKeon follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. EHLERS. I agree also with the Chair on the two-third/onethird ratio. We worked very, very hard to reach that level, and we 

want to make sure we maintain it in the future no matter who is 

in the majority. So we appreciate your commitment to that. It is 

an excellent committee. Mrs. Davis from California is on the committee as well as I. It is a highlight to be on that committee because we are dealing with I think some of the most important 

issues in the Congress, and that is educating our kids for the future. It is going to be a very difficult, very uncertain future in 

many respects, and I am just pleased the committee is taking it 

that seriously. 

I wish we could do better for you. I am hoping that we don’t have 

another aborted appropriations process for the next fiscal year, and 

we hope that we can do better because what you have outlined is 

truly necessary for the committee. We hope we will be able to get 

you there in another year, but this year we are constrained by the 

continuing resolution which did not adequately fund the committees. So with that, I will yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Ehlers 

as well. I have an opportunity to sit on the Education Committee. 

It has been a great experience for me, and I appreciate what the 

staff has done in bringing members along and helping us to deal 

with the complexities that we really face in education and labor. 

And as you mention, Mr. Ehlers, there is nothing closer to people. 

There is nothing more important to them than the education of 

their children. And so I think it is this kind of moral imperative 

that we do what is right by our country in educating the young 

people who I know are going to take over from us and I hope are 

going to do so in a way that really engages the public and helps 

them to see how important this issue is as well. 

So I actually was a little surprised that our chairman hasn’t 

come here, you know, screaming and yelling and saying, you know, 

we need additional money because we have an added commitment 

this year in the reauthorizations. They are critical. No Child Left 

Behind certainly is, and we just had some time to look at that issue 

outside of here as well. So I commend them for being as frugal and 

as direct at this as possible, but I would say that if we can find 

some additional resources that would be wonderful. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, we hope that we can find them under 

rocks or whatever. But one thing is for sure, when you think about 

education you think about the future. And that is what is so important about this committee. 

Mr. Lungren, do you have any comments? No comments. Thank 

you both so much for being here, and thank you for your lean but 

mean posture in these budget constraint times. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. If I might, I know you were trying to 

build a tradition in here and a standard on this one-third/twothirds, and I would just say I was extended that courtesy when the 

committee changed over under John Boehner, and I think it is very 

important. I think that we do build this legacy of some fairness 

here, and whatever happens in the House and what have you, we 

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tesy that I hope I extended to Buck during this budgetary process 

by then Chairman Boehner on this committee. We like to think we 

are the seed of bipartisanship, but we are working at it. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, indeed you have enhanced the 

collegiality. Thank you both so much both for being here. Mr. Waxman and Mr. Davis, thank you both for being here and welcome. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. HENRY WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Chairwoman, I am pleased to have this opportunity to testify before you the first time as the Chair of a committee, and I congratulate you on your assignment. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Ehlers, congratulations to you as well for 

being the ranking member. I don’t notice that any of the members 

of the committee are on the Oversight and Government Reform 

Committee. So many of you indicated you were on the Education 

and Labor Committee but I am hopeful that because there are so 

many Californians on this committee, it may serve our interests. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Duly noted. 

Mr. WAXMAN. For whatever it is worth. Mr. Davis and I are here 

together to submit this budget. We have worked together during 

the time that Mr. Davis was chairman in fulfilling his pledge to 

provide the minority with one-third of the committee resources, 

and we intend to approach allocating our resources for the minority 

in the same way. Also during his tenure as Chair, Mr. Davis established a professional and respectful working relationship with the 

minority. We were able to work in a bipartisan and effective manner on a number of important legislative and oversight matters, 

and I hope to continue this cooperative and bipartisan relationship 

as we go forward. 

Our committee unfortunately is facing a budget squeeze. The 

Oversight Committee received significantly less funding than other 

committees over the past 6 years. The fact is the Republican leadership did not provide the increases we had hoped. Since 2000 the 

budgets of other House committees have grown at an average rate 

of nearly 6 percent per year, over twice the inflation rate. But during the same period the Oversight Committee’s budget grew by less 

than 1 percent per year. In real dollars, the budget shrank by more 

than 12 percent over the last 6 years. 

The reduction in funding the Oversight Committee has experienced has had a direct and predictable impact on our ability to do 

our job. At the full committee level, we have eight slots for professional staff, over 15 percent of our professional staff positions that 

we cannot fill because we don’t have the funds to pay for additional 

staff. The election of 2006 certainly sent a strong message that the 

American public wants Congress to do oversight, to hold government accountable, and we look at our committee as taking on that 

primary oversight role. 

We have an aggressive oversight agenda that includes probes of 

waste, fraud and abuse in the reconstruction of Iraq and other Federal contracting, corporate profiteering, politicization of science, the 

healthcare system and other pressing matters. But we won’t be 

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out adequate funding. Oversight is resource intensive. Agencies 

and companies under investigation are already trying to bury the 

committee in hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. And we 

need manpower to wade through these document dumps and to 

interview and depose witnesses. To meet our oversight and legislative demands, the committee is requesting a 4 percent increase for 

2007 and a 12 percent increase for 2008. Even with the increases, 

the committee’s budget would still be lower in real terms in 2008 

than in 2000. 

We are trying to be as economical as possible in this budget request. The committee is not requesting any increase in funding for 

travel, equipment or supplies for 2007. We have asked some of our 

new hires to come here and take a pay cut of over 50 percent. We 

are going to stretch our salary budget by taking into account that 

our new hires are not joining the committee all at once. But to enable the committee to fill its investigative staff positions, we will 

need more resources, especially in 2008 when the real crunch hits. 

As you weigh our request for funding, I urge you to keep in mind 

that the work of our committee can lead to substantial savings for 

American taxpayers. During just our first week of hearings, the Defense Department announced that it would withhold nearly $20 

million in improper payments to Halliburton. This $20 million savings to the taxpayer, which was a direct result of our committee’s 

oversight alone, covers nearly 90 percent of our 2-year budget request. 

Let me close by saying, I recognize the funding constraints the 

House Administration Committee faces, and we have tried to 

present as small a budget as possible that would enable the Oversight Committee to carry out its core responsibilities. If budgets 

were not so tight, the committee could effectively use significantly 

more resources than we are requesting. Once again, I want to 

thank you for this opportunity to testify before the committee and 

hope you will look favorably on our request, and we look forward 

to working with you in this Congress. 

[The statement of Mr. Waxman follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 

Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA 

Mr. DAVIS of Virginia. Thank you very much, and I ask my entire 

statement be put into the record, and I will try to summarize it 

briefly. First I want to express my strong support with Chairman 

Waxman for the committee funding request for the 110th Congress. 

I think we have established the kind of relationship that ought to 

be the norm in Congress. It is a relationship based on open communication, candor and respect. During the 109th Congress, our committee and its seven subcommittees held 256 oversight hearings on 

everything from contracting in Iraq to steroids in baseball. We ordered 359 reports, testimonies and briefings in support of oversight 

investigations and program reviews. And according to the Government Accountability Office, the committee’s efforts saved taxpayers 

$6.5 billion. We more than paid for ourselves. And of course the 

propensity is when the power party in Congress is the same as the 

party in the executive branch, the investigations don’t tend quite 

to be at the same norm as they are with the opposition in each end 

of government, in each end of Pennsylvania Avenue. If you need to 

do oversight and investigations at this point, I think it is going to 

have to be beefed up considerably because I think our budget, as 

Mr. Waxman noted, actually went down vis-a-vis real dollars during the last 6 years. And in terms of other committees, we structured the least for the reasons I just put forward. 

I think we have done a pretty good job. I know Henry has a very 

ambitious oversight agenda. We are going to need resources to 

counteract him. But this is a committee that many of you are not 

aware of all the legislative accomplishments we have had. But the 

oversight role is critical, and we need investigators. 

[The statement of Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. That is it, Mr. Ranking Member? 

Mr. DAVIS of Virginia. That is it. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay. Fine. Thank you very much. I do say 

you have an ambitious oversight agenda, much of which I have 

looked at on C–SPAN, and I commend you for that type of oversight, which has been sorely missing, and the public tends to thank 

you too, thank you for that because they too think it is long overdue for this committee to look into certain things that have, as you 

outlined, Mr. Waxman, allowed the withholding of nearly $20 million—and I got that out of your statement—for improper payments 

to Halliburton. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Those kinds of things come because of the ambitious oversight agenda, and I regret that your new staff hires 

have come in with a salary cut. We have heard from so many chairpersons and ranking members that this is happening to them. 

We have to operate from the baseline of last year’s budget with 

a very modest increase of 2.4 percent for inflation. So while that 

does not bode well with you, I am sure, your request for a 12.8 percent increase for fiscal year 2008 is something we are going to look 

into, because we do understand the critical need and also the critical importance of this committee and the results that you are getting from what you are doing. 

With that, I will note this and take it to the Speaker and see if 

we can perhaps increase this. I am sorry to say that because of the 

constraints, we are only able to give you what the appropriators 

have recommended that we give you for this year. But next year, 

2008, we will look and see just what is in store, and hopefully, it 

will be to your satisfaction. 

The Ranking Member. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. It occurs to me that 

maybe you would be better off acting as a bill collecting agency and 

working for a percentage of what you are able to recover through 

your oversight. 

Mr. DAVIS of Virginia. It is dangerous enough as it is. 

Mr. EHLERS. We could never do that, but you have been a real 

bulldog on it, sometimes more like a small terrier. At any rate, we 

appreciate the work on the committee and what they do. 

I just want to reinforce that the two-thirds/one-third allocation, 

this committee worked very hard to achieve; and we are very determined to continue to maintain that. So I am pleased you have committed to continuing that relationship. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Yes, absolutely. 

There was a time when we were in the minority where we 

couldn’t even get the one-third, but this committee urged it upon 

our committee, and under Chairman Davis we had that relationship. And I think it is one that is good to have spelled out. 

Mr. EHLERS. Right, and we were determined to accomplish it. It 

took a number of years, particularly in those committees in which 

the minority had been very small under the Democrat majority, 

and so it took longer to bring those up. 

But that is history. We are determined to keep it the way it is 

now. We think that is fair. 

Other than that, I have no questions at this point. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. 


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I did note, too, that you are not requesting any increase in funding for travel or equipment and other things, and so you really certainly have cut as much as you can. 

The 15 slots that you spoke about, Mr. Chairman, that are without staff, this will be in addition to what you already have? 

Mr. WAXMAN. That is for this year that we are not able to fill. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. You are not able to fill, which were there the 

previous years? 

Mr. WAXMAN. Yes. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay, fine. 

Well, that is regrettable, but we are trying to see how we can 

move through these constraints, too. And, again, a bright light 

hopefully for you is that we will look into the 2008 budget in terms 

of your increase requests and see where we go from there. 

Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

As you know, I was gone for a few years from here. Is the committee that you have now, is that the successor to what used to be 

known as Government Ops? 

Mr. WAXMAN. It is the successor of three committees, I think, 

when you were here. There was the District of Columbia Committee, the Post Office and Civil Service and the Government Operations; and they were combined into one committee. 

Mr. LUNGREN. All right. I was just looking at the 1994 committee 

staff ratios, and there the minority was given on Government Ops 

21 percent, and I think D.C., a little less than one-third and Post 

Office was 24 percent. So I am glad that we have established as 

a matter of principle that there should be one-third no matter who 

is in charge. 

The second question I had is this: Obviously, we are not giving 

anybody anything that they want because of the budget that we 

have. But you talked about cuts, and I was looking through the 

numbers, and unless my numbers are wrong, your committee has 

the largest number of staff, I believe, of anyone. Is that correct, 

118? Is that what it is? 

Mr. DAVIS of Virginia. Probably. I think that is correct. Remember, it is the major investigative committee of the Congress. 

Mr. LUNGREN. That is the other question I have. I have been the 

one that has always banged on Congress for not having enough 

oversight, but I always assumed that all of our authorizing committees were supposed to be doing oversight. And I know the name of 

your committee and I know what you do, but could you give me an 

idea of how you believe that you do oversight relative to the authorizing committees? 

Mr. DAVIS of Virginia. Let me start. 

The Government Ops Committee was put together in the 1950s 

after a series of special committees were put together to investigate 

waste, fraud and abuse in government; and so they put it under 

one committee in the House and the Senate. And the reason they 

did this is because we are not close to the authorizers in the executive branch in the way that the Agriculture Committee may be or 

Education and Labor or whatever else. And so this was to look at 

waste across the government; that was the concept. 


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In 1995, they added the additional legislative responsibilities for 

the District of Columbia—which this committee has done a lot on, 

I might add—and for Post Office and Civil Service. And we just 

passed a major postal reform bill last year after 40 years of trying. 

So we have had additional legislative responsibilities. 

Traditionally, when you have—when President Clinton was in, 

the staff was beefed up far greater than it is today. Republicans 

doing investigations of the Democratic administration at that point. 

When President Bush took over, those numbers came down, and we 

moved some investigative slots, candidly, to the legislative side because we had a legislative backlog that hadn’t been fulfilled, as 

well, if—well, if that gives you a perspective. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, Mr. Lungren. 

As I look back, because of other committees who have come before us talking about staff slots, you are correct. They have the 

largest staff of any other committee that I have been able to go 

back and check on. So it gives us even more, I guess, pause as to 

the critical need for this committee to have what it needs to do its 

work. 

Ms. Davis, I think your hand was up. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I just would say, as I said earlier in the discussion, I think that 

when you have—when you have a strong investigative arm, as this 

committee does, then members, for one, need to be up to speed in 

a way that may be different in some other committees. And also 

you need to be able to counteract those who are functioning in that 

regard all the time. 

So your committee is looking at so many different issues, and you 

may be up against folks who, their only issue is to basically, in 

some ways, work against what you are trying to just discover and 

work with. And so I think that it is critically important that you 

have the resources that you need—understanding, of course, that 

I don’t think any of the committees are going to have the resources 

that they need. But this is a great need. 

We have also talked so much about interagency coordination, and 

in some ways, I think some of that does fall to the committee because you look across the jurisdictions. And I applaud you for the 

work that you have done. 

There are a lot of—a lot of words have described Mr. Waxman, 

I think—probably Mr. Davis, as well—and ‘‘dogged’’ is one that 

comes to mind. I think that is important, and we want people who 

can do that. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Other people mind. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I have, probably, other words. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I think really the keywords are ‘‘no nonsense,’’ 

and this is a committee that is no nonsense because they are about 

the work of the government and the people. 

And so as we look at those committees that have the investigatory arm, really, we do need to look at that more seriously in terms 

of staffing, because you do a lot of discovery and have to go out and 

do those things that a lot of other committees aren’t doing and do 

not have the role to do. 


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So that is something that I have noted now and will talk with 

the Speaker about. 

But in the meantime, we thank you for the work that you do. I 

can’t think of any other committee that has as many oversight 

hearings as this committee has begun and will continue to do. And 

kudos to you for that, Mr. Chairman, and the Ranking Member. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

Well, that concludes the first half of this all-day funding hearing. 

We will again recess for the afternoon slots of time, and we will 

resume at 2 o’clock for the beginning of the second part of this 

funding committee. 

At this point, the Committee is in recess. 

[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the Committee recessed, to reconvene 

at 2:00 p.m., the same day.] 

[2:30 p.m.] 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Good afternoon and thanks again for your patience as we resume this hearing today on committee funding for 

all of the committees. We are most appreciative to those chairpersons and ranking members who have come before us to give us 

the outline of their budget as well as their agenda. We are quite 

impressed by what we have before us by way of Ways and Means. 

Of course the votes delayed us from continuing. But at this time 

we would like to do just that. 

We have before us today the Chairman of the Ways and Means, 

Mr. Rangel, and the Ranking Member, Mr. McCrery, to present 

their budget and their agenda. 

Welcome to both of you. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW 

YORK 

Mr. RANGEL. Thank you, Madam Chairlady, and as you know 

this is the first time I have had the honor to sit before you as our 

Chair, and I just can’t begin to tell you how proud I am to see you 

sitting there and how pleased we are to come before you with what 

we think is a very modest budget in view of what the fiscal situation is in the House of Representatives. 

We have worked together in terms of trying to bring a bipartisan 

budget before you, and we have made the allocations that traditionally our committee has been able to do over the years. 

Previously the minority was given their one-third. We will continue to do that. In terms of real dollars, the amount that we are 

proposing is still less than that of 1994. For year one, 2007, we 

have proposed a 7 percent increase from 2006, which totals 

9,785,128. For year two we have proposed a 5 percent increase 

from 2007, for the total for both years of 12.5. 

In the 104th Congress, our committee was cut by 37 percent. 

Personnel was cut by more than half, and it was the only committee that survived that took a cut of that weight. 

We are asking for six additional staffers since both the minority 

and the majority agree that we can take on the problem of Social 

Security, taxes, to some extent. Health is certainly an issue, as is 

trade. We do intend, as the Speaker would want, for us to increase 


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our oversight. We don’t intend to be a traveling committee, but in 

view of the enlarged legislative agenda that we have assumed, we 

did put in some money for travel. 

I also would like to add, as most of the House knows, that the 

majority and the minority have started off this session in trying to 

see exactly what it is that we can accomplish, where we do have 

agreements and not the extent of the disagreements that the parties and members of the committees have had in the past. We are 

very pleased with the progress that we have made. So the budget, 

as in other areas of the jurisdiction of the committee, we have 

worked very closely with Mr. McCrery, and I would like to yield to 

him at this point in time. 

[The statement of Mr. Rangel follows:] 


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STATEMENT OF THE HON. JIM MCCRERY, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Mr. MCCRERY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Ehlers and members of the committee. I 

appreciate having the opportunity to appear this afternoon with 

Chairman Rangel in support of our budget proposal for the 110th 

Congress. I want to express my appreciation to Chairman Rangel 

for working with me and my staff as he developed the Ways and 

Means budget request. 

We were consulted in the preparation of the budget proposal, and 

under this budget the minority has full control of one-third of the 

budget and resources. Both the chairman’s and my staff have 

worked hard to ensure a smooth and seamless transition. Whether 

it was the logistics of moving office space, transferring computer 

files and equipment or assigning parking permits, we were able to 

effectively coordinate so that the committee was prepared to begin 

working once Congress convened. 

I support the committee’s budget proposal. An increase in our 

current budget will assist in providing the necessary resources 

needed to tackle the committee’s historically aggressive agenda. It 

is consistent with the requested increases of the past several Congresses, and I should note was approved by our committee unanimously on January 17, 2007. 

Thanks again for the opportunity to testify, and I would be 

pleased to respond to any questions you might have. 

[The statement of Mr. McCrery follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you both so much for outlining your 

agenda and your budget. You both understand that we are in an 

environment that is not conducive to increases beyond the very 

modest 2.4 percent that the appropriators and the Budget Committee have given us because last year we did not have a budget 

passed. And because of that we have to operate from the baseline 

of last year’s budget with just that mere increase, that would be 

2.4 percent. 

While we do recognize and appreciate the extraordinary services 

that you provide, with the very talented personnel that you have, 

and as I look back on my notes and look at the subcommittee’s 

oversight in terms of IRS operations, you are also looking at tax 

relief for individuals and families. Those are the things that the 

American people want us to look at and to do. 

And yet, in spite of all of that, we have such dismal budget constraints that at this time we are unable to provide anything other 

than that 2.4 percent. 

I am encouraged by your work with the Ranking Member, Mr. 

Chairman, and bringing about the two-thirds/one-third agreement 

and commitment that has been set forth in the rules, and we are 

happy that you are working in a bipartisan way to do that. 

We do not feel good about your personnel that was cut by more 

than half and your need for additional staff. Now there are many 

committee chairpersons who have come before me today and said 

that if we don’t do something about the staffing and about the salaries, we are going to lose out on these very professional, very talented people who will go elsewhere to work where they will have 

a salary conducive to their talent. So I will take this back to the 

Speaker to talk with her. I can’t guarantee you anything will happen that will perhaps increase at this juncture, but what I will do 

is report back on the extraordinary work that you are doing. 

We understand your large legislative agenda and all of the other 

hearings that you have outlined here in your presentation, but in 

light of all of that, we are still unable to do at this time anything 

outside of that modest increase. 

And so with that, I will go to the Speaker to talk about this critical need for additional staff and what will happen in the long run 

if we do not at least address that issue. 

I will now ask the Ranking Member for any comments that he 

might have. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I am pleased 

to hear your reassurance you will honor the one-third/two-thirds. 

We are getting that commitment out of every chairman and ranking member that come before us today, and we are doing it jointly 

because it was very hard to develop that. We have developed it 

over the past 12 years. We are bound and determined to make sure 

the committees stick to that. 

One other thing, Mr. McCrery, it sounds from your comments as 

if this entire project of developing the budget was a joint effort between you and the chairman and that you both worked closely together on it. Is that correct? 

Mr. MCCRERY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EHLERS. That is a good model to follow. We have heard from 

a few committees, well a very few, but a few that do not follow 


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that. I think that is a good approach and I commend Chairman 

Rangel for doing that as well. 

With that, I have nothing further to say. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Any member wishes to speak or make any comments? 

Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Chairman, I just very quickly got to know 

Jim when we served for an endless number of years on the Ethics 

Committee together and I know really the bonhomme you have and 

it is great to see you working with the chairman and I am so happy 

to sit here and be able to say, Mr. Chairman Rangel, it is a pleasure to follow our Chair’s lead but really a pleasure to see you, Mr. 

Chairman, for the first time in this committee. 

Mr. MCCRERY. Thank you. 

Mr. RANGEL. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you both so much. Any other comments? If not, we will certainly do our due diligence in addressing 

and speaking to the Speaker on the issue of staffing. 

Mr. RANGEL. Because you have said that, Madam Chairlady, I 

would like to add something, and Zoe probably knew Jim McCrery 

better than I did because it was a different atmosphere in that 

committee. I would like to say that I have come to know, respect, 

and look forward to working with him. 

In that respect, I would like to say, briefly since you will be talking with the Speaker, that you might as well know that Jim and 

I have been working very closely with the Administration to see 

what areas of the big ticket items that we could possibly tackle to 

bring credit upon the Congress and certainly our committee. We 

haven’t taken anything off the table, whether it is Social Security, 

trade, simplification of taxes, and we even thought about touching 

some parts of health the best that we could. 

We also agreed that the issue that we can get a handle on, the 

one we can get a consensus on, is going to be our priority. 

You can tell the Speaker I don’t think we are going to be hitting 

successes in each one of those areas. But I can tell you one thing, 

that if it does happen, we won’t be able to do it. As good as the 

staff is, each one of these problems that I mentioned are just tremendous in terms of size and what we will have to do in terms of 

hearings. And so, we will be forward but somehow—and I don’t 

know how it works since I am new at this—but somehow I just 

can’t believe that if we start moving on those issues that the whole 

country is waiting to see movement, and we have had none for a 

decade. We also agreed that we are convinced that even if we are 

not successful, that at the end of this term it is going to be much 

easier for those who follow us to know that these issues have to 

be dealt with no matter what the political pain is. 

So I appreciate that you are taking it back to the Speaker. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And I appreciate your comments. I have duly 

noted your comments now. So I can mention and speak with her 

on that because those big ticket items that you mentioned, we have 

not even gotten into that fully, yet they are upon you in your committee. 

So thank you so much. 


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What I would like to reiterate is what the Ranking member said, 

and it is very true. You have worked so well with one another, and 

that is the beginning step to success on any committee. So we 

thank you for sharing your budget, and for speaking about personnel traveling and hearings. You have worked in concert, and 

that is to be commended and thank you for coming before the Committee today. 

Mr. RANGEL. I thank all of you. 

Mr. MCCRERY. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We would like to now call up Chairwoman 

Vela ́zquez and the Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot, from Small Business. It is indeed a pleasure to have a woman at the helm of any 

committee, but certainly Small Business and we appreciate the 

work that you have done in your position as Ranking Member, and 

now you have been honored, and we are honored by your being 

here and we are also honored to have with us the Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot. 

So would you like to get started now, Madam Chairwoman? 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW 

YORK 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Madam Chairman Millender 

McDonald and Ranking Member Ehlers. I appreciate the opportunity today to come before the House Administration Committee 

and discuss the budget submission for the House Small Business 

Committee in the 110th Congress. The committee requests these 

funds to address the critical issues facing small businesses in this 

Nation. 

With the help of Mr. Chabot, the committee has already adopted 

an aggressive oversight plan that will significantly increase its legislative and oversight role. This budget submission was developed 

in full consultation with Mr. Chabot’s office. The committee seeks 

a 12 percent increase in funding from the last Congress. In terms 

of dollars, this increase request represents the third smallest of any 

of the committees. 

And I want to repeat that, because I don’t want for you to be impressed with the 12 percent request, but since 1994 basically the 

budget of the Small Business Committee was decimated, and we 

are still trying to recover from the impact that that cost to the 

Small Business Committee. 

I would like to note that our committee will change how the 

funds are allocated to the minority. Unlike previous Congresses, 

the minority will have control over the full third of the budget, including travel as opposed to just salary and personnel. I think it 

is important that Mr. Chabot and his staff have the flexibility to 

determine their spending priorities. 

The increase in funding is particularly necessary because of the 

committee’s change in jurisdiction. When the House adopted its 

rules package this year the Rules Committee made it clear that the 

Small Business Committee shall have an increased jurisdiction beyond the SBA and its programs. That means that the committee 

will consider issues such as the technology, agriculture, and other 

legislation that have a significant impact on small businesses. 


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To keep up with these issues, the committee has hired experts 

in the various areas to ensure the interests of entrepreneurs are 

protected. We are also seeking funds to provide dedicated staffing 

to assist the five subcommittees. They request six additional funding and three additional slots to have dedicated staff to assist the 

new subcommittee Chairs. This budget would make sure that that 

happens. 

The committee also plans on holding a number of field hearings 

so that we can speak with small businesses directly. Millions of 

small businesses do not have the ability or their budget, their 

money, resources to express their concerns or to hire high priced 

lobbyists to come before Members of Congress. By doing hearings 

across the country we will create the opportunity to have members 

listen to their concerns and identify ways to improve the business 

environment. 

The budget also incorporates the equipment needs of the committee. We requested a total of eight new computers for 2007. Since 

this Congress started, we have already ordered five new computers 

to accommodate this staff. We will need at least three more new 

computers when we are fully staffed. The committee will also need 

a new copier. The main majority office is currently operating without one. 

I will also like to mention make mention of an item of importance that is not included in our committee’s budget submission. 

The committee hearing room is in desperate need of major renovations. It badly needs upgrades to both the audio-visual system and 

the overall setup. The current setup is such that we can only have 

about half of the committee members seated at one time. In terms 

of technology the audio system is virtually unworkable and the 

room does not have the capacity to take advantage of new technologies. I will seek your assistance in helping address this problem. 

In conclusion, the committee plans on using the requested resources to conduct rigorous oversight and work in passing legislation that will improve this Nation’s economy. We have a number 

of important issues, which includes addressing the $12 billion of 

small business contracts being awarded to large companies, making 

sure that the Federal marketplace is open for small businesses in 

America, improving oversight and making changes to the SBA disaster loan program which failed during Hurricane Katrina. We will 

also undertake a measure, reauthorization of the Small Business 

Administration and its problems that have not been changed in 

over a decade. 

I appreciate your time and will be willing to answer any question 

that members of the committee may have. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Vela ́zquez follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. Mr. Chabot. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. STEVE CHABOT, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Chairwoman Millender McDonald and 

Ranking Member Ehlers and the other members of the committee. 

I am pleased to join my friend, the Chair of the Small Business 

Committee, Ms. Vela ́zquez, in submitting our committee funding 

request for the 110th Congress. As my colleagues know, the Small 

Business Committee receives the smallest allocation of any full 

committee and has historically received the lowest funding increase 

of any committee since the 104th Congress, or back in 1995. 

The Chair of the House Administration Committee is of course 

a senior and respected member of the Small Business Committee 

and knows that our committee carries a full legislative load and 

will take on even more work this year as our jurisdiction expands. 

I believe the committee funding request is a fair one and hope you 

will give it every consideration. 

I look forward to working with Chairwoman Vela ́zquez in support of our Nation’s small businesses and with your distinguished 

committee as well as we move forward. I thank the Chair and 

ranking member and all the other members of this committee, and 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you both so much for your great outline and presentation on small business. 

Of course I sit on this Committee, so I know the clarion call of 

this chairwoman when she was ranking member on the disproportionate way the budget was set. It has always had the lowest infusion of funding. 

However, we all recognize that there was not a budget passed 

last year, therefore we have to operate from the baseline of last 

year’s budget and bring in the increase of about 2.2, 2.3 percent. 

Now I will say this. The increase that we are giving all Chairs 

is across the board. So that in no way diminishes your numbers in 

terms of the increase. But we do not have the propensity at this 

moment to do anything else because of the lack of funding that the 

appropriators and budget folks have disallowed. You said your 

main office is without a computer, did I hear you correctly on that, 

and your hearing room does not have capacity to seat all members 

at one time? Those are issues that I have asterisked so that I can 

look into those. Although we know that space is a premium in this 

place, and that has been the cry from all chairpersons and ranking 

members; that they need additional slots. You need 3 additional 

slots, I have that outlined here. 

It has become quite problematic. We regret that we have to tell 

you this and wish that we could tell you something else that has 

a rosier outcome, but that is the way it is. That is the position we 

are in with the CRs that went through. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Madam Chair, I would ask that when you discuss the budget submission with the Speaker that you take note to 

the fact that the Small Business Committee jurisdiction has been 

expanded. With that comes more responsibility and therefore in 

order for us to do our job, we should be given more consideration 

when it comes to the budget. 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. I couldn’t agree with you more, and of course 

I am only a lone voice of many who go to the Speaker to talk with 

her. But I will carry that with me knowing that you have always 

been as, one would say, short-changed in terms of your budget 

since 1994, as you so eloquently outlined, that that has impacted 

your budget. 

I was amazed and really quite pleased to know that you are 

bringing in agriculture because one does not readily think small 

business agriculture. But it is definitely a fit. 

I am also very appreciative to you, Madam Chairwoman, because 

it seems like there was somewhat of a tug that you had when you 

were ranking member for the two-third/one-third agreement. And 

you have done that in very open forum and you have done that 

with ease and so I applaud you on that because Mr. Chabot has 

worked very well with you and continues I am sure to work well 

with you, and also the travel and personnel that you are expanding 

along that line. 

Mr. CHABOT. Madam Chairwoman. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes, please. 

Mr. CHABOT. I would just like to note that the Chair has been 

very fair and very cooperative and very gracious. The committee 

staffs are working together and the members as well, so we are 

very pleased with the working relationship that we have and we 

have every reason to believe that it will continue. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, I tell you, those are refreshing words 

coming from a ranking member. But then those are the words that 

we have heard all day today from ranking members and so we have 

had at least the pleasantry of sitting here hearing that there is cooperation between the chairperson and the ranking member. And 

that is a good thing. So we thank you for that. 

And with that, I will turn it over to the Ranking Member. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

First of all, let me join in congratulating you for working together on the budget and presenting it jointly, and I appreciate 

that sort of cooperation. I especially appreciate the two-third and 

one-third ratio because this committee worked very hard for a 

dozen years to establish that principle. Both the ranking member 

and I are committed to maintaining the two-thirds/one-third tradition. 

What is the definition of small business now? 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Well, you know, that is one of the issues that 

we still have pending with the Small Business Administration 

given the fact that in the last 6 years their budget has been cut 

by 40 percent. They don’t have the manpower to be able to define 

what a small business is because it has to be based on the different 

industries. What is for the restaurant industry is not for manufacturing, and so on. So it is kind of confusing, but we are trying to 

do our best. 

Mr. EHLERS. Well, I appreciate that, and I was not trying to lay 

a trap. I am curious because I have heard so many things over the 

years. 

I think we all know and we all agree that small business is the 

greatest job creation that we have in this Nation. I think it is very 

important that we protect the small businesses. Perhaps maybe 


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you can take on the issue of the estate tax as well because it affects 

small businesses more than anyone else. Farmers and small businessmen, I hear from them all the time. So perhaps in your spare 

time you can work with the Ways and Means Committee and come 

up with a solution to that. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. If I may, that issue is part of our oversight plan. 

But let me just say you know every place we go or every person 

that you hear, they talk about how small businesses are the drivers 

of our economy. They create 80 percent of all new jobs. But when 

it comes to providing the resources for all to do the job of helping 

small businesses to do what they do best—and that is creating 

jobs—we need resources. 

With expanded jurisdiction, we want to go do field hearings. 

They don’t have the resources that would allow for them to pay lobbyists to come and talk to us. So it is great if we can do field hearings across America, rural America and urban America. We go and 

we listen to them. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, and I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, I must say that America is waiting for 

small business to come across the country because they do want to 

hear from you and want to really have you hear from them. You 

are absolutely right, everyone talks about small businesses being 

the engine and yet they do nothing about it. So that is what we 

call doubletalk. I am sure you two are fed up with the double-talk 

and want something other than that and want something productive. 

Are there any other Members? Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Chairwoman, I have never served on this 

committee but I have heard a lot about it from the now chairwoman. I do congratulate her and the ranking member. I served 

with her 13 years on the Judiciary Committee. I am confident that 

you will have a good Congress working together. 

I just—not having served on the committee, I am struck by the 

comments and I do remember that there was not necessarily as 

pleasing a relationship in the last hearing as we see here today. 

And I am glad that we have—you have established what we think 

is the right thing, which is the minority gets their third, and they 

get to control their third. And that is the way it should be. And 

I compliment you for living up to that, even though there were 

some issues about that when you were in the minority. 

On that, I mean, we understand that there is a limit, Madam 

Chairwoman, of 2 percent. But if a committee such as this one— 

if a committee such as this one really was down unusually low, I 

would certainly support your efforts to make some kind of accommodation for that. Because doing it across the board when there 

was something weird, weirdly low to begin with, it doesn’t seem exactly right. And more than just right, it defeats our mission, which 

is, you know—I just know from my own area and I am sure this 

is true across the country—there is some oversight that needs to 

be done on these SBA programs and small businesses aren’t necessarily getting what we think they are getting. And I think that 

both the chairwoman and the ranking member would want to do 

that because it is—I mean this is not a partisan issue. This is 

about the small business people of America. 


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So I just wanted to support whatever efforts you make to get a 

little bit of a bigger bump-up. The idea that you don’t have enough 

room for every Member of the committee to sit, how can that be 

acceptable? So I think that some adjustment would need to be 

made, and I thank the gentlelady. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I thank the gentlelady for her comments, duly 

noted. I think that is an issue that we should look into and address 

with the Speaker. When I go I will have a long laundry list of 

things that the Speaker at least will hear me out. 

Do any other Members wish to speak on this? Yes. First Mrs. 

Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Very quickly, Madam Chair, the continuity we spoke about in other committees certainly would apply 

here as well. I would be interested in knowing whether it is tougher to keep some of your staff partly because you may not be accommodating them as well as some other committees. Has that been 

a problem? 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Basically, my staff and the staff that was serving with me before still remain, yes. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. So they are loyal. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Yes, they are. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. They are loyal and—— 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. They are loyal but there is a point where, you 

know, the private market out there is seeking for people with a 

type of expertise and knowledge that they have. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. And we all rely upon that as well, certainly on the Armed Services. The Department of Defense, we deal 

with contract bundling all the time and the importance of bringing 

in small business. So I appreciate the work that you all are doing. 

So thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you all so much, Ms. Davis. Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I 

apologize for getting here late. I just wanted to add my own observation, having served on Small Business when I first got to Congress and having rejoined recently. It is an important committee 

whose work has been neglected, and I believe this—and I don’t 

mean to sound partisan because I believe you have members on 

both sides of the aisle agree with the observation that the bulk of 

the work has to do of course with the Small Business Administration and the many programs that are dedicated to the proposition 

that small businesses are very important and we should support 

them to the extent and the degree that we must in order to have 

a robust economy. 

However, the Small Business Administration has truly been the 

stepchild of the administration, in my opinion. If you look at the 

declining budgetary dollars, declining emphasis on the programs 

and so on, not to lay the blame at anybody, we need to fix the problem. And I know that the ranking member joins the chairwoman 

in that endeavor. 

So I would like to associate my comments with those made earlier by Congresswoman Lofgren. If at all possible—and I know we 

have had other Chairs and ranking members come before us—but 

if we look at small business and look at the present situation being 


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experienced, if there is anything that we can do to assist them, 

again, just in the way of resources, and main facilities or to meet 

the tremendous burdens and challenges that they actually face, 

and with that I thank you and I thank the chairwoman and ranking member, Mr. Chabot. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much and your words were duly 

noted. It does seem, as the Chairwoman said, and it has been reiterated, that if you have a hearing room without the capacity to 

seat the panel of the members, I think that in and of itself is something to be looked at. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just very quickly, your 

introductory statement, Madam Chair, you made a comment that 

you took a big jolt some years ago and were trying to get back up. 

And I didn’t realize the jolt was that big until I looked at the chart 

and saw it and the staff verified this. In the 103rd Congress, you 

were at $5,775,000 and some change. And under this proposed new 

budget you will be at $5.965 million and change. This means that 

for next year it will be the first time that you are getting more 

money than you did in the 103rd Congress. So it took you only 14 

years to recover from the cut. 

I think you can make a pretty strong case—we are limited this 

year because of the lack of appropriations—but you may be able to 

make a case to the Speaker that you should get plussed up a little 

bit. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. If only a physicist would be able to look at 

that. Thank you folks so very much for being here today, and we 

look forward to working with you. Good luck. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. The next panel chair and ranking member 

that we have here are Chairman Filner and Ranking Member 

Buyer from Veterans’ Affairs. 

It is my understanding that they were next. Thank you both for 

being here, good afternoon to you. It is a pleasure to have you come 

before the Committee to speak on your budget as well as the great 

work that you do and are doing for our veterans. I can’t think of 

a committee that is more worthy to be praised than that of Veterans’ Affairs. And so we are very pleased with the work that you 

do. We welcome you. Mr. Chairman, if you want to get started. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BOB FILNER, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. FILNER. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is nice to see you in 

the Chair’s position. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. FILNER. And all my California colleagues here. And I am so 

glad you have had such unity. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We let a few of the others come forward. 

Mr. FILNER. I am so glad you had so much unity up to now because I think Mr. Buyer and I have not come to an agreement on 

our personnel budget. But we will get into that. My full statement 

is submitted to you. I am just going to say a few words. 


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It is a fairly simple budget. I heard some of the other Chairs asking for more. What we are doing is to assume a flat line for 2007 

and we have the exact same personnel and administrative budget 

distributed in the exact same way as occurred in the previous Congress. 

We were tasked, I think we were told we might get a 2 to 4 percent increase for next year. I kept hearing 2 percent while I have 

been here. We assumed the 4 percent and just raised everything 

4 percent. 

Over 90 percent of our budget is obviously in personnel and the 

rest in travel and IT, printing, those kinds of things. So clearly, we 

have to stay the same for 2007. We projected the 4 percent. And 

it is that simple for you. 

I would like to reserve the right to just answer any questions 

that Mr. Buyer raises. But, again, our staff slots, our personnel, everything stays the same, and with the percentage increase for fiscal 

2008. 

And that would conclude my remarks, Madam Chair. 

[The statement of Mr. Filner follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay, fine, thank you. Mr. Buyer. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. STEVE BUYER, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Mr. BUYER. Thank you, Ma’am. Representing this Nation’s veterans is a very important job. So first I must say you will make 

me feel very comfortable if you have the staff take the United 

States Flag and place it in its proper position in the righthand side 

behind you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. You are absolutely right and that is the first 

order of business after all of this is over today. Thank you. 

Mr. BUYER. I wish I could sit here with envy as I listened to the 

testimony of the others come before you and talk about their warm 

and gracious working relationship that they had. I cannot testify 

that we have that at all. I cannot concur with proposed budget at 

all. I was not consulted. When I heard that Mr. Filner wanted to 

adopt the very same budget that Lane Evans and I had come up 

with before, I said—even though I was at home still on drugs recovering from surgery, I called Bob and tried to explain to him 

what the rationale was for that budget. I don’t believe he was in 

a very good listening mode, and said that is our budget and that 

is the way it is going to be. 

The first time the two of us had an opportunity to sit down and 

discuss was about 2 hours ago, and it was not one of the more 

pleasant meetings I have ever had here in Congress. And so it is 

with a heavy heart that I have to testify and nonconcur. Because 

the Veterans’ Affairs Committee is one of the greatest committees 

you can serve on in this Congress. And I have made a plea to Bob 

that, you know, if we can’t even agree on the simplicity of a budget 

between us how are we going to work on the big issues? 

And this committee—let’s throw it on the table here. There 

was—the Republican leadership put a squeeze on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee when they had some challenges with Chris Smith. 

And then when I became the chairman I said I will accept this 

chairmanship but you need to make an investment in the infrastructure because it is lagging very far behind, Chairwoman, and 

this committee did that. 

And I didn’t get it all in 2005, but they did it in 2006. 

And so when Jim Holly, who is the Staff Director for the minority and Lane Evans, what we decided to do was that we would sacrifice on the personnel side and make all the investment in our infrastructure, and we did that. 

So you gave us the money to do that. We made huge investments, you know all of it—you name it, from laptops to servers to 

printers, even had our offsite. It is where it needs to be. 

And so to say, well, the budget for which I am asking, the testimony—I wrote down the words—is the exact disbursement, the 

same as in the last Congress. That is not accurate at all. Because 

even there were some payments that I took out of my personnel 

side, now have slipped into the other services. It is accurate to say 

that the number that the minority is receiving is the exact same 

number that the minority received in January of 2006. That is correct. And that the Democrat majority is saying we are living under 


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the exact same personnel number as the Republican number in 

2006. That is correct. 

But what has been broken here is when Lane Evans and I 

agreed to make all this investment in infrastructure to then sacrifice on personnel—it is hard for me to say what are you going to 

do with now with all the extra money? And there is some pain involved at this committee at the moment. There is real pain in our 

committee. The pain is there because you, the Democratic Caucus, 

went through a fight with regard to who would be the chairman 

of the committee. And Lane Evans supported Mike Michaud. So 

anybody who was supported, was hired by Lane Evans who supported Mike Michaud, they are gone. So the senior experienced 

leadership out of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee are gone. People 

I have known and worked with for the entire time I have been here 

are gone. 

So it is very easy for Mr. Filner to testify and say, well, I don’t 

need any of that. Well, yeah, these people have been gone. You 

have been operating under a shoestring. But we, on the minority 

side, sure, we pared down, but we still have pain. And it is time 

to hold to that deal and move to the personnel side. If you actually 

do disburse extra dollars to the committee, how do I have any faith 

that the chairman is even going to turn it to personnel? And what 

is he going to hold it on to? When Lane and I said let’s put money 

into travel, really, well, the travel thing never really got utilized 

because when we travel we travel on the VA’s dollar like you do 

on the Armed Services Committee with the DOD paying for it. 

So we have 50,000 lying in that account, and Mr. Filner wants 

to go to the Philippines on that money. 

I am challenged and it is—I am very disturbed that I have to be 

here and nonconcur because this is supposed to now to be one of 

the most bipartisan committees. And if we cannot even agree on a 

committee budget—I am going to use your words. It is the starting 

point. And those are the words that I also share with Mr. Filner. 

They are the starting point. And if we can’t even agree to this 

budget, how are we going to agree on the big issues? So it is a 

heavy heart that I have right now. 

Mr. FILNER. Madam Chair, if I may respond. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FILNER. Thank you. 

I, too, agree that we haven’t come to agreement on this. I guess 

he blames it on me and I blame it on him. 

But the real issue, Madam Chair, is we were given a flatline 

budget. We consulted with the previous staff and all the paperwork, which we have submitted to you. And we just said we will 

divide it up the way it was before, which is exactly what we did, 

divide up the personnel budget and the services budget exactly as 

it was before. Apparently, because you know there was pain on the 

minority side, they had to cut their staff in half. His upper staff 

was paid at very high levels. So he could not fit his staff into the 

budget that was given to us the previous year and he had before. 

So he wanted more money. And I said, well, we have to live within 

our budget. 

And then he claimed that the minority really had $50,000 more, 

which is what we want. And it turned out that at the end of the 


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budget year the staffs agreed on a bonus procedure. The majority 

at the time got 100 grand. The minority got 50,000. And the staff 

distributed bonuses. 

I didn’t have any say in that. I didn’t know what was going on. 

But we don’t know whether we will have that surplus in all our 

personnel budgets. If we have surplus, we would like to reward 

staff who have done better, or if we pay them low because of our 

budget. So that could be distributed as bonuses at the end of the 

year. But we don’t know that at this point. So I don’t know the 

problem except that he has overpaid his staff and he wants us to 

cover that. And I don’t think that is our role, certainly at the beginning of a budget year, to say that we are going to exceed our budget. The fiscal conservative minority is not being too fiscal conservative at this point. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me like there has 

to be a starting point here. 

Mr. BUYER. Right. And it doesn’t start by insulting my staff. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, we are not going to point fingers back 

and forth. What we are trying to do here now is help resolve this 

issue. Both of you know that your committee is extremely important. As I look at some of the itinerary items for your committee, 

you are going to be investigating the status of veterans’ benefits. 

You are going to be investigating the national cemeteries systems 

operation. You are going to be looking at the national veterans 

service organization conventions and investigate the veterans 

health administration network impact. 

There are very critical issues confronting the two of you leaders. 

Not to mention Walter Reed has now come upon us, and we must 

look at that. 

We cannot talk about what is in the past, whatever that may 

have been and whichever side was advantaged by that or not. 

What we have to do is move forward. Going forward, it is my suggestion as we try to wrap this up, present a resolution on the floor, 

because we are late in getting this committee budget into resolution form to present to the floor so that we can then be in regular 

order, if you will, at least begin to present the committees with 

their funding so that they can move on their issues and their initiatives. 

It would be my suggestion that the two of you talk. It seems like 

that is the one thing lacking here, that you have not sat and talked 

about what you do have. 

When I hear, ‘‘well, I don’t know, I am not sure what is going 

on,’’ that is a clear indication that communication has broken 

down. I would suggest that you do communicate with each other. 

Good strong leaders can disagree on many things but agree on one 

thing, and that is your budget. So I would suggest, and if I might 

do that, that the two of you please get together on your budget so 

that we can then move forward in solidifying this resolution with 

the Veterans’ Affairs budget in it signifying that the two of you 

have come together with an agreement, and I think you have the 

two-thirds/one-third. Am I correct on that, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. FILNER. Yes, Ma’am. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. But you have funding from travel that was 

never taken of 50 thousand. Am I correct on that? 


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Mr. BUYER. Correct. 

Mr. FILNER. Madam Chair, if I may, I was not a ranking member 

when this budget, previous budget was drawn up. I am now chairman. We looked at our needs. The VA told us that they would not 

be covering the travel as they apparently did in the past. I don’t 

know what happened. So we had to build in our travel expenses. 

And I would not like you to take away from the testimony the 

characterization that we have not communicated. Mr. Buyer is just 

wrong about the number of times that we talked. We talked several 

times. But our staff has been in communication for hours and 

hours on this. 

We have a basic disagreement. He wants more money than the 

budget allows us to do. It is as simple as that. And he hasn’t come 

up with any compromise. He hasn’t come up with any suggestions. 

He just said, I want the 50,000 because that is what you had last 

time. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Let me ask you, Mr. Chairman, have you 

come up with any type of conciliatory agreement here? 

Mr. FILNER. Again we are starting with the exact same budget 

as Mr. Buyer has said. And when we come to all these other expenses, if we don’t need the money for travel, if we don’t need the 

money for copiers, if we don’t need the money for computers, then 

we have some money to talk about. We don’t know that at the beginning of the fiscal year. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. This is the very reason why you should be 

communicating because whether or not the Veterans’ Affairs Department or the Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs or whomever has cut 

off your travel, you might want to go to them and see why they 

have done that. There could be an explanation that clears all of 

that. 

All I am saying to you is that we certainly don’t want you to go 

away from here with a misunderstanding of the issue. The issue is 

the two of you must come together in agreement for this budget to 

work. You must come together in order for us to move the resolution for final passage. 

Mr. FILNER. Madam Chair, do I understand the rules of the 

House such that in the event that the minority does not meet the 

budget that is given in the resolution, does the chairman have the 

authority to take steps that will put that staff into budget compliance? We checked with the Parliamentarian. We checked with the 

rules of the House. And I think the Chair has that authority. I just 

want to make that clear. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. It could be that understanding, Mr. Chairman. The thing of it is, though, we are working outside of a budget 

for this committee. And this committee has—the functionality to 

have a budget and to work within that budget. 

I would say to you that in having not met with this type of issue 

before, but I clearly do understand in personnel management that 

I have had, that in order to resolve this the two of you must come 

to the table to resolve this. It cannot be resolved in this committee. 

It has to be resolved between the two of you. And the two of you, 

I think, would like to get this over and done with so that we can 

put you in this resolution and move forward in submitting this resolution. 


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Mr. BUYER. Madam Chairwoman, I don’t permit anything like 

this to defocus my job in serving the Nation’s veterans. But you 

just got a flavor—you just got a flavor of what I am dealing with, 

an insult to my staff saying that they are overpaid. And then, when 

I turn and ask his staff a particular question he turns and says you 

don’t have to respond to him. 

So when you are saying, Steve, get together, work these things 

out, I want you to know that I have made that effort. And you 

know I can’t talk to a wall. I don’t know what to do. If anybody 

can help me here, help me. I would be more than happy to. I want 

to get on with business. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Chair, could I ask—— 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes, but I need to go to the Ranking Member 

if you don’t mind, Mrs. Lofgren, and then I will get to you. Mr. 

Ehlers. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Seems about every 4 years we have a dust-up like this from one 

committee or another. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I have been here and I didn’t see the dust, 

Mr. Ehlers. 

Mr. EHLERS. Obviously we can’t get into a refereeing situation 

here on this committee, but it is our responsibility to try and make 

sure that you get this resolved because we have to put some numbers in. It seems to me the basic difference here is: you are meeting 

the two-thirds/one-third ratio, but that fact is not concluded in 

what I believe is the agreement that Mr. Buyer had with the previous chairman—or I am sorry, the previous ranking member— 

which resulted in replacing equipment and building of the infrastructure of the office. Given that, there should be very little need 

in the budget to do that this year. Perhaps there is some money 

there that could be used to ameliorate the situation. 

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Ehlers, that is an assumption that Mr. Buyer 

made. We haven’t made that decision yet, but we don’t know—— 

Mr. EHLERS. I am not saying you have made a decision. 

Mr. FILNER. But you are telling me we don’t have any equipment 

needs. We don’t know that, and you don’t know that. 

Mr. EHLERS. No, I don’t. I am speculating. I am simply saying 

that the issue here is really what the result of that agreement with 

Mr. Evans was. I don’t know. I am saying that has to be part of 

the discussion, but as I am saying, we can’t referee this. We are 

going to have to end up putting something in the resolution that 

goes before the House. 

The other factor that I want to mention, it especially concerned 

me, is not getting agreement on such an important issue. By that 

I mean it’s important to so many veterans in this country. It is 

something that you simply have to get an agreement on. If it is impossible for you or your staff to work out an agreement, then try 

to involve the good judgment of the minority leader and the Speaker. You could have some of their staff meet with you, ascertain the 

facts, and try to help you get an agreement. Or if there is someone 

else that you want to pull in from the outside who can help. 

It seems to me that you are not too likely to get agreement between the two of you in the short time we have before we have to 

present a resolution to the floor. So I think the two points I am 


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making are simply, very simply, one is that the agreement with the 

previous Chair has to be factored into the discussion and, secondly, 

I hope you can resolve this between the two of you in some friendly 

fashion. 

With that, I will yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. I was just 

getting counsel on the Committee to talk with me. Mr. Chairman, 

your question is whether or not you can present your full budget 

to the Committee for functionality without having the minority approve it? Am I kind of in the ballpark about that? When you said 

that the rules and the Parliamentarian have both ruled on this? 

Mr. FILNER. No, I said if their salary, their monthly salary allocations come to me for my signature and they are above the budget 

that I have been given, then I have no choice but to reduce those 

salaries to the existing budget. 

Mr. BUYER. Extra 50,000 I gave to the Democrats in December, 

I used that in the calculation of the one-third/two-thirds. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. But you see, now the Chairman would have 

the authority to reduce that to be within the construct of the budget and what he is talking about. The 50,000 that you are talking 

about, Mr. Buyer, I am not sure. Is that still money that is in this 

committee? That you say you gave, you gave 50,000 back to the 

Democrats? 

Mr. BUYER. Yes, I did, in addition. So if you were to say, all 

right, Steve, what was the allocation majority and minority in 

2007, I don’t know what the final number was. He wants to use 

the number that was given in the January of 2006. So at the end 

of the year—I had Jim Lariviere back here, Marine colonel went 

to Afghanistan. So we had some extra dollars. And I moved those 

dollars, 50,000 over to the Democrats in December. And then other 

dollars were allocated to the majority. I don’t even know how they 

broke out. So the question that you just asked is because, what I 

tried to share with Bob is that Bob—what Vern just hit on the 

head—when Lane and I said we are going to spend the money on 

infrastructure and sacrifice on personnel, it is now time to move it 

back on the personnel column, I said, I have gotten, I have got this 

extra 50,000 I already gave to the minority, I am going to use that 

in the calculation. 

That is why he is now asking the question, saying, well, I guess 

what I will do to Buyer now is I will really hammer him. I will go 

in there and fire somebody on his staff and I will get him to his 

number. That is really going to be pleasing to relations, isn’t it? 

But that is the purpose of his question to you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I am not sure of that—— 

Mr. BUYER. Oh, yeah. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. But I am sure that the Chairman does have 

control of that budget at all times. And the 50,000 that you gave 

back to him coupled with the travel funding of 50,000 that is still 

in there, there has to be some type of an agreement that you can 

work together to try to find common ground. 

Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. May I ask, this isn’t making sense to me I am 

afraid because we are in the 110th Congress. We start new in the 

110th Congress. 


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And unfortunately, apparently the chairman and ranking member are now not singing Kumbaya right now. Maybe that will 

change. We hope it will. But we have seen that before. I mean in 

the last Congress some of the chairmen and the ranking members 

did not hit it off either, and we hope that that doesn’t happen but 

sometimes it does happen. And when that happens, the default position is the minority is entitled one-third. And the position—this 

didn’t always happen in the 109th Congress, but it was supposed 

to happen, that normally the minority is entitled to one-third and 

they are entitled to control one-third, not to have to go and beg the 

chairman for their one-third. They should have their one-third, and 

they get to control their one-third. 

So, the question is, is the minority being given one-third and control of one-third of the whole budget? 

Mr. FILNER One-third of the personnel part of the budget. 

Mr. BUYER. Right. 

Mr. FILNER. No. One-third of the personnel. 

Ms. LOFGREN. One-third of the personnel budget. 

Mr. FILNER. Which is exactly the way it was done for the last 

decade or more. 

Mr. BUYER Worked out. 

Ms. LOFGREN. That may be but that is not the way this has 

worked out. I had to chastise some of the Democratic ranking members in the last set of hearings because I think that it really works 

better personally for the minority to control its own budget, but 

some of the ranking members made deals with the Chairman and 

did other things, and I guess if there is a deal that people want 

to make, you can disrupt it. 

Mr. FILNER. It is not just the question of deals, Ms. Lofgren. For 

example, we have a couple of IT people. Those are shared expenses 

that don’t come out of the personnel; they come out of the administrative part of the budget. So we are sharing that because the computers are all served by the IT contractors—so it is not a question 

of black and white of who has control. There are all kinds of expenses that the committee as a whole has. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Right. The committee room and the furniture and 

the like. 

Mr. FILNER. Exactly. 

Ms. LOFGREN. But most of the things that I was concerned about 

in the last Congress were ranking members who really had made, 

I think, significant accommodations that I wouldn’t have made, but 

I guess it was up to them to make. 

That is not the case here. I think personally that putting aside 

things that can’t be divided, such as your IT professionals that is 

going to be, in the best possible Silicon Valley way, a geek and a 

nerd and hopefully not a member of any political party, but anything that is really substantive where you two might not agree, 

there really does need to be the one-third/two-thirds, I think. 

Mr. FILNER. If that was looked at, exactly. And one-third of the 

IT budget, I am not sure they could do their stuff because it is a 

whole. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I guess part of what—if you could agree, and 

maybe we will have to agree for you, that there are some things 

that are so nerdish that you have to agree to share, like the IT guy. 


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Mr. FILNER. Ninety-two percent of the budget is personnel. So 

that is one-third/two-thirds, and they have full control of it. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I had understood from the written material that 

it was one-third/two-thirds completely. So maybe we do need some 

more illumination on this, and I thank both the Chairman and 

Ranking Member for their—— 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Ms. Lofgren. One thing 

is for sure, if this is not resolved, we can then exclude this committee from the resolution, and you can go to the floor with your 

argument and see how that comes out. That is the one thing, if I 

am hearing correctly, at the end of the year that we are speaking 

of, the 2006 year, there was $150,000 that was not spent; $100,000 

went to Mr. Buyer for staff bonuses; then $50,000 was given to Mr. 

Filner. 

Mr. FILNER. No. It was given to the Democratic staff for bonuses. 

I was not the Ranking Member at the time. I had no knowledge 

of this, and I suspect Mr. Evans didn’t either. 

Mr. BUYER. He did. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. If there is funding left over, who should then 

accept the one-third of that funding? 

Mr. FILNER. I am sorry? If there is money at the end of the budget year? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes. 

Mr. FILNER. Then we will get together and figure out how to use 

that. But obviously we are at the beginning of the year. A budget 

is a planning document. A budget is taking into account the best 

estimates you have at this time of personnel and travel and copy 

and IT and all that. And we made our budget as we did, because 

we are under a CR. We started with the same planning document 

that we did last year when we were in the minority. We have the 

exact same planning document to start with. We don’t know how 

it will end yet. We are just in the first month. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. No funding is left over from that year, Mr. 

Filner? 

Mr. FILNER. I don’t know of any. I don’t know if there was, if we 

can use any, but nobody told me there was any budget left over. 

Mr. BUYER. May I ask a question? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. So you are not sure whether there was funding left over from that year? 

Mr. FILNER. Does committee funding move over from year to 

year? I don’t know. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. No, it cannot. 

Mr. FILNER. So there is no money. They used it for staff bonuses. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. So the $50,000 that was transferred over is 

not there because it has been resolved here. 

Mr. FILNER. Exactly. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Fine. 

Mr. BUYER. What would be the number of the available dollars 

that we said would be split among the committees to an allocation—what is the number to the Veterans Affairs Committee? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. You mean in dollars and cents? 

Mr. BUYER. In dollars and cents. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I would have to calculate that out. 

Mr. BUYER. Somebody have that in a chart? 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. I have a chart here with me, stating how 

much you will be getting for this year, given the 2.2, 2.3 inflation, 

that is $3.5 million and some-odd dollars, and that is what you are 

getting for the 2007 year. 

Mr. BUYER. So if that allocation—let me just throw this out. It 

seems to be really helpful. If any allocation over and above on the 

budget from which Mr. Filner has presented to this committee is 

allocated to personnel, that goes a long way in helping to resolve 

this. If you are looking for areas, grounds of compromise, wherever 

you can move forward, I just throw that out on the table. I have 

no idea what Mr. Filner would feel about it or what his ideas would 

be. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. McCarthy wants to speak. Mr. McCarthy. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple 

of questions. I am a freshman but I used to be the Republican leader in the State Assembly and I would negotiate all the money for 

all of our committees. My only recommendation, one thing I would 

say, I had some very heated debates, but once we got the budget 

done, I found we agreed on a lot more things on the floor, that we 

came to a much better agreement. But my one question for Chairman Filner: Are you doing any evaluation currently on what your 

needs will be for computers? 

Mr. FILNER. Of course. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. And how far along? And when will that be done? 

Mr. FILNER. We made an initial assessment and things are not 

as I heard described to Mr. Buyer; that is, we don’t have any more 

needs. But that process is ongoing and should be done soon. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. How soon? 

Mr. FILNER. Let me just ask my staff director if I may. 

Mr. BUYER. Could I respond for a second? 

Mr. MCCARTHY. I will come to you in one second. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. To whom are we waiting for? 

Mr. MCCARTHY. He is getting his answer right there. 

Mr. FILNER. In our statement that I had provided you— 

Mr. MCCARTHY. I have it right here. 

Mr. FILNER. It says equipment. And we talk about our 2-year 

plan and the document manager system, replacement of one-third 

of the hardware, et cetera, et cetera, update the computer software. 

So that was included in the budget that we gave to you. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. So you have—you are done with your assessment then? Because I do see in here computers and stuff. 

Mr. FILNER. Yeah. There are other decisions—for example, as it 

turns out, I didn’t know that the committee is not on the same system as the rest of the House in terms of its software. They aren’t 

on the Quorum system. We have to decide whether to make that 

change or not. I mean, those kinds of decisions have not been 

made. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Maybe I am not asking properly, you tell me. I 

am just wondering—and part of the debate I heard, you said, as 

you referred back to the Ranking Member here, you weren’t sure 

yet because you don’t know what the needs are for computers. And 

here I read equipment needed. So I am just wondering is there an 

ongoing assessment? If there is, when will the date be there? 


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Mr. FILNER. We made our assessment. There are changes that 

occur. The whole point of a budget is you make an estimate, and 

then things change. Salary savings may occur, computer savings 

may occur, software savings. We don’t know. So we did our best 

judgment of what our needs are, and then we evaluate those periodically. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Maybe I am not asking properly. I am just responding to something I heard from you. I am wondering—are you 

doing an assessment currently? Because that is what I thought I 

heard. If I heard differently, just tell me. I am just wondering is 

that coming? Earlier you said yes, and it is going to be done soon. 

I am just wondering is there a date set? If it is not just say no. 

Mr. FILNER. I don’t know what you heard. The statement we 

have made, a preliminary assessment of our software and hardware needs. That is in the statement I gave you. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Oh, so you are done with your assessment? 

Mr. FILNER. Well, it is always ongoing. You know that. Things 

change. You make your best statement at the beginning of the 

budget year, and then you constantly reevaluate. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Okay. 

Mr. FILNER. I mean, what is the budget process when you first 

open an office? The same exact thing. We decide what we think we 

need, and it turns out we should have bought two computers, and 

we didn’t, so we have to make some changes. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We have them here. Mr. McCarthy, have you 

finished? 

Mr. MCCARTHY. I have some more questions, if I may. 

Mr. BUYER. Mr. McCarthy, may I respond to that, then? 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Yes, please. 

Mr. BUYER. I believe Lane Evans and I fulfilled our obligation to 

this committee when we testified for those dollars. We spent 

$206,754.04. We bought four printers, a lease on a backup server, 

purchased eight laptops, leased 12 laptops and leased a copier. 

That was $60,000 in 2005. 

In 2006 we did a lease buyout package and that terminated the 

lease on the backup server. Knowing that I am going to the minority, I bought out all the leases. I wanted to leave whoever the next 

Chairman was going to be in the best position. So we bought 20 

desktops, 5 laptops for the alternate site, 16 portable drives, 1 medium-duty copier, 15 BlackBerries, 9 label printers, CMS upgrades, 

an additional server, backup power station for service. The total 

buy: $206,000-plus dollars. That is a lot of money. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. You actually answered my question, how much 

did you spend. 

Mr. BUYER. He said, well, it is in our budget, here is what is happening. Come on. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. You have to wrap it up here, gentlemen. 

Mr. BUYER. There is a pad number. He pads it. So you pad it 

$13,000 on anticipated equipment for 2008. Then he pads another 

one over here by $10,000. That is a $23,000 pad. Now why would 

you do a $23,000 pad? Those are the numbers that Lane and I 

talked about. 

As we go into the next year, those dollars are there for the personnel because we would sacrifice on the personnel side. So, 


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Madam Chairwoman, your words to me I embrace. The challenge 

which we face—we need that additional staff to do the job, to take 

care of these veterans and do the investigations. 

So I am really perplexed. We come to the committee, we ask for 

additional moneys to do all these upgrades in infrastructure, sacrifice on personnel, and now is time to do the personnel to take 

care of veterans, and I can’t get access to the dollars. Mr. McCarthy, that is my challenge. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. So you spent $206,000 last time on equipment. 

Mr. BUYER. That would be 2005–2006. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. My only question, Madam Chair, does this committee have the jurisdiction and power to set their budget? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We only set the aggregate dollar amount that 

you see here. We cannot decipher just what in terms of incrementally or itemization of what they need. That is the decision of the 

Chairperson, along with the Ranking Member. 

Mr. McCarthy, I think we have exhausted this to the level that, 

as we see it, money that is being requested is money that is in the 

new budget to bring back to do something that was done in 2006. 

I am not sure that can be done. The $50,000 that was given. Money 

does not go over. So we are talking about all new money going forward, and money going forward is outlined here and the money 

that I have just given you. So I am not sure whether or not any 

other funding that you are requesting for any other reason can 

come from one pot or the other, unless the two of you sit and talk 

about that. 

But that is new money. It is not old money. You have no old 

money. Lane Evans and no one else can bring back any money that 

was once here. We do not have any more money. Now, if you want 

to conclude, I will—— 

Mr. MCCARTHY. If I could just conclude. I think the way I hear 

it is not that the minority is saying there is any money left over. 

I think what the word I heard was, the budget is being set with 

what—the January money, not with what was truly set between 

the minority and majority at the end of the day. And the only concern that I would have and I don’t want to put any words in anyone’s mouth, so I would just ask the Chairman: The question from 

Ms. Lofgren was, at the end of the day if money is left over, is that 

split one-third/two-thirds? Would that be the case? Or no? 

Mr. FILNER. We haven’t come to that situation. They decided to 

split the money personnel-wise. I mean, if we decide we have 

money that we can do extra stuff with, it could be personnel, it 

could be equipment, it could be either of those. Those decisions are 

way down the line. They made the decision 11 months down the 

line for that. I don’t know what is going to occur. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. But in your mind, if there is money left over, it 

is not one-third/two-thirds, it is negotiated. I am not putting words 

in your mouth; I am just asking. 

Mr. FILNER. If we decide it goes to personnel, it is one-third/twothirds. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. If you decide. Okay. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. First of all, there is no money left over. Let’s 

make sure we define that. There is no money left over. 

Mr. BUYER. Nobody is claiming that. 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. You start anew with new fresh money. There 

is no money that is left over from the year prior to this year. So 

you go forward. 

Mr. BUYER. We know that. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. With your new budget funding. 

Mr. BUYER. We know that. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And it is predicated on what you and the 

Chair wish to have as your priorities in terms of personnel, travel, 

equipment, etc. There is nothing from 2006 that we are operating 

with in 2007. 

It seems to me like you are saying that, given that money was 

given back to the minority in 2006, that that money be represented 

in the new budget. That is not the way it goes. What does go, is 

that we cannot continue to dwell on this. 

I would like to ask if we can get financial experts to sit with the 

two of you to try and resolve this issue so that we can move forward with a budget that will be amenable to the two of you, with 

two different outsiders independently coming together to work with 

you. 

Mr. BUYER. I accept anybody. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. FILNER. I am perfectly willing to do that. As I said, we were 

perfectly willing to talk about this before. There was a 

mischaracterization of those prior meetings. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Then I will take back my mischaracterization 

that you are not communicating. But from what I see today, maybe 

there is another definition for this. So I will say that simply you 

have not resolved the issue. 

Mr. BUYER. Right. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And the issue has to be resolved. So I am asking, Mr. Chairman, are you willing? 

Mr. FILNER. I am willing. You said the situation was not resolved. I presented the committee budget, as it is my responsibility 

to do. It is resolved as far as I am concerned. If somebody has a 

different suggestion for me, I will be glad to take it, but we were 

asked to come to you with a budget. We did. It was exactly the 

same as last year’s. And there is a disagreement. Well, that doesn’t 

mean there is no communication. Disagreement just means disagreement. And your committee has the ability to take my budget 

and pass it or not. 

I will be happy to talk further if that is what you would advise 

me as the Chair, although what I am telling you is that I gave you 

the budget that our committee decided upon. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. What I am saying to you, Mr. Chairman, is 

that typically the budgets that we put in the resolution are budgets 

that have been agreed upon by both the Chair and the Ranking 

Member. There is some disagreement here somewhere. 

Mr. FILNER. But it is possible disagreements are never resolved, 

right? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. In this case we have to come to some resolution. 

Mr. BUYER. Your recommendation is very good. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. May I then ask the two of you to meet with 

me and the Ranking Member after we have seen all chairs today? 


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Mr. BUYER. I accept. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FILNER. Sure. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I will be happy to do that. Thank you both, 

gentlemen. Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Just a second, because I am new to this committee. The first thing is, what are the options? What can we do? 

Maybe Mr. Filner is right. This is the budget. Maybe we live with 

it or we don’t; we approve it or we don’t approve it. 

I think I heard the Chairwoman indicate, though, that we can 

excise this from the resolution and go to the full floor and let the 

whole country see this, which I don’t think you really want the 

whole country to see this. But I do think there is something fundamentally wrong here, and I am trying to see if I am getting this 

right. 

Again, I don’t want to misinterpret or mischaracterize anything. 

But are you asking Bob to abide by an agreement and the terms 

of which he was not a party? He is the chairman now. As a matter 

of fact, he is not even coming as the new ranking member. He is 

coming in as the new chairman. There is a new majority. So I 

think we have to respect that. 

So I don’t know if you had agreements with Lane or whatever, 

but I think the Chairwoman has indicated we are starting totally 

anew and whatever agreements may have been reached in the past 

with a different member of the Democratic Party, at that time the 

ranking member, I can understand Bob’s position. But by the same 

token, this is not a divorce, and you guys are going to stay married 

at the end of this whole process. You are going to have to live with 

each other. It would be great if it was a divorce because then we 

would split up the goodies and you all can go your separate ways. 

But we do have to work and I respect both of you all. I know 

both of you. We have served on the same committee, Steve, for a 

number of years and Bob is a personal friend. I just again—embracing the spirit that is being demonstrated by all members here 

on both sides of the aisle, of the dais, is to come together on this 

thing. Surely you all can come to some agreement and—the thing 

is though, Steve, again, you understand that Bob probably would 

not be bound, no one wants to be bound by an agreement reached 

by someone else, a third party. And I think I understand that. 

Mr. BUYER. The real challenge when I first spoke with Bob was 

is that he said, Steve, I am taking the budget that you and Lane 

had last year. And that is when I said, wait a minute, you don’t 

have—would you like to know how Lane and I came up and the 

rationale why we came up with that budget? Because that doesn’t 

fit. It just does not fit. We will have so much in excess dollars because we made all this investment in infrastructure. So we will 

have that much left over. We would have a lot of leftover money 

at the end of the year. 

So the question that you asked, on what would the allocation be 

in December? I couldn’t spend all that money. It is not even possible to be able to spend how much money we are going to be left 

behind, because we sacrificed on the personnel side. And that is the 

rationale that I tried to share with Lane. I understand that he is 

not a party to that. And I understand that they are not carryover 


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funds. But I am trying to press the point to the chairman that the 

sacrifice that Lane and I had agreed to make, because we testified 

to this committee and asked you to upgrade the infrastructure. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Will Mr. Gonzalez yield for a second? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I will yield to the Chairwoman. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Buyer, the agreement you made with a 

former ranking member—— 

Mr. BUYER. Yes? 

The CHAIRWOMAN [continuing]. Cannot be a party to what is 

going on in this particular—— 

Mr. BUYER. Yeah. But we don’t operate in a vacuum. All those 

computers and everything are sitting over there ma’am. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. We are not asking you to operate in a vacuum. But you keep saying, this is what Evans and I did, but Evans 

is no longer that party with you. So now you have to deal with the 

Chairman, who is Mr. Filner. 

Mr. BUYER. But that is my challenge. He said I am going to take 

the budget you and Lane gave. Well, then, let me tell you what 

Lane and I did. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. If no further questions by Mr. Gonzalez? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I yield back. Thank you ma’am. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

May I please see the two of you after the committee hearings? 

Mr. BUYER. I will. Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Mr. FILNER. And the principal’s office is where? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I am by no means trying to admonish you on 

this. I am just trying to see whether we can be accommodating. 

Thank you so much. 

Mr. BUYER. Do you have an estimate of time? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Chair and Ranking Member, can you 

come back in an hour? 

Mr. BUYER. Yes. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Now we have before us the Chairman of Energy and Commerce, Mr. Dingell, and the Ranking Member, Mr. 

Barton. We thank you so much for your tolerance and your patience. And you may proceed, Mr. Chairman. I know there is a time 

constraint that you have too. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would ask unanimous 

consent to place my full statement in the record, and I will try to 

summarize. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. So be it. 

Mr. DINGELL. First of all, it is a privilege to be before you, and 

thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. I am delighted 

to be here with our Ranking Member Joe Barton, and the two of 

us join together in requesting the resources necessary to ensure effective consideration of the committee’s business and operations of 

the committee over the next 2 years. I want to commend Chairman 

Barton for the superb job he performed in running the committee, 

given the limits placed on him by his leadership. He was an outstanding Chairman and is a great friend of mine. 


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This budget, Madam Chairwoman, is a preview of the one which 

will be formally considered and adopted by the committee tomorrow. You are aware that we were forced to postpone a meeting of 

the Commerce Committee to approve our budget requests because 

of the death of our colleague from Georgia, Congressman Charlie 

Norwood. Our funding resolution will be introduced shortly after 

the committee acts, and I promise you that that will be done with 

all speed. 

This budget reflects both a significant increase in the workload 

of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the need to retrain 

and attract skilled staff. The committee is off to a fast start and 

moving forward with an ambitious and broad agenda. We are developing a substantive, balanced and thorough record on climate 

change and global warming, including eight hearings this month, 

and we expect that we will produce significant legislation, moving 

forward on children’s health, the SCHIP program, Medicare payments, prescription drug and medical device user fees, consumer 

protection and privacy, environmental programs, telecommunications, and a host of other legislative matters. 

We will be also carrying out important investigative and oversight activities, and already the committee has launched oversight 

hearings into nuclear safety issues, prescription drug safety, and 

we are continuing a number of investigations begun earlier under 

my friend and colleague, Chairman Barton. 

Since January the committee has held seven hearings and two 

meetings, in addition to its role in the first 100 hours, in the stem 

cell research, prescription drug negotiation legislation and the 9/11 

Commission recommendations. The committee has planned an additional 28 hearings, 6 markups and meetings over the next 4 

weeks, for a combined total of 42 hearings and meetings before we 

reach the district work period. It is already clear that our resources 

are stretched very much without any increases in funding. 

I would like to cite three areas driving our budget numbers. 

First, personnel. In our efforts to recruit excellent top-notch committee staff who are experts in their areas, we compete not only 

against the more lucrative jobs downtown where beginning attorneys look forward to starting salaries of upwards of $150,000 or 

better, but also with the salary levels of many senior staff in the 

executive branch. Many of the staff we have recruited to work with 

the committee during this Congress have accepted significant pay 

cuts to serve the Congress and the public. We do need more staff, 

and in the first 2 months in the majority, the committee staff has 

worked an excessive number of hours to accomplish the work before us. 

We are currently under a staff cap of 108. We requested for this 

committee an increase of five slots for 2007 and an additional four 

slots for 2008, for a total of 118 in the second session. Three of 

these nine slots would be assigned to the minority. And I want to 

make it clear, Madam Chairwoman, that we will see to it that the 

rules of one-third/two-thirds are honored fully in this committee. I 

am committed to providing the same resources Mr. Barton made 

available to us in the last Congress, and we will give him his share 

of whatever additional staff members or funding is made available 

to the committee. 


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Third, increases in cost. In every category we find the cost of 

services and products is going up. The committee’s technology 

needs would include significant upgrade of our computer system, 

replacing aged copiers and fax machines. And I report with embarrassment that our copy machines have precluded us from having 

you the statements and supporting papers that we had hoped to 

have for you, and are required under the rules, because of the failures of our copying systems. 

We will also be purchasing licenses and other software uses to 

enable this technology to be in compliance with House and industry 

requirements. In the case of the committee’s computer system, the 

House Information Resources no longer supports some of the critical applications we use. Therefore, the committee must now upgrade these programs unless we find ourselves without technical 

support from the House if problems arise. 

There have been increases, as you well know, in travel expenses 

which all the committees incur in needed field hearings and in the 

conduct of investigations, to bringing witnesses here to testify, and 

to attend policy conferences. And we have seen this push our budget numbers upward. 

While we try to anticipate spending in these areas, events occur 

in our country which require action by the committee and which 

oftentimes require unanticipated spending of committee funds, 

such as the case of Enron, the BP oil disaster and Hurricane 

Katrina. Committee actions in response to a crisis should not then 

translate into leaving a staff position vacant to make up the difference. 

Because of these things and because of the workload facing the 

committee, I ask the serious consideration and the sympathetic 

consideration and your support, Madam Chairwoman, and that of 

the committee for our request for funding for the 110th Congress. 

I thank you very much for your cooperation. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The Statement of Mr. Dingell follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the 

committee, I will make this easy. Mr. Dingell and I are in agreement. We are supportive of the budget. It is a very modest increase 

over last year. It is fairly apportioned between the majority and the 

minority, and I will be happy to answer questions. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. When you say fairly 

equal, does that mean the two-thirds/one-third agreement? 

Mr. DINGELL. That is correct, Madam Chair. We will honor that 

precisely. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Very well. And I am hearing your budget will 

be approved tomorrow. 

Mr. BARTON. Praise the Lord. 

Mr. DINGELL. Yes, we will, Madam Chairwoman. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I would like to ask unanimous consent that 

we include their budget in the record and in the resolution once it 

has been approved. Hearing none, so be it. 

Mr. DINGELL. Madam Chairwoman, you are most gracious. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you. And we just know you are doing 

great things. You talk about seven hearings, and 42 before the district work period. My goodness, you need rollerskates to keep up 

with you two. But we thank you for what you are doing. 

Let me have comments from the Ranking Member, and you will 

be on your way. 

Mr. EHLERS. Just very briefly. First of all, I wanted to thank you 

for the firm commitment to the two-thirds/one-third. This committee worked in a bipartisan way over the past decade to achieve 

that level, and we want to make sure it continues. So we appreciate that. We appreciate the spirit with which you are working together. I personally apologize for the delay you had to endure because we were having a problem with two chairmen who didn’t 

work together; and that is pretty rare, but it does happen. 

Mr. BARTON. It is tough around Mr. Dingell. He has got a lot 

more people waiting to see him than I do. It was good we had him 

waiting back here. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Barton has been a good friend for a long time. 

He always treated us fairly when we were in the minority, and I 

will see to it that he is treated with all the fairness and all the decency that I can muster because—— 

Mr. EHLERS. I still remember the very fine speech he gave on 

your behalf when we celebrated your 50th anniversary, and it is 

clear that there is a deep and abiding friendship here. Thank you 

very much. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. And thank you, gentlemen, for the collegiality that you reflect in your working together. 

Good luck to you both. 

Now we have Mr. Spratt, the Chairman of the Budget Committee. And I am hearing, Mr. Spratt, that while we were trying 

to settle some issues here at the committee, your Ranking Member 

has left, is that correct? Is he here? 

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Ryan was here just a minute ago. He had to go 

to a meeting. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. He had to leave for another meeting? 


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Mr. SPRATT. Yeah. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Then you will—— 

Mr. SPRATT. We concur, though, in everything. I think I can safely say that, and I will make our presentation quickly. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Why don’t you go on and do that, Mr. Chairman, and then I will ask unanimous consent that we receive your 

testimony, and devoid of your Ranking Member being with you. 

Mr. SPRATT. Your staff has a copy of it, I assume? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes, we do have it. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN M. SPRATT, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH 

CAROLINA 

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairwoman, thank you for this opportunity. Mr. Ehlers, Ranking Member, thank you also for the chance 

to testify before this committee regarding the Budget Committee’s 

funding request for the 110th Congress. For each session of the 

110th Congress, the Budget Committee requests the funding level 

that is frozen at last year’s total. That is, we were requesting the 

same funding for 2007 and 2008 as we had in 2006. In fact, this 

is the same amount that we had in 2004 and 2005. 

As a result, our request for the 2-year period of the 110th Congress reflects no increase from the 2-year period of the 109th Congress. Looking at the funding requests on an account-by-account 

level, the largest account by far is the personnel account. I should 

explain that in the last Congress our personnel accounts turned out 

to be less than anticipated. There were vacancies because the 

chairman was term limited, expected not to be coming back, and 

there was an expectation that the new chairman would wish to 

make personnel decisions of his own. 

In the 110th Congress, considerable progress has been made in 

filling these vacancies with highly qualified staff, and our personnel costs will increase decidedly. Nevertheless, our request 

should provide sufficient resources for personnel costs in the 110th 

Congress. 

When we as Democrats were in the minority, we had a mutually 

agreeable arrangement with the Chairman of the committee, the 

previous majority, and we consulted with that minority and intend 

to continue this practice in the 110th Congress. That is, the minority controls a third of the total budget for personnel, meaning a 

third of the available staff slots and a third of the line-item money 

for personnel expenses. 

Additionally, we will continue the committee’s past practice of 

upgrading the minority’s equipment out of the overall committee 

budget. I think we have a good working relationship. 

We have a mutual agreement from this budget, and as an example of the rest of the Congress, we are simply saying we will get 

by with what we have got. And I am glad to make a request to that 

effect. But we do need what we were requesting, around $12 million. As I said, that is the same money we have enjoyed for the last 

4 years. 

[The statement of Mr. Spratt follows:] 


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[The statement of Mr. Ryan follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Chairman, one thing is for sure, you recognize the fact that we have budget constraints, and there is no 

one better than you to know that. Operating from last year’s baseline and then increasing your budget by a mere 2.2 percent is all 

that we are offering in terms of your increase this year. 

Given that your Ranking Member is not here, may I just ask, is 

there an agreement between the two of you for the two-thirds/onethird? I may have been talking to staff when you mentioned that. 

Mr. SPRATT. Yeah. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. There is an agreement? 

Mr. SPRATT. Yes, ma’am, there is an agreement to that effect. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay. Fine. Mr. Ranking Member, do you 

have comments? 

Mr. EHLERS. Just following up on that, I understand that both 

of you worked together on this budget and you both are approving 

of what you submitted; is that correct? 

Mr. SPRATT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. EHLERS. All right. 

The last point I would like to make is that I appeared recently 

to testify before your Budget Committee on a very important issue 

and gave a superb heartfelt plea. Unfortunately you weren’t there 

to hear it. I won’t take your time here now, but I will have to talk 

to you later about that. 

Mr. SPRATT. Okay. 

Mr. EHLERS. I am not trying to coerce you at all. It is only your 

budget that depends on it. 

Mr. SPRATT. All right, sir. Could I say one thing? 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes, please. 

Mr. EHLERS. I am just jesting, but I appreciate the difficult task 

that you have to do. 

Mr. SPRATT. It is indeed. I am the second ranking Democrat on 

the House Armed Services Committee. Ike, of course, is the Chairman of the committee and I am second in seniority to him. And I 

would like to make a pitch for that particular committee. They will 

be presiding over a budget this year, when you include the 

supplementals of $643 billion dollars for 2008—that is the largest 

amount of money we have spent on defense in constant dollars at 

any time since the Second World War. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Say that again. 

Mr. SPRATT. $643 billion. That includes DOE and DOD. Defense 

and Energy, $643 billion. It is $501 billion for the base budget and 

$140-odd billion for the supplemental for 2008. They need additional staff. And part of the problem we have got with that committee is at a time when the staff and the Congress were growing 

abundantly in the late 1970s, mid-1980s, early to mid-1980s, our 

committee was chaired by people who were satisfied with what 

they had in the way of committee staff, and we were not aggressively building up our staff at a time when that was possible and 

when the funding was available. And we are now suffering the consequences. But we have an enormous responsibility for the stewardship of $643 billion, the conduct of the expeditionary deployments in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. 

And of all the committees in the Congress, I don’t know about 

the other needs, but I can tell you right now, they need additional 


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staff, and anything you can do to help them I think would be very 

responsible and very much appreciated. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, we will take that under consideration, 

Mr. Chairman, and certainly there are many things that I will be 

taking back to the Speaker to consult with her on, and that is one 

that we will be taking back with us. 

Now, are there any comments from either one of the members 

who are presently here? Mr. Spratt, given the fact that your Ranking Member had to go to a meeting, I will have to ask unanimous 

consent that his testimony along with yours be submitted for the 

record and have them agree to that being sufficient testimony for 

your being here and the absence of the Ranking Member. 

Is there unanimous consent from the members? All votes 

present, aye. So thank you, Mr. Spratt. 

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much indeed. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so very much and thank you for 

your patience here today. 

Mr. SPRATT. That is fine. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Goodlatte, I see you are here, and your 

Chairman is on his way in. 

Gentlemen, let me first thank you so much for your patience. 

You have been exceedingly patient throughout our attempt to come 

to some agreements with some of the issues that were presented 

before us. One thing is for sure, you have a big issue coming before 

you, and that is that farm bill, so we don’t want to talk about it. 

We want you to present your budget and your statement. 

Mr. Chairman, welcome. Ranking Member, welcome. You may 

proceed Mr. Chairman. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. COLLIN C. PETERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA 

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you Madam Chairwoman and Ranking 

Member. And I appreciate the chance to be with you today and also 

appreciate my ranking member, Mr. Goodlatte, for joining me here 

to outline our committee’s proposed budget for the next 2 years. 

The Committee on Agriculture has long had a history of bipartisan cooperation that was upheld with distinction during Mr. 

Goodlatte’s chairmanship and I trust that that will continue in the 

110th Congress. 

It has been noted that we have a very important year coming up 

in the Agriculture Committee as we are going to be writing a new 

farm bill which authorizes our Nation’s farm conservation, nutrition, and rural development programs. The current farm bill was 

written in 2002 and many of its provisions are going to expire by 

the end of September. So we are going to be facing a major task 

over the next few months to get a bill ready before the current bill 

expires. 

In addition this year, our committee has added an additional 

subcommittee. So we now have a total of six subcommittees. The 

expanded subcommittee structure will help us and be useful in 

writing this new farm bill as we conduct what I hope to be a very 

active oversight program, which we have outlined in the attached 


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oversight plan. We are focusing in a couple areas with these new 

subcommittees, one of them in the energy area, where we will be 

doing a considerable amount of work in the research and development of feedstocks for cellulosic ethanol. And we have also made 

a Horticulture and Organic Agriculture Subcommittee, and the 

focus on organics is going to be one of the things that we are going 

to be looking at that we haven’t really—well, we have worked on 

it before, but we are going to put more focus, because I believe 

there is a real opportunity in organic agriculture for the folks that 

want to go into that. And we are going to focus on that. 

Our committee has had a strong tradition of offering outstanding 

service and research materials related to legislation not only for 

the committee and its members but for other Members of Congress. 

And, you know, we are excited about the opportunities that are in 

front of us. I have been in and around agriculture all my life, and 

I have never seen a time where there is so much optimism, so 

much excitement in agriculture as is going on right now because 

of the opportunities in renewable fuels and ethanol and biodiesel 

and these areas which are—in Minnesota, has been a huge success. 

And it has brought young people back to the farm, and we want 

to try to expand that experience all across the country. 

Given the increased workload that the committee will assume 

this year, we propose a modest but necessary increase in funding. 

Due to the expanded subcommittee structure and the additional 

workload expected for the committee, these resources, we believe, 

will be essential for the committee’s success in the 110th Congress. 

Many of our responsibilities this year will require additional effort 

from our staff, and I expect—I have already told them that they 

can be expecting to work weekends starting here pretty quick, all 

the way through September. I told my committee members that 

they shouldn’t plan too much for the August break because we may 

be doing conference committee during that period of time. 

So we are going to be putting in a lot of hours. But after careful 

consideration, I believe that our existing committee staff structure 

is sufficient, and I have not requested any additional positions at 

this time. And in our request we have carefully weighed and balanced, we think, the committee’s growing needs with the important 

goal for myself and a lot of our members, and that is fiscal responsibility. 

The committee’s responsibilities in the 110th Congress have implications for all Americans, and our proposed budget will allow us 

to craft a farm bill that meets the needs of our Nation’s agriculture 

producers and the consumers that we produce for. 

We have basically kept the structure of the committee exactly 

like it was when Mr. Goodlatte was chairman. As I have said, we 

have a great working relationship. We just flip things around, it 

was staff 32/16 for the Republican way. Now it is 32/16 for the 

Democrat way. So we kept things exactly the way it is. 

Once the farm bill is over with, we intend to spend some significant time on doing oversight. I have got some concerns about the 

organization of the Department and some of the levels of bureaucracy and so forth over there that I think haven’t been examined as 

much as they should. So we will have a lot of work to get to once 


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we get done with the farm bill. So we would appreciate your consideration, and appreciate the chance to be with you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And thank you. We appreciate your outlining 

this very active agenda that you are putting before us. 

[The statement of Mr. Peterson follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Goodlatte. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BOB GOODLATTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Ehlers, and members of the committee. It is a pleasure to be 

here today to support the Agriculture Committee’s 110th budget request alongside Chairman Peterson. As Collin said, our committee 

has enjoyed a long history of bipartisanship and I look forward to 

a continued environment of cooperation as we proceed with the 

work of the committee in the 110th Congress. 

The committee’s primary focus in the last Congress was to gather 

information from America’s farmers and ranchers in preparation 

for reauthorizing the 2002 farm bill which expires in September. 

Since this omnibus agricultural legislation is only reauthorized 

every 5 to 6 years, it was important that our review be as pervasive and inclusive as possible. Throughout a series of 19 full and 

subcommittee field hearings, we heard from 178 farmers and 

ranchers, in addition to the nearly 3,000 comments we gathered via 

our Web site from producers and nonproducers alike. Our goal was 

to find out what in the current bill was working and what aspects 

could be improved. Today’s producers are facing new challenges 

that weren’t in play in the run-up to the 2002 farm bill. We asked 

our farmers and ranchers for their candid feedback and they answered loud and clear. Although the feedback varied by region and 

commodity, producers had one thing in common: they want to continue to produce, and they need our help. Now that we have gathered the information, our next step is to formulate the content of 

the bill and put it down on paper. The bill we will write later this 

year will encompass most of the areas under the committee’s jurisdiction, including farm programs, forestry, food stamps, pesticides, 

and commodities trading regulation, rural development and the 

farm credit system. This will be a significant undertaking that will 

require all our staff resources and I am confident the committee 

staff is up to the challenge. 

In addition to its history of bipartisanship, the Agriculture Committee has a strong history of fiscal responsibility. The modest 

spending and cooperative nature of our committee spans back more 

than two decades under the control of both parties. It is my intention to work with Chairman Peterson and the members of the committee to ensure that this tradition is continued, and ask that you 

grant us the funds needed to reach our goals. 

And let me say that in the first 2 months, Chairman Peterson 

has lived up to his comments and we have worked in a bipartisan 

spirit. And in fact, given the fact that the majority moving to a minority status has to make certain adjustments, we have looked to 

those; and I think we have also helped the majority in a number 

of ways to help them in their new status. So we look forward to 

their cooperative efforts and to your support of those efforts. Thank 

you. 

[The statement of Mr. Goodlatte follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. You have just said those 

things that are music to our ears, and that is the cooperative spirit 

between the two of you in a bipartisan effort to make sure that this 

works. Of course, you have the big farm bill that is ahead of you, 

the other one expiring in September. 

I am just really pleased to know that the youth are coming back 

to farmland. That is not only optimistic and exciting, but it is the 

future and it is the future of our farmers. Your opportunities are 

vast. And as you spoke, Mr. Chairman, on organic agriculture, that 

seems extremely exciting, something a young person in college 

would love to get their hands around. 

Mr. Goodlatte, when you talk about forestry and food stamps, 

you tend to not think that they are congruent. So it is just amazing 

how these things all come together for the good. It is indeed a 

privilege to have the two of you before us this afternoon, and again 

I don’t have to ask but I will for the record, Mr. Chairman. The 

two-thirds/one-third plus your willingness to work within the borders of that and even outside of it is what you have committed to? 

Mr. PETERSON. Yes. Excuse me. Yes, absolutely. We are committed to that, and that is how it will work. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you very much. Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you Madam Chair. I want to thank you also 

for the commitment. In most committees I talk to, I say we had to 

work very hard to reach the two-thirds/one-third ratio, and you are 

one of the few committees that met that requirement before. 

Mr. PETERSON. We didn’t have to work very hard. 

Mr. EHLERS. Yeah. Before the Republicans took over in 1995, you 

already met that. You will be interested to know that the staffing 

back then was not 32/16, it was 66/44. So your staff has been 

slimmed down quite a bit since 1993. But I appreciate the spirit 

with which you work together. 

One quick question. If the farmers are doing so well, does that 

mean there is going to be less expenditure under the farm bill? 

Mr. PETERSON. Less spending? 

Mr. EHLERS. Less expenditures? 

Mr. PETERSON. Yes. Well, the commodity title is down $60 billion 

from 2002. 

Mr. EHLERS. Really? 

Mr. PETERSON. Over the 10-year baseline, we had $140 billion in 

2002 projected. The projection for the next 10 years under the the 

baseline is $80 billion. 

Mr. EHLERS. That is good. 

Mr. PETERSON. So we will be able to maintain the safety net that 

we put in place for less money because prices are better. 

Mr. EHLERS. Yes. 

Mr. PETERSON. And the farm bill worked the way it was supposed to. We saved $17 billion so far over the life of the bill below 

what was projected, and they are projecting out a $60 billion savings. 

Now, in other areas, the budget is up. In the food stamp and 

school nutrition, it is up 54 percent because we are getting more 

people to understand about the availability and get more use of it; 

and this is a very good use of our government resources to make 

sure that kids are getting meals, and we are looking at some new 


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ideas about trying to get more nutritious food into the schools and 

making sure that people that need food have food. 

So I think it is somewhere in the neighborhood of now 67 percent 

of our budget will go to food stamps and nutrition. And the commodities are way down. So we are saving money in the area that 

most people think of when they think of the farm bill. That is, the 

commodity area. But we are spending more money on conservation, 

more money on food stamps, and we hope to be able to spend more 

money on research for renewable fuels, because I think that is 

something everybody in the country wants us to do. 

Mr. EHLERS. Quite right, and I am not convinced at all that corn 

is the answer. 

Mr. PETERSON. No. 

Mr. EHLERS. I think there are a number of better alternatives 

out there and that is where the research—— 

Mr. PETERSON. We will be working on those. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Ehlers, if I might add to that, you are exactly right. We have to rush the research and rush the development as best we possibly can with agricultural policy, and the free 

market will determine that more than we will. But, too, other 

forms of other sources for renewable fuels, because corn is badly 

needed in other sectors of our economy for livestock feed and 

human consumption and so on. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me get back to the issue before the House 

Administration Committee. The numbers you cited are, quite 

frankly, stunning because, as of right now, we have fewer staff between the two of us than minority had; 44 that you cited in that 

number. 

I hope you keep that in mind when you talk to other committees 

about what they are asking for and about what this committee is 

because it is a problem for us, being the fiscal conservatives that 

we both are and our committee has historically been. And we come 

in, and we identify a real need that we have from time to time, and 

you are listening to some of the requests that you get from some 

of the other committees on a more constant basis, I have got to say 

that it makes it harder for us, to do what we do in the fiscally responsible way that we do it when other committees are making 

what I think are unnecessary requests. 

Mr. EHLERS. We are well aware of that. 

With that, I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, one thing is for sure, they can make the 

requests, but as we know, the budget has come in on last year’s 

baseline. And the increase is very modest at about 2.2, 2.3 percent. 

So every chairperson and ranking member has left with the notion 

that that is the way it goes. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. But I think, Madam Chairwoman, my point is, 

if you go back to looking at the numbers he cited, where we are 

operating with far less than half the staff, they are not operating 

from the same baseline and that, you know, in terms of the historic—not just 1 year to the next but historically—it would be helpful to make them reassess their overall needs. We do that every 2 

years. 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Duly noted, because many have come requesting more staff. So your point is well taken. Are there any other 

Members who wish to—yes, Mr. McCarthy. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. I just want to congratulate these two. I happen 

to serve on this committee, and the professionalism between the 

two has trickled down to the subcommittees and everywhere else. 

The only thing I will say, and I do point out that the work that 

they have to do this year and by the number of people that they 

have and the timeline that the chairman has set out for us is very 

aggressive that we should take this request very seriously. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much for your comments. 

Mr. Gonzalez, any comments? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. No comments. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for continuing 

to share your leadership in this area. 

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And, again, thank you so much for your patience. Patience is golden. 

Thank you so much. We have before us now the Chairman and 

Ranking Member of Science and Technology, Chairman Gordon and 

Ranking Member Hall. 

Thank you so much and again, we thank you for the patience 

that you have shown throughout this afternoon. And you are ready 

to go, Mr. Gordon? 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BART GORDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Mr. GORDON. Yes. Madam Chairman, and Mr. Ehlers and other 

committee members, I think you probably are the ones that should 

be congratulated for patience. Just being around here this short 

time, hearing the groveling and complaining, I know it would wear 

on you. So I appreciate your attention today. 

I also expect that there is a direct or inverse relationship between the shorter we are, the more money we may get. So I am 

going to hope that is the case and try to be very brief here with 

you. 

I was surprised to see the Rollcall the other day that had all the 

various requests. Apparently folks didn’t get the memo. I thought 

we were supposed to stick to 4 percent; 4 percent, we may not even 

get that 4 percent. So we really tried to do that with our budget. 

And that is all that we ask for. 

And we are not unlike any other committees in terms of inflation 

with our travel, with our resources and things of this nature. But 

we are a little different in this regard, as Mr. Ehlers can very well 

tell you. Most committees if you have, you know, if you are very 

bright and you have good world experiences, then there is probably 

a place for you. 

On the Science and Technology Committee, that is really just not 

the case. We not only have to have those, that element, but staff 

really has to have a good academic understanding of some very 

complex issues that makes it very difficult for us to be able to find 

these folks. In the majority right now, we have seven Ph.D.s, three 

J.D.s and nine staffers that have graduate degrees. 


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And that is really what it, you know, what it takes. 

Another, I think, difference for us is that a lot of committees 

probably are slow in getting staffed up. We have one more hire because—pardon me, Mr. Ehlers—but last September, we started 

running ads saying that if we get the majority, that we want to go 

ahead and start taking applications then. So we tried to get a running start on that. 

The other thing that is a little bit different is that in 1995, the 

Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee was done away with. 

We do not think that is the way we should operate. We think that 

oversight is the responsibility of the committee and that having a 

subcommittee to do that is important. And so we have added that 

additional subcommittee. 

So I think we are somewhat different in those categories. And I 

ask you to keep that in mind if there is going to be some massaging 

later on. 

I think another question that I should respond to that you 

haven’t asked me but you should ask me is, I see that the Science 

Committee gave some money back the last two Congresses, so why 

do you need any additional money? And let me explain that. Again, 

I think Mr. Ehlers and I probably share a frustration that in the 

last two Congresses, that the majority leadership at that time was 

saying, do less. Our majority now is saying, do more. 

And so they did not have their full staff allotment. There is really some deferred maintenance. 

Already this year, we had the first open rule. We had the first 

bill on the Floor that dealt with renewable energy. We had the first 

bill on the Floor that dealt with climate change. We, as Mr. Ehlers 

can tell you, we marked up four bills today. We are kicking it out 

because we have got up, and we are running, and we have got a, 

you know, a good professional staff. And we need to be able to keep 

them and add to them. And I would hope you would keep that in 

mind. And if it is appropriate, yield to my friend, Mr. Hall. 

[The statement of Mr. Gordon follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes, thank you. 

Mr. Hall. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. RALPH HALL, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members, I thank 

you. And you know the numerical division in this committee is two 

thirds and one-third, and I think that carries over to presentations. 

He has made two-thirds of the presentation, and I will take only 

a half of what he took. 

I can simply read the last paragraph of what they wrote for me 

and say, Chairman Gordon has put forth to this committee a reasonable, well documented request that will allow the Science and 

Technology Committee to continue to engage in important policy 

work. I look forward to working with him over the next few years. 

But that is not all I really want to say. I want to say, the committee has a long history of bipartisan cooperation. And we have 

already passed several good bills and worked together on them. I 

am confident that the chairman and I are going to continue that 

condition for years. 

I fully support the operating budget that he submitted, including 

the 4 percent increase over last year’s funding level. And the modest increase, I think, will keep pace with inflation and cost of living 

increases alone. 

So and whether we are dealing with energy research and development, American competitiveness or NASA oversight, our committee is at the center of these discussions. We have a very talented staff of individuals on both sides. Bart is a good native Tennessean, a good guy to work with. I have said a lot of times that 

Texas owes Tennessee our very existence. And he also always remains and says every time, a guy leaves Tennessee, it raises the 

dignity of both States. And I guess that is probably true. 

But I leave with this, thanking you for your time and your cooperation with us, working us in at this time. And I leave, asking 

Bart for a copy of that ad that they ran that helped him get control 

of the Floor. 

[The statement of Mr. Hall follows:] 


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Mr. GORDON. You see why Mr. Hall is good to work with. If I 

could add one more thing, former chairman, Chairman Boehlert did 

a lot of good things. One thing that he did do also was he had a 

study done on making the Science Committee a model committee 

for energy efficiency within Congress. 

We have not acted on that in terms of, we have the study. We 

know what to do. We are meeting with the Architect of the Capitol 

today—not the Architect of the Capitol. What is the proper term? 

Okay, Architect of the Capitol, to review those and to hopefully set 

our committee up as a model committee. The Senate has already 

started doing something like that. 

I think what we will find is that, once our committee is set up 

and we see the efficiencies that will come forth, it will more than 

pay for itself. But there is going to be some additional expense in 

doing that also. But I think it is a good investment because you 

will be getting that back as other offices start to do the same and 

we get those energy efficiency savings. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Excellent. Absolutely excellent. 

You have moved right into the 21st century and beyond, quite 

frankly. We appreciate both of your testimony today. I know it has 

been a long day for you, as it has been for us. I would just turn 

it quickly over. Four markups today; that is a whole lot, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. So I applaud you both on that. 

Mr. Ranking Member, any comments? 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

First of all, I picked up on the fact that you were both committed 

to the two-third/one-third ratio. We are making a big point in that 

because it took 12 years to establish that, and we want to make 

sure we don’t lose it. We appreciate that both of you are committed 

to maintaining that. 

Mr. GORDON. The Science Committee has good precedent in that. 

And we are happy to follow it. And I will mention, gosh, I am sorry. 

But one more thing since you mentioned that. One other reason 

that we are a little different than the other committees is that we 

told all the Republican staff members that if they weren’t hired by 

Mr. Hall because he only has so many spots, if they didn’t find any 

other place to go, that we would keep them on salary. And so that 

is another reason we, you know, we don’t have a lot of flex early 

on. And what is more than that, we also told them all that they 

could all interview for jobs. We hired 7 of our 20 slots as the former 

members of the Republican staff. 

And so, again, it is important to keep that institutional knowledge, that high level of staffers. We tried to do that, and we, again, 

spent some money that other committees didn’t by keeping on the 

Republican folks that didn’t have a place to go. 

Mr. HALL. And that is not only generous of you, it is kind of you. 

And I admire and respect the Speaker for her recommendation 

early in the session to keep those youngsters on for 2 months or 

3 months. And I think that failed. I haven’t really gone back to see 

who really defeated it. But I think that was a good idea, to encourage our young to stay and support and take interest in their government because it belongs to them. And you know, old people 

don’t fight wars and old people don’t pay budgets. And I think we 

have to keep the youth increasingly interested in science and math. 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. I couldn’t agree with you more on that. Absolutely. Absolutely, Mr. Ehlers. 

Mr. EHLERS. Yes, I certainly agree with those comments and appreciate what you have said. 

Just one quick question, Mr. Gordon. At one time, you talked to 

me and said you thought you could live within the dollar budgets 

that you are putting in, but you really needed a few extra slots. 

Did you request those? 

Mr. GORDON. Well, again, recognizing that this is a modest budget and difficult time, we made a request for one. And, so, you know, 

we will, as we staff up, we may be back, but we think that if we 

have one additional one, that that will help us get over this hump. 

Mr. EHLERS. All right. I was very ready to fight for two, but if 

you will settle for one. I was ready to fight for two. 

Mr. GORDON. We would like to have two. We were just trying to 

be in the spirit of things this time. 

We could sure find a place for them. 

Mr. EHLERS. Fine. 

With that, I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Thank you both for your great testimony and the great things 

that you are doing. When you have all those J.D.s, Ph.D.s and 

graduate degree personnel, you can’t go wrong in a Science Committee. Thank you so much, and we look forward to continuously 

working with you. 

Now we have with us the Chairman and Ranking Member of Intelligence. Chairman Reyes and Ranking Member Hoekstra. 

Good afternoon. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for your patience as we move into this afternoon. I look forward to your testimony, and you may begin, Mr. Chairman. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. SILVESTRE REYES, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. REYES. Well thank you, very much, Madam Chairman, and 

ranking member. We appreciate your patience as well because we 

know it has been a long afternoon. 

The ranking member and I are here to present a completely bipartisan budget request for the 110th Congress. This budget process was actually started back in November by committee staff 

under the guidance of Mr. Hoekstra and was actually finished in 

the last couple of weeks with guidance from me. We are requesting 

a very modest 1 percent increase in the budget allocation from 

2006 to 2007. 

In 2008, the committee will be moving down to its new location 

in the Capitol Visitors Center and will require a 6 percent increase 

to cover equipment purchases and payroll. There is absolutely no 

padding in this budget that we are requesting. And the requested 

funds are necessary to keep the committee operating in its normal 

capacity in conducting oversight of the Intelligence Community. 

Due to the committee’s spaces being colocated in the Capitol 

Building, the committee is very concerned with its Continuity of 

Operations plan. Should anything ever happen to the Capitol 

Building, it is almost certain that the committee would not have 

access to the building for several months or perhaps even years. 


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Thus we have begun to research, plan and budget for an offsite 

backup. The equipment needed for redundant secure communications will allow the committee to be stood up in the case of an 

emergency and is provided for in this budget request. 

For the previous 30 years, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has been able to receive information, communications, budget documents and briefings, from the Intelligence 

Community through one secure fax machine and cleared couriers. 

We are probably the only committee left in the House that receives 

the majority of its information and oversight materials on paper. 

This, Madam Chairman, will change during the 110th Congress. 

The HPSCI members and staff will have complete access to Secret 

Internet Protocol Router Network otherwise known as SIPRNET 

and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System or 

JWICS. This will allow the committee to receive classified material 

electronically and will save thousands of courier hours a year. In 

order to implement this new capability in the 110th Congress, the 

committee will require a large investment in equipment. 

Although the HPSCI operates on a bipartisan basis, the budget 

request also reflects an allocation of the one-third—of one-third of 

the committee’s personnel compensation to staff members who 

principally serve the interest of the minority. The minority has controlled a third of the payroll budget since the 106th Congress, and 

this practice will continue in the 110th Congress. 

In order to carry out its work, the HPSCI must recruit and retain highly qualified and cleared staff. Many staff members have 

been active in the Intelligence Community for decades and are vigorously sought after by the private sector. 

The HPSCI has been given 44 staff slots since the 108th Congress. Due to office space constraints in the Capitol where we reside, the HPSCI did not have more than 40 staff at any one time. 

The minority is allowed 13 staff; the majority, 26 staff. And there 

are five shared staff. If additional space is provided or once the 

committee moves to the Capitol Visitors Center, we intend to ramp 

up the 44 staff slots that have been authorized. 

So, in conclusion, Madam Chairman, we believe these increases 

are justified by the committee’s oversight plan which seeks to ensure that the Intelligence Community is observing its legal obligations and has the resources and capabilities to carry out its critical 

and increasingly risky mission. 

I want to thank you this afternoon for the opportunity to present 

this budget request, and I look forward to any questions you might 

have. 

[The statements of Mr. Reyes and Mr. Hoekstra follow:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETER HOEKSTRA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Ditto. 

And the only thing I would add is, you know, I very much appreciate the process that Silvestre has gone through as we have gone 

through the difficulty of, you know, staff reductions with the transfer, but the chairman has been very, very gracious in making sure 

that we accommodate the needs of the staff as we have gone 

through that process. I think we have now completed that. And I 

think it has worked very, very well for the committee. And it has 

worked very, very well for the staff that were affected. So, as 

Silvestre said, this is a totally bipartisan budget. And I endorse it 

100 percent. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

Ranking member. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. I just want to verify you have the two-thirds/ 

one-third rule going; everybody is in agreement there? 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Yes, actually, we do, and the way the committee 

is set up, we also have shared positions. And that is, you know, 

Jane and I were in total agreement on the last Congress in how 

we structured that, and that agreement has carried forward. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Thank you so much. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much, and it is great to see 

such a committee of interest—you are just so needed in the work 

that you do, covert, overt, whatever, but it is still very much needed. To see the two of you are coming together in a bipartisan effort, 

and that is a great deal of leadership on the part of the Chairman 

as well as the Ranking Member, who was the Chairman early on. 

We thank you so much for being here. 

I do not see any further questions that are needed in this late 

hour. We do know that there is a modest increase of 2.4 percent 

because we are operating from the budget base of last year. And 

this year, that is a very modest increase, but nevertheless, this is 

what we have. This is what has been given to us by the appropriators and Budget Committee. 

But we appreciate the work that you do. If there is something 

else that should come down the pike, we will certainly let you 

know, and you will be aware of that and you will hear from us. 

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If I may say one thing, we thought we were going 

to be in the CVC already. And the budgeting and planning for that 

was very, very difficult. And I am not sure we would have had the 

money if we would have actually moved in. So I hope that we actually do move into the Visitors Center during Silvestre’s service as 

chairman recognizing that if we do move in there, I hope we don’t 

have any unanticipated costs, but you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, you know, it is amazing you talk about 

that because we will soon have a hearing on the CVC, and we will 

let you know perhaps in short order as to what will be developing 

there. Thank you both so very, very much. 


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Welcome, Standards. I would like to first congratulate the new 

Chairwoman. It is good to see a chairwoman in the position of authority. We thank you so much for coming before the Committee 

today to outline your budget and to speak with us about the great 

things that you guys will be doing. 

Of course, Ethics is on the front line, and a priority for not only 

this Congress but for the American people. They are looking for 

you to do great things, so congratulations Chairwoman Tubbs 

Jones. It is also good to see you, Mr. Former Chair and Ranking 

Member Hastings. 

Because of the brevity of time, we will ask you to go right into 

your presentations. 

And you might start, Madam Chairwoman. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Mrs. JONES. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, I am glad to be 

with you as well. I want to congratulate you on your 

chairwomanship, and, Mr. McCarthy, good afternoon to you as 

well. 

Congress is a venerable institution, one in which we have a responsibility to ensure higher standards, the highest standards of 

government. My colleague, Ranking Member Doc Hastings and I 

have been entrusted with the responsibility of guiding the House 

and following new ethics rules adopted in January 22, 2007, under 

the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

And the wonderful thing about Doc Hastings and I, we have been 

working together for the past 4, 5, 6 years. And so we are not new 

to one another. And I believe that we will have an opportunity to 

do a great job as chair and ranking member on this committee. 

The meetings that we hosted to organize and welcome our new 

members demonstrated that ethics is neither a Democrat or Republican issue. Rather it is an issue that concerns Members from both 

sides of the aisle and the professional nonpartisan staff members 

that serve. 

As the committee name implies, the American people have entrusted us to uphold the standards of this House. First, the committee works to educate and advise Members and staff, and secondly, the committee investigates possible violations of the rules. 

And when the rules are broken, the committee must enforce them. 

Despite the small staff of 13, the committee annually produces 

thousands of written advisories and formal opinions, provides 

Member and staff briefings and conducts investigations of possible 

rule violations. In 2007, the committee has been charged with two 

additional roles, to conduct mandatory annual ethics training for 

every officer and employee of the House of Representatives—which 

counts for about 10,000 employees—and to undertake the mandatory review of traveling requests to ensure that congressional travel offered to Members and staff meets the House ethics rules. 

We have requested a budget request increase of 28 percent from 

$4.7 million in the 109th to $6.1 in the 110th; in other words, $1.35 

million in additional funding. With respect to ethics, the committee 

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mittee was provided with funds for six additional staff members in 

the 109th beyond the 13 that had previously been authorized. However, due to issues that have been all in the news—and I am not 

going to go through them at any point—it is time for us to move 

forward and do the job of the committee. And I believe that Doc 

Hastings and I are prepared to do that. 

The committee was able to, in 2006, to fill three existing vacancies to meet the staff level, 13, in the 108th. Following the passage 

of the 110th, the committee has anticipated need for additional— 

five additional positions. I am skipping through this real quickly, 

the $1.15 million—— 

The CHAIRWOMAN. And I appreciate that. 

Mrs. JONES. The primary increase in the budget, $1.15 million of 

the 1.35 million, is for increase in personnel expenses resulting 

from the increased responsibilities. 

Under committee rules, two of the staff members are members 

of personal staff of the chair and the ranking member, while the 

remaining 11 staff are retained by the committee. 

The committee staff provide advice and education to House Members and staff in several ways, and I won’t go through, but you are 

familiar with that. But the committee now needs to have additional 

staff to provide additional responsibility that has been given to us, 

which are to provide mandatory training to staff of 10,000 and in 

addition to which, to increase the function, for the first time, to 

preapprove all officially connected privately sponsored travel. Members and staff seeking to apply for travel are required under the 

guidelines to provide substantial detail. 

With that, I want to say to you, the Chair and to the ranking 

member, I am excited about the opportunities that the committee 

has to provide the services necessary to the Members of the House 

and the staff. And with that, I am going to—I don’t know if I am 

supposed to yield, but I do yield to my colleague. 

[The statement of Mrs. Jones follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, you may yield, but I am going to yield 

to him any way. 

Mrs. JONES. With that, I complete my testimony and ask you to 

refer to the full testimony. I kind of zipped through it. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes. And that is fine. We are asking everyone 

to submit their full testimony for the record. And you have done 

just as we had wanted you to do. So thanks so very much. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DOC HASTINGS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON 

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you with the Ethics 

Committee’s request for the 110th Congress. 

Chairwoman Tubbs Jones and I, as well other colleagues, have 

been called on to serve at a very serious and challenging time for 

the Ethics Committee. 

As you know, several events through much of the 109th Congress 

shined a bright spotlight on the committee’s very difficult work. 

While the challenges remain, I believe the committee’s performance 

during the last 8 months of 2006—particularly the oversight of the 

page program investigation—demonstrated that, given a sincere 

commitment on both sides of the aisle, the committee can effectively carry out its obligations to this House. And Mrs. Tubbs Jones 

and I spent a great deal of time here as a member of that subcommittee in October, and I believe that we demonstrated that we 

can work. 

As you know, as the chairwoman pointed out the committee has 

two primary tasks, to educate, inform and advise Members and 

staff about their ethical responsibilities pursuant to the Rules of 

the House and to enforce those rules firmly and fairly without with 

regard to friendship, favor or political party. 

Progress on these two fronts is vital to our overarching goal to 

secure and raise the American people’s confidence in the integrity 

of the House as an institution. The American people deserve and 

expect their elected representatives to abide by the highest ethical 

standards. And that is what we must strive to achieve. 

I believe the recent increased interest in ethics provides us with 

the unique opportunity to work together and provide for successful 

results. 

At this hearing 2 years ago, I outlined an aggressive plan to substantially upgrade and enhance the ethics education and training 

publications and communications with the goal of enhancing our 

ability to help Members and staff to understand the rules and to 

follow them. 

At that time, I requested a substantial increase in funding for 

salaries, equipment and travel to fund six new positions and to provide our committee with tools to better serve Members and staff in 

the House. And I appreciate very much the House Administration 

Committee’s willingness to fund that vision. 

But, as you know, certain problems during the last Congress 

blocked our efforts to pursue these objectives that we would have 

liked. But I am more committed than ever to be moving forward 

with them. And I am pleased that the chairwoman and I share this 


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commitment that I just outlined, that we outlined 2 years ago. I 

join her today and request you once again provide these resources 

necessary to enhance our efforts in these areas. 

In addition, in light of several significant changes to House Rules 

adopted in January by the 110th Congress, the chairwoman and I 

are preparing for the Ethics Committee to take on new responsibilities that the committee has not had in the past in the areas of gift, 

public travel and public disclosure. And I hope this committee will 

provide the resources necessary to do that, because I believe that 

the Members of this House need, as quickly as possible, responses 

from us when they ask questions. They are, in fact, customers of 

this committee. 

So, specifically, we would ask additional funding for salaries, 

equipment and travel for five new positions as was outlined by the 

chairwoman. 

So while recognizing the tight budget times that we face, we believe that this budget request is realistic and responsible. It will at 

least follow the full implementation of the vision that I put forth 

at the beginning of the last Congress that will help us meet our 

new responsibilities with the Rules recently passed by the 110th 

Congress. And most importantly, it will strengthen the trust and 

the integrity of this revered institution. And I think that is important to all of us. 

So, with that, I stand fully behind the statement of the distinguished chairwoman of this committee. And I am looking forward 

to working with her this year. And we both stand ready to answer 

questions if you have any. 

[The statement of Mr. Hastings follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much for your testimony. 

I like that statement that you made, Mr. Ranking Member, you 

two were called on to serve. That is indeed true. 

Because of the high integrity that you bring to the Committee, 

coupled with your desire to make sure that the integrity is above 

board and that everything that you do is above board, I think your 

testimony is a testament to you two being put into this assignment. 

So we thank you so much for your being here. 

Now, I am trying to move this along because Rules has to go 

back to a markup, so I am trying to shorten some things. I don’t 

think I have to ask any questions because you have said it all. I 

will refer to the Ranking Member for any statement that he might 

have. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. I will just be very brief. I want to thank you two 

for working so well together. And as a new Member, I know you 

have a lot of work ahead of you, those rules and regulations, because all of those new Members are starting to ask, what are the 

rules? And everyone says, wait until Rules gets it—or Ethics comes 

out with it. So we look forward to your work. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I know we are at a tough time here. We have time 

constraints. But I have a real concern. As I understand it, we are 

unable to give them more than 2 percent or 2.4 percent increase, 

and their increase request is 40-something percent for all the new 

work they are going to do. And as one who had to already submit 

a request for a relatively simple thing, the amount of work they are 

going to be required to do this year under these new rules is extraordinary. And I wonder if I could ask, if you just get a 2 percent 

increase, how are we going to be able to have our requests answered by you in a timely fashion? 

Mrs. JONES. I just want to correct for the record, we really, our 

increase is only 28 percent. I know it was reflected in one of the 

newspapers that it was 40-something percent. But they were comparing apples and oranges. Our request is 28 percent. And in order 

to do the kind of job that you want us to do, that is what we need. 

Now, if you don’t give it to us, we are going to do as much as 

we can with what we receive. But I would say to you, and I don’t 

know who else I have to go to, to say that in order for us to 

preapprove all the private requests and advisory opinions and to 

educate 10,000—we are not just educating Members. We are required to educate every officer of the House as well as every employee. And we are talking 10,000 people. 

To do a good job at it, we need to have the money that we are 

requesting. I will yield to Doc because he was chair before. Maybe 

he can add to that. 

Mr. HASTINGS. I think one way to measure this is to start with 

the number of employees we have, which is only 13. And so if you 

add that, what we are asking I think is very realistic. And I think 

that we can do that job. The staff has been doing an extraordinary 

job with essentially a static staff and the workload that we had because of all of the awareness of ethical issues in the last Congress. 

So they have done a remarkable job. But, frankly, I think that we 

can do a better job in a more timely area. 


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You talked about a request coming in. I view this—and the chairwoman views this—as you being our customers. You ask us for information. I think we should get that information back to you as 

quickly as we possibly can. And sometimes that just takes some 

manpower. And, frankly, with the new responsibilities we have— 

and I might say, I think with the concurrence of my chairwoman— 

they are very difficult to wade through. And I don’t think that we 

have gotten to the end of the process yet, to be very honest with 

you. And I think we have to have the staff to support us in that 

regard. 

Mr. LUNGREN. My concern is we have adopted new rules. I always viewed this as an institution—this is part of the nonpartisan 

nature of the institution, the ethical conduct of the Members. And 

if we set ourselves up for failure such that we put restrictions on 

ourselves and because we don’t give you enough money so you can’t 

do the responsiveness, we are going to put Members in the situation where they are either not going to be able to do something 

they should be able to do, or they will do it and then be found to 

be violative of our laws on a technical nature. And I don’t wish that 

on any Democrat or any Republican or any Independent in this 

House. And I am concerned about this Institution as an Institution. 

And when you have put a request in for $6,119,000 and the proposed mark is a little less than $5 million, that means you are 

about $1.1 million under what you think you need. 

Now everybody asks for what they think they need, but in this 

particular case where we have given this tremendous increase in 

responsibility and a need for timeliness for each Member’s own integrity, plus the—what this House is going to look like, I am really 

concerned about that. And I know we have a tough situation, but 

this is one where we may be setting a trap for ourselves. 

Mrs. JONES. That is why we are hoping, because the additional 

responsibility has been put upon us by the House, or relayed upon 

us by the House, that the House may lay an additional responsibility upon themselves to give us the additional money that we 

need to do our job. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Frankly, had we passed a budget last year, 

we would have been able then to give you more increase in your 

funding source. 

It is because of a lack thereof we have had to start from the 

baseline of last year’s budget and do the modest increase. 

We appreciate what you are doing. We have duly noted what you 

are requesting as opposed to what we can provide at this juncture. 

But I will be going back to the Speaker talking about certain 

things. 

And, Mr. Lungren, those are some of the things I will be proposing to her. 

I cannot say anything will come from that. But at least I will let 

it be known that you have raised the bar, so now you must have 

the funding and resources to go along with it. 

Thank you so very much, the two of you, for coming before us 

today. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you. 

Mrs. JONES. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you, Mr. McCarthy, and Mr. Lungren. 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. We know that Members are trying to get 

back. Rules Committee, please come forward, and while we ask for 

the Rules Committee, we know that the Natural Resources Chairperson and Ranking Member have some commitments, I have been 

told. Are they still here with us, or have they had to leave? They 

will come back in 10 minutes. 

Okay, then we will wrap it up in 10 minutes. 

May I please congratulate you, Madam Chairwoman, for being in 

the position that you are in. I am absolutely ecstatic. I am pleased 

to see you in that position. And we thank you for representing us 

quite well as the woman who chairs the Rules Committee. And I 

might add, for my California friend, we thank you for the leadership and your chairship when you were there in the last Congress. 

And we appreciate you coming on as the Ranking Member. So 

thanks to both of you, and you may proceed with your statement. 

Now I would like to ask if you can just summarize and then let 

your complete statement be a part of the record for us. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. LOUISE M. SLAUGHTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW 

YORK 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. You will be so happy with us. We are only asking for 2 percent. So we will get right to it. I am happy to see you 

and Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Lungren. I am proud to come before you 

today as the chair of the Rules Committee for what I hope is the 

first of many appearances to discuss funding for Rules. Since we 

are under time constraints, I will get right to the heart of the matter. 

Our committee is responsible for setting the parameters of debate for specific pieces of legislation, has the unique role of considering the vast majority of complex legislative initiatives before they 

come to the Floor and maintains jurisdiction over many other 

issues of critical importance to the ongoing operation of the House, 

everything from the opening day rules package to ensuring the 

House’s ability to function in times of crisis. 

In short, Madam Chair, the Rules Committee is the only body to 

have such a wide-ranging jurisdictional reach concerning House 

procedures while also impacting nearly every major piece of legislation that comes before it on the way to the House Floor. 

Out of respect for the House Administration Committee, the 

budget I submit today, along with the committee’s ranking member, Mr. Dreier, asks for a budget increase of no more than 2 percent of the prior year’s budget level. It is a budget which will allow 

us to fund the daily operations of the committee while still investing to a degree in the ongoing efforts to serve the House Membership and the public. 

At the same time, however, it is important to note that this committee has historically received much smaller increases in funding 

than almost all others. A budget increase of only 2 percent will 

simply continue that trend. 

As such, I must express my belief that keeping the committee 

funding at this level may hinder us from providing the level of 

services to the House Membership and the public that we aspire 

to. Accepting the proposed guidelines for the Rules Committee 


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budget has led us to reprogram funds to meet growing demands 

and emerging priorities and essential needs. 

For example, the committee’s funding of travel and equipment 

have been cut 40 to 46 percent, respectively, to allow for money to 

be redirected into accounts like communication and supplies as 

well as to recover increased spending levels resulting from natural 

growth. 

Such shifts will result in a budget that will more accurately reflect the actual spending of the committee based on past year-end 

budget numbers. 

Funds have also been shifted to the category of other services to 

address modernization needs and software development. Both are 

critical to the committee’s ability to increase performance and work 

output and to meet demand and increased access to Rules Committee information. 

Mr. Dreier started the development of the Rules Amendment 

Tracking System software that has already yielded great benefits 

to the committee. He has done excellent work in moving the committee down the necessary road toward modernization and increased efficiency by investing in the RATS program. This investment must be continued in order to further increase its accessibility and usefulness. That effort will not only continue to return 

dividends internally within the committee but also with our daily 

partners, such as the House leadership and the House Parliamentarians. 

Furthermore, Rules strongly desires to shift to a more dedicated 

paperless format as well as to modernize our technology and public 

outreach efforts. We will need professional help and guidance to be 

able to do so. 

I remain confident we can continue to move forward and make 

progress although with the limited funds in our budget proposal, 

project deadlines must be extended to spread out the funding over 

multiple years. This will obviously delay the benefits with these investments as we continue to improve the services provided by the 

Committee on Rules. 

And, Madam Chair, any budget that doesn’t keep up with both 

inflation and growing costs impacts those who work under it. We 

do believe we can fully staff the committee with a slight increase 

in the personnel funding that is called for while still maintaining 

our work output. 

At the same time, this budget will not provide for the desired 

growth in committee staff, for new positions or for common cost-ofliving adjustments. 

The Rules Committee has in the past always provided for onethird allocation of salary funding to the minority and that will be 

continued. Similarly, the minority will still receive one-third of the 

committee staff slots. But as we strive to offer more services to the 

Members of the House and their staff, we will need the increases 

in this account to provide them. 

Madam Chair, the budget cosponsored by Ranking Member 

Dreier and myself carefully and responsibly funds priority accounts 

while reallocating money to more properly reflect the demands on 

our committee’s budget in recent years. 


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Although we will welcome a greater investment in the Rules 

Committee to help us accomplish our mission, we have chosen to 

come before you today and present a budget that honors your request by adhering to the recommended budget constraints. Our 

growing need has not made us unaware of the fact that public 

funds are precious and must be spent wisely. That is a reality acknowledged by the modest budget we present to you today. 

And at the same time, it is my hope that the House Administration Committee will keep in mind our future goals and needs when 

making final allocation decisions. Any further funding assistance 

would be a great help to both the majority and the minority on our 

committee as we seek to provide the best possible services to the 

House and to the public. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

[The statement of Ms. Slaughter follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. Dreier. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DAVID DREIER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. DREIER. Well, thank you, very much, Madam Chairman. 

Until the arrival of Mr. Ehlers, the ranking member of the committee, I was looking forward to saying that this was history making for me for the first time ever testifying before an all California 

panel. And so if you want to leave now, Mr. Ranking Member, I 

can, in fact, have my dream come true to testify before a new distinguished chair of the House Administration Committee and my 

two California colleagues. But I don’t mind if you stay, actually. 

Let me just say that the testimony that the distinguished chair 

of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter, has provided has once 

again shown that she and I agree on absolutely everything. We 

have never disagreed on any public policy question. We have never 

disagreed on the structure around which issues are considered on 

the House Floor. And so we have done this again. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Let’s not go too far now. 

Mr. DREIER. And I will tell you that it was interesting that the 

one thing that she praised me on was, in fact, the RATS program, 

the Rules Amendment Tracking System. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. It could have been called STAR. 

Mr. DREIER. She wanted it to be called STAR. But Hugh 

Halpern, our staff director, came up with the brilliant acronym 

RATS to describe our amendment tracking system. 

I will say that I believe this is a very appropriate request. The 

one thing that I hope we will be able to make clear, they will be 

continuing the pattern that we had in the past of the one-third recognition for staffing. 

I hope that, for travel and equipment and services and all that, 

we will be able to see the one-third allocation for the minority, 

which is something that I do think is very important. But as Mrs. 

Slaughter outlined very appropriately, the Rules Committee is basically the traffic cop for the institution. We need to be prepared 

at any time to consider not only the daily legislative items that we 

address, but as she said in her testimony, in a time of crisis, the 

Rules Committee is regularly called on. And so we do have very important work. 

So I strongly support the effort that she has here. And since Mr. 

Young has told me that I am to say just that I agree and then shut 

up, I will now agree and then shut up. 

[The statement of Mr. Dreier follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. When have you paid attention to anyone, Mr. 

Dreier? But we do appreciate that. And we appreciate you noticing 

that there are all Californians here, and the Ranking Member who 

has returned. 

Mr. DREIER. It was hard to see. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. You are a very astute person. Thanks to the 

two of you for coming before us. You are very sensitive. You have 

said that you have come and you honor our request for just the 2.2 

percent for inflation. 

But we do recognize and appreciate your being very sensitive to 

that. Because there was not a budget passed last year, we had to 

go from the baseline and then bring in this modest 2.2 percent. 

So we thank you so much. We thank you for what you do on the 

Rules Committee. Because, after all, you are the determining factor 

as to what gets to the Floor and what doesn’t. 

You have outlined a very ambitious, a very challenging agenda 

but one that you can meet with the two of you working together. 

Now, there is the agreement of the two-thirds/one-third in this 

committee? 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Yes. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Okay, fine, very good. 

Mr. Ehlers, you have a comment. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. 

First of all, I appreciate the two-third/one-third ratio commitment. We are asking that of every committee because, as you know, 

it was not that way for some time. We have worked hard over the 

past dozen years to make sure that every committee meets it, and 

we want to maintain that. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. We are happy to do it. 

Mr. DREIER. I hope we can do that not only for staffing allocation 

but, as I was saying, for equipment and travel and services as well. 

Mr. EHLERS. Yes. It turns out that almost every committee negotiates something different between the chair and the ranking member. The spirit of it is indeed that we will share two-thirds/onethird, and committees negotiate different ways they handle that. 

Absolutely, we just simply want the commitment here. 

Secondly, Mr. Dreier, I apologize I missed the first part. I was 

having a little meeting in the anteroom with some other folks who 

needed my attention. But I have to tell you, it is worse than you 

thought. We have a majority of Californians on this Committee. 

Mr. DREIER. My condolences to you, Mr. Ehlers. 

You will survive. 

Mr. EHLERS. It is not so much a problem that they are from California. It is just that, as you know, Californians never agree with 

each other. So—— 

Mr. DREIER. I have not seen evidence of that. I have never seen 

evidence of that. 

Mr. EHLERS. So my role here is to referee between them. Be that 

as it may, we appreciate your testimony. You run a good committee, and I hope that I get as many amendments under the—— 

Mr. DREIER. I will be trying, I promise. 

Mr. EHLERS. Under the new chairman as I did from you. Certainly, I thank you for your service. You probably work the oddest 

hours of any committee of the House. 


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Ms. SLAUGHTER. Not anymore. 

Mr. DREIER. Not anymore. I ended that, actually, 3 years ago. 

Mr. EHLERS. I appreciate that. At any rate, I have no further 

questions. I would yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Yes, thank you so much, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much. Again, I appreciate the fact 

that there is a one-third/two-thirds. When I served here before, I 

loved to serve on the Judiciary Committee, upon which I still serve, 

and I recall at that time we had something like 11 percent of the 

total budget which made it rather difficult for the minority to do 

its work. 

And I am glad to see that, over the intervening years, there has 

been an understanding of a one-third/two-thirds and that this is 

prevailing now as we come back. 

Some of my colleagues from California have kidded me about the 

fact that I was in the minority for 10 years. I left, and I came back, 

and 2 years after I got here, we went from majority to minority 

again. I don’t think there is a cause and effect. But I also thinking 

that there are things to be learned from that. 

And I think fairer treatment of the minority is important and 

providing a one-third/two-thirds expenditure, understanding it, 

seems to me is important. And it is helpful to the entire constituency. 

Mr. DREIER. As you know, there was a change we made in 1994 

when we became the majority status, and we felt very strongly. 

You said that 11 percent number that you had is— 

Mr. LUNGREN. Rules was better. It was 17 percent for Rules. 

Mr. DREIER. Right, 17 percent for Rules, but I mean, the 11 percent on Judiciary Committee, I think it is very important to note 

that. And we felt passionately about that in 1994 when we came. 

And I am very happy that we are continuing with recognition of 

that because, as the gentleman said, it would be very unfair to 

treat the minority as the minority before 1994 had been treated 

then. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, the other thing is, everybody has a more recent memory of being in the minority. 

Mr. DREIER. That is exactly right. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. Thanks to both of you for 

being here. 

Mr. DREIER. Thank you very much. Again, congratulations to 

you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you so much. Look forward to working 

with the two of you. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Step right on up. Thank you so much for your 

patience as we round up this full day of funding hearings that 

started at 9:30 this morning. 

We appreciate the two of you coming in today, Chairman Rahall 

and Ranking Member Young on Natural Resources. If you don’t 

mind just submitting your full testimony for the record and just 

summarizing what you would like for the Committee to have, we 

would appreciate that. 


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And, Mr. Chairman, thank you and good afternoon. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. NICK RAHALL, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it, and I am 

glad to see my ranking member take his rightful seat to my right. 

And, Ranking Member Mr. Ehlers and Mr. Lungren, I do appreciate this opportunity both for myself and my long time colleague 

on both of the committees. I have had the privilege of serving in 

this body for 30 years, both on Transportation and Infrastructure 

and Resources. Ranking member now on Resources, Don Young 

and I now have an opportunity to present to this committee our 

budget for the 110th Congress. We know it has been a long day for 

you. And I am going to be very brief in my comments. 

In total, the amount we are requesting represents only a 4 percent increase in 2007 over the committee’s budget for the second 

session of the 109th Congress with an additional 4 percent increase—only 4 percent I might add—for 2008. 

We believe that this small increase is justifiable in light of the 

aggressive schedule of oversight hearings the committee intends to 

conduct, including in the field. 

In this regard, our committee does have jurisdiction over issues 

affecting Native Americans and the U.S. territorial possessions. 

Many Indian tribes remain impoverished, and territorial issues 

have been largely ignored over the past few years. It is our intention to bring the committee out to Indian country, to our territories, so we can see and hear firsthand the problems they face. 

A brief review of the committee’s oversight plan that was submitted with our budget proposal will also give you an idea of the 

other pressing issues the committee intends to address both 

through oversight and legislation. The increase we are proposing is 

also aimed at allowing the committee to retain talented professional staff. On the Democratic side, I am proud to say that we 

have staff that started on the committee during the chairmanships 

of Moe Udall and subsequently George Miller. They have chosen to 

stay with the committee through thick and thin, I might add, and 

have resisted the temptations of K Street for these many years due 

to their dedication to public service. I do respect their loyalty, and 

I feel obligated to provide them with appropriate compensation. 

The committee is allowed 69 staffers in total. Of that number, 40 

serve on the majority staff; 20 serve on the minority staff; and 9 

are shared employees, staffers such as the systems administrator, 

the chief clerk and the chief financial officer. In this regard, onethird of the salary budget is controlled by the minority. 

The remainder of the budget, Madam Chair, items such as travel 

and supplies, is treated openly. By this, I mean, there is no distinction or prejudice between the majority and minority. Computers, 

copiers and other equipment are repaired or replaced as needed 

without regard to whether it is a Democrat or Republican staffer 

using them. The same applies to travel. That concludes my testimony, and again, I thank you for this opportunity. 

[The statement of Mr. Rahall follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. I thank you so much. 

Mr. Young. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DON YOUNG, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALASKA 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I agree with the 

Chairman 100 percent. I am fortunate to have a Chairman on the 

Committee who served with me for 30 years. 

This is a fair budget request. It is very small. I have to say, in 

defense of the Chairman, you know, that the Democrats are supposed to be the big spenders. He is not a big spender. I would have 

been a bigger spender. But he has done what is correct, and I do 

support this budget. I think it is the right thing to do. And as he 

said, we have a great responsibility for the land and the water, the 

wildlife and the territories of the American Natives of this Nation. 

And I support the efforts as put forth by this proposal by the 

Chairman. 

[The statement of Mr. Young follows:] 


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The CHAIRWOMAN. You know what, it was not until I looked at 

the testimonies that you both submitted that I thought, wow, what 

a vast, broad array of things that you do under this committee. 

And I think I counted about 14 hearings in California alone or 

close to that. 

And so we are very pleased that you are seeing California as one 

of those States that you need to continuously come to, but then, of 

course, with its natural resources and other types of habitat, you 

would want to go there. 

I am very pleased with what you are doing. Regretfully to say, 

the committees that have come before us, all of the chairs have 

been met with the notion that we only have a 2.2 percent increase 

for inflation from the baseline of last year’s budget because we did 

not have a budget passed last year. So we had to operate from last 

year’s budget and then do this 2.2 percent increase. 

There could be something else that comes down the pike. I have 

duly noted what both of you have said in terms of the vast array 

of initiatives and the agenda that you have before us. And I will 

certainly go back to the Speaker about this. 

But I must tell you in all candor, at this point, that is what we 

have for the budget. And we just appreciate your working within 

those constraints. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

It is a pleasure to hear your testimony and to have harmonious 

arrangement between the two of you. 

We have not had that in all our committees, but I know both of 

you well, and particularly, I have worked for years with—under the 

direction of the gentleman from Alaska. He has always done a good 

job. 

I am sure both of you will at this point. It is a subject that is 

very dear to me. I could never serve on the committee. I have too 

many committees the way it is now, but the environment and resources, conservation are extremely important to me. I appreciate 

the work that your committee does. 

Just one comment with respect to your jurisdiction which is basically the entire planet. It is exceeded only by the Science Committee in which I serve, we have jurisdiction over the entire universe. However, it is a little more difficult to plan committee trips 

to examine—I am hoping that I might be able to take a trip to the 

moon as part of the committee’s responsibility, but I don’t expect 

that is going to happen in my short remaining life. 

On the two-thirds/one-third, which is mentioned, I just want to 

thank you for affirming that—and we are checking that with all 

the committees—because this is very important to this committee. 

We struggled for 12 years to establish that ratio, including a few 

recalcitrant committees, because of the history where the Republicans were denied resources and some chairmen didn’t want to 

yield back. 

But we did establish it. We are determined to keep it. I am very 

much appreciative that you both pledged to continue that practice. 

I appreciate it. 

With that, I have no further questions. And you seem to have 

submitted a very fair budget given the terrible constraints we are 


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working under this year. We hope that, if we have a good appropriations bill this year, that things might look a little better next 

year. We have no idea if they will. So thank you for your efforts. 

Thank you for your good work and make sure that committee keeps 

running smoothly. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Mr. Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank both 

of you for coming. I have always enjoyed working with both of you. 

And Madam Chair, it is appropriate that, in today’s hearings, we 

started with a Foreign Affairs Committee with Mr. Lantos, who is 

not a native Californian but became a Californian, and we end with 

Mr. Young, who is a native Californian but who sought fame and 

fortune in the largest State in the Union, Alaska, but he does return to California from time to time and somehow, his alma mater, 

Chico State, decided that they would recognize him as the outstanding graduate. 

And as long as we keep quiet about some of the things he has 

done here, I think they will not remove that title from him. So we 

appreciate him being here. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. YOUNG. Thanks for the compliment. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, I thank you both so much, and again, 

thanks for your patience and thanks for your sensitivity to the constraints that we find ourselves in, in terms of this budget. Certainly, if anything else should come, you will be the first to know 

that. Thank you so much. 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, committee chairs, ranking members, 

and members, you have been incredibly outstanding today. We 

have heard from them all today. We knew that it was going to be 

ambitious, and indeed, it was, but you stuck right with us on that. 

I would like to thank you both for being right here until the end, 

and I would like to thank those who did come and had to leave because of other committee commitments. 

Mr. Ehlers, would you like to make a statement before we close? 

Mr. EHLERS. Yes. Thank you for your patience and your service 

on this important day. I believe this is the first time we have, in 

my experience, that we have done it in one day and the first time 

that the chairman and the ranking member remained in the meeting the entire day, with a few excursions now and then. So I am 

very pleased that we were able to finish this up and hope we get 

to mark it up and get it through the Congress. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Well, we knew, Mr. Ranking Member, that we 

were going to be historic in our team work, and indeed, we are. We 

thank you so much for being around with us. 

We will convene tomorrow for a markup, at around 4 o’clock p.m. 

We ask your indulgence for one more day so that we can get this 

through and get it done. There is one committee whose budget has 

not been cleared by the Committee. I would simply say that I will 

call those two, the Chair and the Ranking Member, and ask if they 

want the choice of perhaps going to the Floor to speak on their 

budget or wait until March 31st when the CR is up again for reauthorization, and they will again come before this committee. 

With unanimous consent, I will go forward with that proposal. 


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Mr. EHLERS. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss that. I don’t 

have any problem in principle, but I am sure there will be a report 

before tomorrow. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Sure, absolutely, and we will indeed do that. 

If nothing else is to come before this committee, thank you all, 

Committee adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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