[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ADDRESSING CONCERNS ABOUT THE INTEGRITY OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR'S JOBS REPORTING
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 6, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-172
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
Robert Borden, General Counsel
Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 6, 2012..................................... 1
WITNESSES
Mr. Daniel Moss, Executive Editor, Economy, Bloomberg News
Oral Statement............................................... 5
Written Statement............................................ 8
Mr. Robert Doherty, General Manager, United States at Reuters
News
Oral Statement............................................... 15
Written Statement............................................ 17
Ms. Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 22
Dr. Keith Hall, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George
Mason University
Oral Statement............................................... 30
Written Statement............................................ 32
Ms. Diana Furghtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 35
Written Statement............................................ 37
Mr. Carl Fillichio, Senior Advisor for Communications and Public
Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor
Oral Statement............................................... 72
Written Statement............................................ 75
Mr. John M. Galvin, Acting Commissioner, U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics
Oral Statement............................................... 82
Written Statement............................................ 84
The Honorable Jane Oates, Assistant Secretary, Employment and
Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor
Oral Statement............................................... 90
Written Statement............................................ 92
APPENDIX
The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings, a Member of Congress from the
State of Maryland, Opening Statement........................... 113
Questions for the Record......................................... 115
Answers to the questions from Thomson Reuters.................... 117
Answers to the questions from Mr. Daniel Moss.................... 122
ADDRESSING CONCERNS ABOUT THE INTEGRITY OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR'S JOBS REPORTING
----------
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:36 a.m., in Room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Issa, McHenry, Jordan, Chaffetz,
Walberg, Lankford, Labrador, DesJarlais, Gowdy, Guinta, Kelly,
Cummings, Kucinich, Tierney, Clay, Connolly, Quigley, and
Speier.
Staff Present: Ali Ahmad, Majority Communications Advisor;
Will L. Boyington, Majority Staff Assistant; Molly Boyl,
Majority Parliamentarian; Lawrence J. Brady, Majority Staff
Director; David Brewer, Majority Counsel; Sharon Casey,
Majority Senior Assistant Clerk; John Cuaderes, Majority Deputy
Staff Director; Adam P. Fromm, Majority Director of Member
Services and Committee Operations; Tyler Grimm, Majority
Professional Staff Member; Jennifer Hemingway, Majority Senior
Professional Staff Member; Christopher Hixon, Majority Deputy
Chief Counsel, Oversight; Mark D. Marin, Majority Director of
Oversight; Laura L. Rush, Majority Deputy Chief Clerk; John A.
Zadrozny, Majority Counsel; Jaron Bourke, Minority Director of
Administration; Kevin Corbin, Minority Deputy Clerk; Ashley
Etienne, Minority Director of Communications; Jennifer Hoffman,
Minority Press Secretary; Carla Hultberg, Minority Chief Clerk;
Chris Knauer, Minority Senior Investigator; Lucinda Lessley,
Minority Policy Director; and Davida Walsh, Minority Counsel.
Chairman Issa. Good morning. The Oversight Committee will
come to order.
We on the Oversight Committee exist to secure two
fundamental principles: first, Americans have a right to know
the money Washington takes from them is well spent and, second,
Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works
for them. Our duty on the Oversight and Government Reform
Committee is to protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility
is to hold government accountable to taxpayers, because
taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their
government. We will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen
watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and bring
genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy.
When President Obama took office, he promised the American
people to have a more transparent administration, the most
transparent administration in history. From that point on, this
was a standard that the Obama Administration would be held to.
Almost four years later, more and more it seems that their own
actions, the actions of this Administration, say just the
opposite is true.
The U.S. Department of Labor, led by Secretary Hilda Solis,
has unilaterally changed the method by which the media accesses
the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs data. This unprecedented
action has serious freedom of the press implications. Let there
be no doubt we appreciate the need for simultaneous release of
this sensitive information. But that has been accomplished for
more than a generation through a procedure that was as
effective and more acceptable to the media itself.
The abrupt nature of this change, coupled with the absence
of a clear explanation and a lack of public input, raises key
questions about who made this decision to implement this change
and why? Did that individual have the authority of law?
As the Committee has examined this, this isn't the first
time the issue has come up concerning the Labor Department's
reach into the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You will recall the
DOL received $500 million in stimulus funds to train workers
for so-called green skills. But an audit by the inspector
general found the program to be an utter failure and
represented a tremendous loss to the taxpayer. This included
training for occupations that are hardly green, such as welder,
sheet metal workers, and machine operator. Certainly, those are
jobs that may be needed, the skills are valuable, but they are
certainly not all of a sudden green after hundreds of years of
being around as a profession.
Aside from the excuse that perpetrated the Department of
Labor, they have been using the guise of green jobs to justify
ongoing funding of the President's green agenda. However, the
standard they have invented includes counting as a green job,
in addition to the welder, college professors are now green,
environmental reporters are now green, policy experts at any
think tank can be green. In fact, lobbyists can be green.
Now, I have been in Washington for nearly 12 years. There
is a lot of green with lobbyists. None of it should be counted
as an environmentally green job.
There are 33 times as many so-called green jobs in the
septic tank and--you can't make these things up, guys--septic
tank and portable toilet servicing industry as there are in
solar, energy, and utility areas. More than 160,000 of these
green jobs are related to school bus drivers.
Using these tactics to manipulate the number to mislead the
American people is nothing short of embarrassing and a betrayal
of the standards that President Obama established for his
administration. Transparency begins with honesty. You cannot
send out false propaganda and then say you are transparent. The
truth is essential. The barest of the truth is essential;
unfiltered if you are to be transparent.
We all appreciate this Administration has an opinion, and
this Chairman has an opinion that is sometimes different. We
are entitled to our opinions. We are not entitled to our facts.
Is it any wonder why there is such concern now that
Secretary Solis's department wants to unilaterally change and
control how the press receives job numbers from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics? Of course, when invited to appear today to
explain why this change in freedom of the press would occur,
Secretary Solis, in no uncertain terms, turned down all
invitations and offered us alternatives. We appreciate those
who are here as alternatives; however, ultimately, if you are
the Secretary of Labor, the buck should stop with you. If it
doesn't stop there, where can the Americans believe it stops?
It doesn't stop at the White House if the Secretary allows
something to happen and then doesn't have an answer.
We will hear more about that here today and I hope it will
send a clear message to the Administration.
With that, I recognize the distinguished Ranking Member for
his opening statement.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
thank you for holding today's hearing, which appears to focus
on two very different topics involving the Department of Labor
and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The first topic is the integrity of the Department of
Labor's job reporting. The Department of Labor strikes a
balance between preventing the unauthorized release of key
economic data and providing journalists with access to that
data ahead of time so that they can prepare their stories with
context about the broader employment situation. This balance is
very important. We are the public's eyes and ears, so it is
critical that they have the access necessary to ensure that
they have a thorough and accurate understanding so that they
can place it in context.
A leak of this data could have negative consequences. For
example, in the hands of certain traders, early access to this
data, even if just by a few seconds, could allow their powerful
trading algorithms to manipulate and market and reap millions
of dollars. That is why the Department and other data reporting
agencies employ procedures to prevent unauthorized releases.
Recently, the Department of Labor hired Sandia National
Laboratories, which oversees the security of our nuclear
arsenal, to evaluate whether changes were needed to meet the
new security requirements of today's constantly changing
technological environment. Sandia found significant
vulnerabilities in the Department's procedures and recommended
steps to mitigate those risks. Sandia also warned that those
seeking to break current security controls are profit driven,
technically sophisticated individuals or organizations who may
have considerable resources at their disposal. Acting on
Sandia's recommendations, the Department announced new controls
on hardware and software in the lockup environment.
In addition, the Department has now excluded specific firms
that sought access to sell data to Wall Street traders a
fraction of a second before other traders see it. Initially,
some in the media complained that the Department's proposed
changes were too restrictive, and these complaints appear to be
the impetus for today's hearing.
Over the past month, however, the Department has worked
with press outlets to accommodate their concerns while
enhancing security. We anticipate that there will be additional
announcements regarding these ongoing discussions soon.
The second topic of today's hearing appears to be how the
Department of Labor calculates the number of green jobs in the
United States economy. This is the third hearing the Majority
has called on this topic and the third time the Department of
Labor officials have testified before us. Last July, the
Brookings Institution issued an important report on green jobs
with the following findings: first, green jobs employ almost
2.7 million Americans, more than the fossil fuel industry and
twice the size of the bioscience sector; second, they said the
green economy has expanded at greater rates than the economy as
a whole. They went on to say that the green economy offers
considerable and more highly paid opportunities for low-and
middle-skilled workers.
Finally, they said, fourth, the green economy is
manufacturing and export intensive, both of which are critical
for America's future.
Since this report was issued, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics estimated that the number of green jobs is even
higher, reporting that over 3 million that helped rebuild our
economy. This really should be welcomed by policymakers in
Congress. Unfortunately, this Committee seems more intent on
challenging the methodologies used by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics rather than helping put people back to work.
I thank the witnesses for being here yet again today and I
look forward to your testimony.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
I would take note that although the Ranking Member
mentioned the DOL report, the Sandia report has not been made
available to us under any circumstances. So notwithstanding the
gentleman's assertions, until the Department of Labor makes
that report available to us, we will consider it be a CYA
document held close against Congress.
I hope the gentleman will join with me in issuing a
subpoena if they will not deliver that document they allege is
the impetus for his closing.
Mr. Cummings. I would be happy to cooperate if the Chairman
is willing to consult with us on the subpoena. I would be happy
to talk about it and, if it is warranted, I certainly would
join you.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
Members will have seven days in which to submit opening
statements for the record.
We will now recognize our first panel.
Mr. Daniel Moss is the Executive Editor for Economics and
International Government at Bloomberg News. Welcome.
Mr. Rob Doherty is the General Manager, United States, for
Reuters News. Also, welcome.
Ms. Lucy Dalglish is the Executive Director at the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Also, welcome.
Dr. Keith Hall is the former Commissioner of the Bureau of
Labor Statistics and is currently a Senior Fellow at the
Mercatus Center.
And, last but not least, Ms. Diane Furchtgott-Roth is the
former Chief Economist of the United States Department of Labor
and a current fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Welcome all. Pursuant to our Committee's rules, would you
please rise to take the oath and raise your right hands?
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth?
[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Chairman Issa. Let the record reflect that all answered in
the affirmative, to the best of their ability.
Please be seated.
Now, many of you are returning to testify; a couple of you
it may be your first. We have members that will be coming in
and out. We estimated about half an hour for your opening
statements, so try to stay as close to five minutes as you can.
We will have your entire opening statement, plus additional
material you may wish to submit to support anything you say
here today, included in the record without objection, so you
only need to summarize because, for the record, all that you
have submitted will be on the record.
Mr. Moss.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF DANIEL MOSS
Mr. Moss. Chairman Issa, Congressman Cummings, members of
the Committee, I thank the Committee for the opportunity to
appear today and I want to express my particular appreciation
to the Committee for its engagement in this issue.
Bloomberg News provides data, news, analytics to decision
makers and industry beyond finance. Bloomberg News is delivered
through the Bloomberg Professional Service through television,
radio, mobile, the Internet, and two magazines, Bloomberg
Business Week and Bloomberg Markets. We are syndicated in
hundreds of newspapers globally. We cover the world with more
than 2,000 reporters and editors in 146 bureaus in more than 70
countries. We are experts at publishing economic statistics and
disseminating market-moving information.
Media stakeholders are making progress, Mr. Chairman, with
the Department of Labor in arriving at a place that will not
undermine the First Amendment, will not reduce transparency and
accuracy of critical data, or create unacceptable cybersecurity
risks. While no conclusive agreement has been reached, the
movement that we have seen would not have been possible without
the engagement of members of this Committee and committees and
members in both chambers of both parties. We are particularly
thankful to Senator Blunt for his engagement.
On April 10, without the notice and comment period dictated
under the Administrative Procedures Act, the DOL announced a
dramatic policy shift: henceforth, reporters and editors would
be required to use only government software, government
hardware, government lines, government notebooks, and
government pens. The use of modern news-producing software,
with the greater accuracy and context it provides, would be
prohibited. All transmission would be via the internet, not
through secure lines. The Department of Labor would own and
operate the lines, control Internet access, and control
Internet connections, creating a single point of failure
because all news organizations would share the same
infrastructure.
Although the policy change was unprecedented, it was
presented as nonnegotiable, a fait accompli. News organizations
were required to remove their software, hardware, and dedicated
lines from the Department by June 15.
This proposal threatens the First Amendment. The Government
would literally own the reporters' notebook. Unlike any other
Federal agency, the Department of Labor is requiring that
reporters write news articles on government-owned and operated
computers on a regular basis, which would give the Government
unfettered access to reporters' notes and draft. No
administration anywhere should have access to a reporter's
thoughts, drafts, or notes as a condition for covering the
news, let alone news of such importance.
The order also threatens national security. House, Senate,
and the Administration have rightly spent a great deal of time
attempting to address potential cybersecurity threats.
Protecting our financial markets from disruption from cyber
attack has been a key part of that discussion.
In the world in which we now live, for the Department of
Labor to deliberately force the transmission of data away from
secure, dedicated lines and, instead, mandate its transmission
via the Internet is inexplicable. The vulnerability of the
Internet to even accidental disruption is a large part of the
reason why news organizations have invested in their own secure
lines. The prospect of a deliberate disruption, potential
spoofing, potential market manipulation are real.
In August last year, the Department of Labor's website went
down following the release of the monthly employment situation.
The unemployment rate was unavailable for one hour.
If the April 10 order, Mr. Chairman, goes into effect, the
result would be potentially catastrophic. This proposal will
increase market vulnerability and volatility. In the modern era
of computerized trading, people compete in nanoseconds. Studies
of the 2010 Flash Crash illustrate how quickly small incidents
can result in major disruptions.
When the Department of Labor hosted a conference call on
April 16, ostensibly to answer media questions on the new
policy, I asked, ``what is the problem you think, you imagine
this will prevent?'' The Department of Labor's response was, I
think we are going to move on. Operator, we'll take the next
question.
The alleged rationale for the new policy has gradually
slipped out in dribs and drabs, ultimately, relying n a report
by Sandia National Laboratories, which, as the Chairman noted,
has not been publicly released.
The DOL has alleged its new policy is necessary because
unauthorized people planted unauthorized equipment in the
Department's communications closet. But this is an argument for
enforcing the existing policy, not imposing draconian new
rules.
The Sandia report speaks of those who oppose the
Department's recommendations as adversaries. That is according
to a summary, Mr. Chairman, which has circulated on the Hill.
It notes that although they are willing to bend and potentially
violate the law, violence is unlikely as an operational method.
Does the Department believe the media are adversaries? What
rules and laws are we likely to break? On what evidence or
experience is such a statement based?
Sandia continues, stating the apparent root cause for the
issues driving this assessment is the possible presence of
algorithmic traders and/or their agents in the press lockup
facility. Has the lockup been infiltrated by hedge funds? The
public, press, and Congress would be entitled to that
information. Is it that difficult to distinguish between an
authentic news organization and a hedge fund? Most
significantly, if the root cause of the issues driving this
assessment is the possible presence of algorithmic traders, why
not just expel them from the lockup? Why threaten to erode the
First Amendment?
In summary, Mr. Chairman, this proposal does undermine the
First Amendment; it reduces transparency; it potentially
reduces the accuracy of the data; increases market volatility;
imposes a cybersecurity threat.
Given the DOL's refusal to extend the current June 15 date
for removing equipment, the calendar will dictate our shortly
seeking an injunction unless a comprehensive overall agreement
is reached. An understanding has been reached amongst technical
officials of the news organization and some technical staff at
Labor. Labor is still to get back to us on a number of issues,
including rules for the lockup. Until an overall agreement is
reached in the format of the April 10 letter, the order stands.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Moss follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Doherty.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT DOHERTY
Mr. Doherty. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings, members
of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on
the new policies and procedures the Labor Department is
planning for its press lockups. My name is Rob Doherty. I am
General Manager in the United States for Reuters, which is the
news division of Thompson Reuters.
Reuters is the largest international news agency in the
world. We have more than 2900 full-time journalists in 200
bureaus around the world reporting in 20 languages. Globally
our audience includes more than 1700 text media and 600 TV
clients, over 35 million visitors to Reuters websites each
month, and more than 400,000 financial professionals who
subscribe to Thompson Reuters desktop products.
On April 10th, the Labor Department notified our Washington
bureau chiefs and other news organizations about major changes
they plan for the operation of its lockups. Dan has covered
those changes in detail, so I won't repeat those. But, needless
to say, we were taken aback by the planned changes. They were
dramatic, announced without any advanced notice, and with no
real explanation of the rationale, and, importantly to us,
without any prior consultation with the affected news
organizations.
I want to be clear on two points. First, we believe lockups
are extremely useful in promoting accurate and authoritative
dissemination of sensitive data because they provide
journalists time to better understand the information before
sending it to the public. Second, we fully acknowledge the
responsibility of the Department of Labor to implement lockup
rules to guard against premature release of information. It is
in everyone's interest that the Department do so.
Indeed, we believe the lockup procedures now in place have
been effective in preventing early release of the Labor
Department data. But despite that apparent success, the
Department plan announced in April would require us to use
government equipment to do our work as a matter of routine,
something we, as an independent news organization,
fundamentally oppose.
Additionally, the changes announced by the Department in
April would represent a major step backward technologically for
new organizations and for the dissemination of critical data
through recognized news channels. That would imperil the
ability of news organizations to provide such information to
the public in a reliable, accurate, and timely way, and lead to
confusion in the public and in the financial markets that rely
on the Department's data. To gauge the importance of that data
to the public in general and the markets in particular, one
needs to look no further than last Friday's unemployment
report.
Years of development work have gone into automating our
software to ensure it works with our proprietary editorial
system and redundant private communications lines to speed the
delivery of crucially important information to millions of our
readers and subscribers across the globe. Our software allows
journalists to efficiently and accurately incorporate new
material from Department news releases, as well as to provide
historical data that puts that new material in context. This
would be lost if lockup participants must use a Department-
provided standard configuration computer and a Department-
provided Internet service provider, and it would be lost
without any assurance that new procedures would materially
decrease the probability of premature leaks. And, as Dan said,
you can make an argument that it would actually increase the
difficulties with the disseminate of the data.
Because of these concerns, we joined with three other news
organizations, Bloomberg, The Associated Press, and Dow Jones,
in requesting a meeting with the White House to voice our
opposition to the April 10 announcement. We are also hoping to
better understand the Labor Department's concerns and to see if
we could find a way that the Department could met its
responsibility to prevent early release of data without the
draconian changes it was planning.
We now have had a series of what I would describe as
constructive meetings with the Labor Department officials and
staff, and those meetings have left us optimistic that we will
be able to agree on procedures and policies that, while not
perfect and not the status quo we would prefer, would, in our
view, represent a workable compromise and allow news
organizations to disseminate information from the lockup
quickly, reliably, and accurately. But as Dan has made the
point, we are not there yet. We still are hoping we can
complete an agreement in time for the July 6th deadline set by
Labor. If not, we will be asking the Department for a short
delay to allow any agreed changes to be implemented in the
least disruptive way possible.
And I want to underscore that as we discuss other issues
and reach agreement on other issues, the timing is really an
important issue for us. It is now June 6th. As Dan said, the
equipment starts coming out on June 14th and 15th. The new
procedure goes in place July 6th, which, by the way, is the
next unemployment report, which will be hugely watched. Talking
to our technical staff, they think it is nearly impossible to
do this the right way and be ready for July 6th. So if we are
able to reach an agreement on the larger issues, the technical
issues, and go forward, I hope the Department will be willing
to be flexible on the implementation date.
Thank you again for your invitation to address the
Committee and for your continued interest in this issue, and I
would be happy to answer any of your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Doherty follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Ms. Dalglish?
STATEMENT OF LUCY DALGLISH
Ms. Dalglish. Thank you. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member
Cummings, and members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today. I am Lucy Dalglish, Executive
Director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
For more than 40 years, the Reporters Committee has provided
free legal and advocacy services to protect the rights of
journalists working where United States law applies.
I am happy to testify today on behalf of the Sunshine in
Government Initiative, of which the Reporters Committee is a
member. SGI is a coalition of media associations promoting
greater transparency in government.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. We
strongly object to the changes the United States Department of
Labor announced less than two months ago. The Department's
approach, as proposed in April, makes the release of market-
moving information less reliable, less secure, more prone to
errors and inaccuracies, and less equitable as it reaches the
public.
Last month, the Sunshine in Government Initiative urged the
Labor Department to suspend these changes, clarify the concerns
with the current process, and work with us to address those
concerns. Since then, only your attention to this issue has
helped bring about productive discussions between the media
entities and the Labor Department. Quite honestly, we are
bewildered by the Labor Department's announcement on April
10th, without consulting with any of the media involved, about
these dramatic changes that will have a devastating impact on
journalists' ability to inform the public in a timely and
useful manner. It took the interest of this Committee to spur
what we understand to be protective discussions between the
journalists in the lockup and the Department.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, since its formation after 9/11,
SGI has worked with you and others on Capitol Hill and across
the Executive Branch to work through problems, and we remain
committed to working with the Department on this issue. But let
me be clear; we do not wish for the Labor Department to
maintain procedures that would advantage one media entity over
another, or make it easier to break embargoes. We are hopeful
that the Labor Department can address vulnerabilities in the
current lockup procedures with ongoing dialogue. While these
conversations continue, let me describe how the announced
changes would undermine the integrity of the high-profile
economic indicators released to the public.
First, the Labor Department's announced approach raises
cybersecurity concerns. Releasing this data through an online
connection may allow an Internet hacker to target the release
and change key numbers as they leave the Department, or a
denial of service attack could delay release to some or all.
Second, the Labor Department's new approach would likely be
less reliable than the current practice. Currently, at least
two media organizations have built redundant system hardware.
If a circuit fails, a second circuit already installed in the
network reroutes data traffic. If a secure line fails,
duplicate dedicated cabling in place carries the traffic. Even
attempting to duplicate these secure systems on government-
owned computers would be costly to taxpayers.
Last, the Department's new approach would make errors more
likely. Without their own equipment, preloaded spreadsheets and
custom software to digest the data, journalists would have to
type this information relying on memory or handwritten notes.
This dramatically increases the chance of errors. Markets that
measure time in microseconds surely will react to wrong data
before any correction can be issued.
No one begrudges the Federal Government from moving
quickly, if need be, to address immediate security concerns,
but the Labor Department should first explain its concerns and
consider the perspective of journalists and the public before
making such a dramatic and permanent procedural change. The
media takes government interference with its work product very
seriously. So does the Constitution. In fact, the First
Amendment obligates the government to allow journalists to
operate independently from government control. Requiring
journalists to draft and publish stories using government-owned
computers loaded with government-controlled software simply
crosses a line the First Amendment clearly drew to separate the
press from the government.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we are committed to working
with this Committee and the Labor Department to find a
resolution that serves the public interest. Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Dalglish follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Dr. Hall.
STATEMENT OF KEITH HALL
Mr. Hall. Good morning, Chairman Issa and Ranking Member
Cummings and members of the Committee. My name is Keith Hall
and I am a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at
George Mason. Most recently I was the Commissioner of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2008 to 2012. In my testimony
today, I would like to talk about the Bureau of Labor
Statistics and its role in disseminating economic data.
First of all, let me note that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics is an independent Federal statistical agency and, as
such, it is tasked not only with collecting, compiling, and
producing economic data, but also with disseminating the data
and explaining it to the public. There are a number of
principles which any Federal statistical agency follows: it is
to disseminate data in both a transparent and independent
manner, with no bias of any type; they are also tasked with
creating a level playing field for the release of data, meaning
that nobody has an advantage of getting the data earlier, ahead
of other people. In addition, they are responsible for the
security of the data, and that is everywhere, including inside
the lockup room.
In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has the
responsibility to decide whether or not to even have a data
lockup. And I am making this distinction because this is the
independent Federal statistical agency, this is not the
Department of Labor that I am talking about.
Traditionally, news media were considered by statistical
agencies as the most effective distributor of economic
statistics to the public. Wire services were the most practical
and fair distributor to media outlets, and for this reason
press lockups were designed decades ago to provide the most
important economic data to wire service reporters. Wire service
reporters would get to look at the data ahead of release time,
under lockup conditions; they would get to ask clarifying
questions; they would get to write their stories on a
typewriter; and then when the release time came, reporters
would all race to a bank of telephones and call in their
stories. And that is essentially how the lockup runs today,
despite tremendous changes in technology.
Today, now, most new economic data is actually disseminated
to the public through a statistical agency website or by email.
Lockup continues for the most important economic data, but
technology now has changed and I think it has made it difficult
to maintain adequate security inside the lockup. In particular,
automatic computer trading now has made BLS data, employment
release data like employment release data from BLS, extremely
valuable and fractions of a second makes a big difference in
financial markets.
Also, lockup participants may now have specialized computer
equipment and software that links to automated trading models.
When I was commissioner, back in 2009, I read one particular
article, and I am going to quote from it, and this caused me a
great deal of concern: ``Key economic indicators are released
to financial markets through a small and exclusive group of
accredited news agencies. A trading model can now read the
specially formatted data and enter into a trading position
immediately, before the larger market has had time to read the
release on news wires and digest its meaning.''
This, to me, raised concerns over whether or not we had a
level playing field coming out of the lockup. I have a number
of recommendations on this, but let me also mention a second
thing, quickly, as well.
Emerging technology constantly changes and agencies like
BLS that are tasked with disseminating data need to be able to
take advantage of new technology and new methods of
disseminating data. For example, social media is a relatively
new method of disseminating economic data and other statistical
agencies at the moment have free access to use social media. I
believe BLS should be allowed to freely use social media and
any other new method of dissemination without having to
compromise its position as an independent, objective provider
of data, free from filtering by the Office of the Secretary,
free of bias in its presentation, and free from actual or
perceived parts in intervention. That is my first
recommendation.
Second, with respect to press lockups, I have a number of
things I mention here that are just common sense and long
overdue: having a lockup agreement, having adequate control of
the lockup room. A number of those things have not been in
place; they need to be put in place right away. One of the
things that I have a particular problem with is TV journalists
are now actually allowed to break the lockup and leave the room
and, in fact, go outside before the data is released to set up
for cameras. I think that is a security concern, so I think
that ought to end right away.
Most importantly, though, I think that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics should be given full oversight authority for
conducting all its press lockups, developing and maintaining
policy and procedures, and have the authority to establish and
implement credentialing and confidentiality protocols for
participating news organizations and employees.
Let me just say to some degree this is not just my opinion;
this is the opinion of the Office of Management and Budget, at
least if you believe the OMB Federal Statistical Policy
Directives Number 3 and 4, who make it clear, as I mentioned
before, that it is BLS's responsibility to determine whether or
not there is a lockup and it is their responsibility to
actually disseminate the data, and they are the ones who are
responsible for the confidentiality.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Ms. Roth.
STATEMENT OF DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Thank you very much for inviting me to
testify here today. I was asked to talk about green jobs, and
it is a very topical time to be discussing green jobs because
we just got the employment news on Friday which showed that the
number of jobs in the economy rose by only 69,000, following an
increase of 77,000 in April. The unemployment rate rose to 8.2
percent and has been above 8 percent for well over three years.
Well, America might not be good at creating jobs, but it
excels at relabeling jobs as green jobs. It is much easier to
redefine an existing job as a new job, a green job. How many
jobs has our government relabeled as green? The Bureau of Labor
Statistics decides which jobs are green and which are not, and
they identified 3.1 million in 2010, the latest year available,
in a release in March 2012. Americans may have toiled for
decades at the same job, unaware that a Federal agency might
some day designate that job green.
I would like to argue that we should focus on job creation,
rather than green jobs, because we have over 12 million
unemployed. Our broadest rate of unemployment is 14.8 percent.
If people want to buy green products, such as Priuses, because
the price of gasoline is high, they will do so. Much emphasis
on green has driven jobs overseas. Just two examples:
incandescent light bulbs. The ban on incandescent light bulbs
has resulted in the closure of those factories and the new
CFLs, the new fluorescent are all made in China. So there are
green jobs, but green jobs for China.
Many solar panels, wind turbines that are required by law
are made overseas in places such as China. Coal is produced
here, but we are increasingly not being allowed to use it.
China is using our coal and produces less than 1 percent of its
electricity from renewables. So it makes these products with
coal and then sends them to us, which reduces our jobs.
So BLS decides which jobs are green, and sometimes these
jobs qualify for tax preferences or subsidies. For example, our
transportation policy is based on green jobs, with 20 percent
of the Highway Trust Fund reserved for mass transit. Tax
subsidies are given to electric vehicles both for companies to
produce them and for Americans to buy them.
BLS has defined green jobs as ``jobs in businesses that
produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment
or conserve natural resources'' or as in ``jobs in which
workers' duties involve making their establishment's production
processes more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural
resources.''
So in order for a firm to be considered green, they have to
meet one of five goals, namely, energy from renewable sources;
energy efficiency; pollution reduction or removal; natural
resources conservation; and environmental compliance,
education, training, and public awareness.
So I was particularly interested when I came in today to
see this cup here. Now, this just is a cup, but on it it says
``We have the power to save energy.'' So this fits in with
number five, environmental compliance education compliance,
education, training, and public awareness. So now people who
produce these cups, they would be considered to have green
jobs, but that hasn't meant a total increase in jobs in the
economy, it is just a matter of relabeling.
In agriculture, for example, one of the main categories of
workers are 36,000 organic farmers and growers, and their
workers are credited with accomplishing both natural resource
conservation and creating energy from renewable sources. So
when a farmer produces corn to eat, that is not counted as a
green job, but when he produces corn for ethanol, that is
counted as a green job.
With farming, it is possible to calculate the percentage of
employment that is dedicated to ethanol or organic produce, but
in other areas it is not so clear. One example is wood chips
used for biomass. How many workers are employed by the timber
industry to create wood chips? Wood chips are largely a
byproduct of milling, and milling is not considered a green
job. Yet, according to a Labor Department definition, the
33,000 wood product manufacturing jobs are called green because
companies can sell the wood chips for biomass.
I have many other examples in my testimony, but I see that
my time has run out. Thank you very much.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Furchtgott-Roth follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony.
Dr. Hall, I am going to begin with you because you do see a
need for reform in the lockup, but what you said earlier is of
concern to me. The Office of Management and Budget has a set of
guidelines; it makes every effort to make sure that the Bureau
of Labor Statistics is independent.
Carl Fillichio, do you know who he is?
Mr. Hall. Yes, I do.
Chairman Issa. Does he work for the Bureau of Labor
Statistics?
Mr. Hall. He works for the Secretary of Labor.
Chairman Issa. So he is in fact a political appointee, non-
confirmed, working for the Secretary of Labor, and he is the
person that came up with this policy, isn't he?
Mr. Hall. Yes, he is.
Chairman Issa. Okay. So they violated OMB guidelines. It is
being directed from the Department of Labor. This is in fact
not the independent agency intention that you worked for so
long and hard, and you have been very candid with us in the
past. It is your job to count the green jobs you are told to
count, so you accurately account for the numbers. It is
somebody else's decision about whether they are green or not
under a definition. So we have enjoyed your honesty, but your
honesty here says it is supposed to be one way. It clearly
wasn't, isn't that correct?
Mr. Hall. That is correct. I do think the Bureau of Labor
Statistics should be responsible for running the lockup.
Chairman Issa. By the way, would you ever have thought that
the Department of Labor or Bureau of Labor Statistics would be
left of Brookings, able to come up with more green jobs, even
then one of the great liberal think tanks? You need not answer
that one.
Mr. Moss, you are one of the companies that invested
heavily in proprietary lines in order to send out in a timely
basis, aren't you?
Mr. Moss. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Okay. So you did so for two reasons. One was
clearly to ensure that your story didn't fail to go out and I
guess the second one is to make sure you got it out at least as
fast as anyone else, if not a few seconds faster, isn't that
right?
Mr. Moss. Mr. Chairman, we are not interested in getting it
out faster than anybody else.
Chairman Issa. But you at least want to tie the fastest.
Mr. Moss. We have an interest----
Chairman Issa. Mr. Doherty, next to you, is shaking his
head yes, so I am assuming he wanted to.
Mr. Moss. We have an interest in transmitting the
information as instantaneously as the lockup rules will allow.
Chairman Issa. Okay.
Mr. Doherty, you also obviously have an interest in
absolutely, positively not being beat to the newsstand.
Mr. Doherty. I would just repeat what Dan said. Our
interest is to get the information out as quickly as we can to
all of our clients within the rules of a lockup.
Chairman Issa. And, Ms. Dalglish, you are sort of
representing the umbrella here for a moment. Dr. Hall was very
kind in saying that, one, most of the statistics actually just
go out on the news wire; they are not important enough so they
go out, everybody gets them at the same time and they look at
them. But the most important are subject to this lockup,
historically, until today.
Let me ask you one question. If in fact the Bureau of Labor
Statistics simply starting pumping this all out through their
internet, wouldn't in fact it be worse for these most critical
information because then the hedge fund with the best computer
diagnosing what is very predictably exactly the same raw
statistics would then make the decision on market interruptions
and trade during those first few seconds?
Doesn't the plethora of different news organizations, with
different opinions, reporting in a different fashion, reaching
sometimes different conclusions on raw data actually negate the
advantage of a hedge fund, because ultimately looking at any
one of these services doesn't guarantee him anything? Doesn't
give him the wrong information as much as it gives him
somebody's opinion. And isn't a dozen or a hundred opinions a
better safeguard against a radical market move than a single
piece of fact?
Ms. Dalglish. Mr. Chairman, I really have to confess I
don't know a lot about how hedge funds operate, but I can tell
you that by having multiple news organizations in that lockup
disseminating that information I believe there are safeguards
for the public, and I also believe that the independence of
those news organizations is a benefit to the public, rather
than having the Government just being the only source of the
information as it gets out, whether it be to the public or to
the hedge funds. I think there is value in having multiple news
organizations digesting and disseminating this information.
Chairman Issa. And to the two news organizations
represented here today, if you are given no tools, if you are
given information in a short period of time basically to report
what you are given, aren't you in fact an arm of propaganda?
The difference between propaganda and independent news, isn't
it the value added that your reporters can bring, either
through their years of experience or, in fact, the information
they bring in that helps them take raw data and turn it into
opinionated factual news?
Mr. Moss. Well, Mr. Chairman, the advantage of the lockup
as it is currently run at the Department of Labor, and at
Commerce, Agriculture, and agencies disseminating statistics
around the world, is that it allows us to publish information
with as much context and supporting data and as many
superlatives as we can. What we publish at 8:30 sharp goes
beyond one headline and one number; we endeavor to tell the
story both behind the number, on top of it, and underneath it.
Mr. Doherty. And I would just add that one important part
that we didn't talk about, in the April 10th order that Labor
put out, although we are in talks about changing this, is that
there was no internet access at all, even in the half an hour
or so that leads up to the lockup starting. That is important
because it allows our journalists to do a variety of things,
but one of those is to see what is happening around the world,
and add that context. And even if it is breaking at the last
minute, 7:45 that they are in the internet, and with everything
happening today in the Euro zone, that sort of information is
invaluable; it can really provide some context to the stories.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
I recognize the Ranking Member for his questions.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hall, it is good to see you again. I just want to make
sure we are clear, because sometimes I don't want the wrong,
inaccurate information to be in the headlines tomorrow. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics is a nonpartisan statistical agency,
is that right?
Mr. Hall. That is right.
Mr. Cummings. Did the Department, to your knowledge, and
you just left. When did you leave the Department of Labor
Statistics?
Mr. Hall. In January of this year.
Mr. Cummings. Yes. Did the Department of Labor or any other
entity within government that is focused on the development and
advancement of policy interfere with BLS's development of a
methodology for counting green jobs?
Mr. Hall. No, they didn't. They were very good about
letting us do our work and staying at arm's length.
Mr. Cummings. And as I listened to the testimony, clearly,
I understand and sympathize with the news organizations. I
understand exactly what you are saying. It seems like we have a
question here of balance. Any time anything gets out of
balance, you usually run into problems. But it appears to me
that our security procedures are not equal to what technology
can be used to do with the data. I think Mr. Hall described
what happened, how this thing first came about 40 years ago,
and now technology has changed dramatically since then. Would
you agree with that, Mr. Hall?
And then I will go to you, Mr. Moss.
Mr. Moss. Congressman, the Department of Labor has a master
switch that controls communications into and out of the room.
No news headline or story can be published until the Labor
official literally flicks that master switch at 8:30.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Hall, did you have a comment?
Mr. Hall. Well, that is absolutely true. One of my
concerns, though, and one of my concerns with the whole lockup
room came from an extraordinary number of incidents out of the
lockup room over the past few years that involved this sort of
struggling with the technology coming out, and I do think that
there is a need to sort of, at a minimum, really review the
security in that lockup room.
Mr. Doherty. Congressman, I would add that is why these
discussions we have been having with the Labor Department are
focused on that. They have needs and, as I said in my
testimony, we understand they have the responsibility and the
right to set up lockup rules. I think our view would be that
the April 10th announcement, plan, whatever you want to call
it, didn't strike that balance, and we are hoping to in these
negotiations.
Mr. Cummings. And I am hoping that that happens too, and I
am going to urge the Secretary to try to move that along so
that you all can come up with an agreement. Sometimes I think
it is a matter of people sitting down and working out things.
Not everything has to be legislated. As a matter of fact, it
moves a lot slower sometimes when you have to depend on the
legislature.
According to a joint news statement issued on December 9th,
2008, by the then Commissioner of Bureau Statistics, Keith
Hall, and the then Assistant Secretary of Labor for Public
Affairs, ``data from the November 2008 employment situation
news report that was scheduled for release Friday, December
5th, at 8:30 a.m. EST was inadvertently transmitted from the
lockup facility approximately 25 seconds early.''
The news release states that a similar early transmittal
occurred on December 3rd, 2008, involving the data on
productivity and cost. The news release clarifies that ``a wire
service bureau chief informed us that his outlet had
inadvertently released data from the lockup facility early to
subscribers on both occasions'' and that the Department of
Labor confirmed this claim. Finally, the news release states
the early transmissions were accidental and followed a recent
technical change in hardware configuration.
Dr. Hall, you were Commissioner of the Department of Labor
Statistics at the time these leaks occurred, is that right?
Mr. Hall. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. What can you tell us specifically about how
that occurred? In particular, how were the leaks accidental and
what circumstances allowed such accidental leaks to take place?
Mr. Hall. As I recall, the news agency was allowed access
to the room without any BLS technicians, and they replaced a
cable from their computer to that box, and it turns out that
cable inadvertently bypassed the security on the box. And the
company didn't mean to do that, they were just trying to
increase their connectivity, I suppose. So since then we have
tried very hard to, what we would still like, and this is why
it is one of my proposals, to not let people into the room and
mess with the equipment without a BLS technician there so that
sort of thing doesn't happen----
Mr. Cummings. And were those leaks detected at the time
they occurred?
Mr. Hall. They were not.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Doherty, you write in your testimony
Thompson Reuters ``takes embargoes very seriously and we have
always intended to comply with the Department's lockup
procedures, but our company, after a hardware reconfiguration,
did inadvertently uncover defects in the Department's equipment
that resulted in two unintentional early releases of data from
our machines and the Labor lockup in late 2008.''
What can you add to what Mr. Hall said about how the leak
occurred? Also, your statement indicates ``a defect in the
Department's equipment resulted in two unintentional early
releases.'' Was the fault in this matter with the Department or
with your firm?
Mr. Doherty. My understanding, and I wasn't part of this at
the time, but my understanding is we did configure our
hardware. My understanding is that the way that interfaced with
the lockbox and how that was cabled at the Department led to
the inadvertent releases. As I say, and Mr. Hall said, the
first release wasn't detected by anyone, it certainly wasn't
detected by us.
The second we realized and immediately made that known to
the Department. We worked with them to figure out what the
problem was, a fix was implemented, and as I say in my
testimony, we are aware of no other issues in the three and a
half years since and the Department has 8 to 10 lockups a
month, so that would be roughly 350 lockups or so since there
was that problem.
Mr. Cummings. One last question. Dr. Hall, as a former
commissioner of the BLS, do you believe that the steps the
Department of Labor announced to improve the security of
economic data during the prerelease embargo period are
necessary?
Mr. Hall. I think most of them are necessary. The one
aspect would be replacing the equipment. That is a pretty
dramatic step. I do think that was worth considering and I do
think that is a possible solution. I also think it is a
possible solution to release the data on the website and then
open up the lockup room so it runs a little bit behind the
website so people get to write their stories and get it out,
but there won't be quite such a rush to move trading from
inside the lockup room.
I am not sure for sure, I think it is something that should
be done. I do think it should be considered and should be
discussed.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Thank you. And just for the record, when
these lapses occurred, who was president of the United States?
Mr. Hall. I believe it was during the Obama administration.
But we did have a lapse, to be fair----
Chairman Issa. November of 2008, who was president?
Mr. Hall. Oh, 2008, I'm sorry. It was the 2008 one. Yes,
that was the----
Chairman Issa. Okay, I just want to make sure that this is
so long ago that President Bush is responsible for the leak and
yet, three and a half years later, we have a fix proposed. I
guess that is quick and dramatic action.
Dr. Des Jarlais is recognized.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I really
appreciate you holding the hearing on this topic right now. As
everyone is well aware, this is an election year and I don't
think that anyone who follows statistics doesn't realize that
the number one issue facing our Country are jobs and the
economy, and that is what people are looking to in leadership
to make their decision this fall.
So I think these numbers are extremely important and I
think this hearing is very timely. The one thing the American
people do agree on is that Congress is not doing a very good
job, and I think their trust factor for Congress is very low,
so the one thing they should get are the facts on these
numbers. I often wonder why we focus so much on unemployment
numbers rather than employment numbers, and I just wonder if
anybody on the panel would have a comment why we don't look at
employment numbers, the number of people actually employed.
Mr. Moss. Congressman, that is an argument for allowing the
news organizations to publish as much context, as much full
information at 8:30 sharp as possible.
Congressman, Mr. Chairman, and Representative Cummings, if
I may return to a point that Dr. Hall made, he was talking
about unauthorized access to the room----
Mr. Des Jarlais. Mr. Moss, we will get back to that. I
actually do have a line of questioning for all you.
Mr. Moss. Excuse me.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay.
So, anyway, I just think that there is such a disparity in
unemployment numbers, whether it is 8.2, who is unemployed, who
is underemployed, and when we are talking about getting to the
truth so people can make a decision on who they want to lead
this Country, we should provide the facts to them.
Mr. Moss, I will ask you this. On a scale of 1 to 10, how
would you rate the Department of Labor's transparency in
conducting the change to its lockup policy?
Mr. Moss. Congressman, I am here as a journalist, not a
mathematician. I would just say that it leaves a lot to be
desired. The Department has relied on a Sandia report that has
not been made available.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Mr. Doherty, what would you rate that?
Mr. Doherty. Well, again, I think, going backwards, based
on what we have been able to achieve by having discussions, the
discussions that we in the media have had with the Labor
Department, I think everybody would have been better served if
those discussions had taken place prior to April 10th, as
opposed to in response to what was put out on April 10th.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay. Well, again, with the uncertainty
facing our Country and the importance for this transparency and
these numbers, the Sandia National Labs was asked to review the
Department of Labor's data security procedure.
Mr. Moss or, actually, Mr. Doherty, is it correct that the
Department of Labor is justifying the change to the lockup
procedure by citing the findings of this National Lab report,
Sandia?
Mr. Doherty. Yes.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay. Have you seen a full copy of that
report?
Mr. Doherty. I have not.
Mr. Des Jarlais. All right. To your knowledge, has anyone
outside the Department seen a full copy of that report?
Mr. Doherty. I don't know, sir.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay. In an Executive Summary, the report
implies that organizations or news organizations like
yourselves are adversaries to the Department of Labor. Do you
believe that you are adversaries to the Department?
Mr. Moss. I do not, sir.
Mr. Doherty. Nor do I.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay. Are you personally aware of any
security deficiencies with the Department's lockup procedures?
Mr. Moss. Congressman, this brings me back to a point I
wanted to make in response to Dr. Hall, if I may.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay. Yes, sir.
Mr. Moss. Dr. Hall referred to one of the problems being
unauthorized access to the room. That is an argument for the
enforcement of an existing policy, not the replacement of that
policy with something very draconian. Access to the room is
supposed to take place with a technically proficient Department
of Labor official, and we are comfortable with that.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Ms. Dalglish, the Department of Labor's
new policy for its lockup facility would require all reporters
to use own government-owned and government-operated software,
hardware, and wiring. Is this action permissible under the
First Amendment?
Ms. Dalglish. Dr. Des Jarlais, I don't believe so, and I
think it raises substantial First Amendment problems. As you
know, the First Amendment is designed to allow the press to
operate independently. When you are using government-owned
hardware and software, and you have no control over what it
does and you have no knowledge of, perhaps, in an extreme
circumstance, you don't know what they are able to monitor from
your work. You don't know what they are taking; you don't know
what they are putting into it. You have no control what goes
out. I think it is a very frightening prospect.
Mr. Des Jarlais. To your knowledge, do any other government
agencies require reporters to use equipment, tools owned by the
government?
Ms. Dalglish. I can't think of one off the top of my head.
It is possible, but I am not aware of one.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay. So, in your opinion, this government
ownership could be problematic for the freedom of the press?
Ms. Dalglish. For freedom of the press and for the public's
right to get independently gathered and digested and
disseminated information.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Thank you.
Dr. Hall, as you probably know, the current head of the
Office of Public Affairs, Mr. Fillichio, has not been confirmed
by the Senate, as he is technically a senior advisor, do you
recall if during the Bush Administration that position was
occupied by someone who was Senate confirmed?
Mr. Hall. Yes, I believe it was.
Mr. Des Jarlais. Okay. Then, Dr. Hall, given the importance
of these numbers, as I have talked about earlier, both
economically and politically, do you think it is right that the
process for the release is being overseen by a non-confirmed
political appointee?
Mr. Hall. No, I don't, and I think the most important thing
is that BLS has the responsibility for security of the lockup
room and for disseminating data with a level playing field, yet
they don't have the authority to make changes because they
don't run the lockup room.
Mr. Des Jarlais. All right, thank you. And I thank you all
for being here today.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
With that, we go to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Connolly, for five minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our panel for being here today. I
especially want to welcome Dr. Hall from the great university,
George Mason University, in Northern Virginia, in my district.
So we are delighted to have you here.
Maybe, Dr. Hall, I could begin with you. I am listening to
your testimony, and if I could infer from what you were saying,
when you talked about how originally this process was
established, the lockup, and the control of data, and reporters
waiting at their trusty typewriter to get it out, I think you
were leading us to believe that technology maybe has passed us
by, and I am looking at, just as legitimately, I think, Ms.
Dalglish has warned us about, gee, even with the best of
intentions, government insisting on transfer to all of their
technology and their government-controlled computers
compromises the First Amendment rights of the fourth estate.
Government also has a legitimate concern, after all, the
media are profit-making entities that have motives that go
beyond just the First Amendment sometimes. And I am reading
from the executive summary of the Sandia report and it says,
although DOL operations, BLS, and OPA personnel are doing due
diligence in their efforts to monitor the press lockup
facility, their efforts are complicated by the presence of non-
DOL IT equipment and communications lines in this facility. The
opaque nature of this equipment and DOL operations, BLS, and
OPA stakeholders is a major impediment to ensuring that embargo
data are not released prior to authorization.
In your opinion, Dr. Hall, from your experience, is that a
legitimate concern?
Mr. Hall. Yes, it is.
Mr. Connolly. So we have to balance that with the
legitimate First Amendment concerns we have heard here from the
three witnesses on your right.
Mr. Hall. Absolutely.
Mr. Connolly. And might that be the motivation of the
Department of Labor in these new regulations? I will withhold
judgment as to whether they went too far or whether better
notification could have been given and whether the press should
have been brought in earlier to dialogue about that. But that
might have been their motivation, not the hobnail, voodoo
government on the necks of the media trying to strangle the
First Amendment.
Mr. Hall. Sure In fact, I absolutely support generally the
recommendations. The only thing about the IT equipment, I think
it is worth considering having government equipment in there,
but I think it probably should be studied a bit more. I happen
to think that there is a bigger policy issue here for the
Federal statistical agencies. They need to decide whether or
not it is advisable to have trading come out of lockups. And I
think that question needs to be----
Mr. Connolly. Do we even need a lockup? I mean, given
technology, why have a lockup at all? There is no First
Amendment right, I might add, to being in a lockup.
Mr. Hall. That is right.
Mr. Connolly. But why have one at all? Why not just post
something on the Web at 8:30 and everybody can have at it?
Mr. Hall. No, absolutely. I think the issue at least for
BLS is we want to disseminate the data and we want to give
people a chance to write accurate stories and be able to ask
questions and get those stories right. That was originally the
idea of the lockup. But you are absolutely right. In fact, like
I said, most economic data is in fact just put up on the Web.
Mr. Connolly. I think the inference to be drawn from your
testimony is that is where you were leading us, from that
typewriter to today's fast-moving, 24/7 news world with the
technology advancing. Might the Government have enough concern,
and that is that leaks or unfair advantage to somebody in terms
of information is enormous power?
I am looking at a letter, for example, that was submitted
by the Republican ranking member of our counterpart committee
in the Senate, Senator Collins of Maine, writing to Secretary
Solis expressing concern about the unusual trading activity
reported in the Wall Street Journal just prior to the release
of the unemployment data in the month of May. Is that also a
legitimate concern of Government, that, gee, we don't want to
somehow give an unfair advantage to somebody that might move
markets, fairly or unfairly, and do damage in a broader
economic sphere and favor one entity over another? Does the
Government have a legitimate concern about that?
Mr. Hall. Oh, absolutely, and that is one of the principles
for a statistical agency, is to help do its best to create a
level playing field and not have that happen.
Mr. Connolly. Final question. We heard the testimony of
your seatmate there on the left, Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. When you
were at BLS, did you see untoward and capricious interference
by the Department of Labor forcing you to redefine existing
jobs arbitrarily as green?
Mr. Hall. No, not at all.
Mr. Connolly. Not at all? I thank you. My time is up.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
We now go to the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy,
for five minutes.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would yield my time
to the Chairman, who is so well versed in all the issues
related to this hearing.
Chairman Issa. You are too kind. You are going to go a long
way on this Committee.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Issa. Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, I don't think I heard
you say that this was about interference. I think that your
statement, and we have a second panel, had to do with the fact
that a substantial number of what Dr. Hall put out, this 3.1
million green jobs, are in fact jobs that have been around for
generations. Isn't that true?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes.
Chairman Issa. I mean, septic tank cleaners, in fact, are
not a new profession, is that right?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes. In fact, the Federal definition
of green jobs was under Title X of the Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007, which was signed into law by President
George Bush, which gave BLS the instruction to do this. But,
nevertheless, it does result in relabeling of jobs. Someone who
is putting in a low-flow toilet, for example, that is a green
job. A regular toilet is not a green job. What we need to be
focusing on is just creating jobs. This is not something we
should be worrying about.
Chairman Issa. Dr. Hall, I think the reason that there is
controversy about the green jobs is, in fact, a lot of them
came out of ``stimulus money'' and the claim that stimulus was
working included the claim of those green jobs. Wouldn't you
agree that, as an observer, that was a lot of where your
information got used?
Mr. Hall. It seems that way, yes.
Chairman Issa. Okay, so one of my questions, and probably
the most important question, is if I relabeled all of these
jobs, since most of them, such as diesel repair person
repairing a mass transit bus, since that was a green job 50
years ago, wouldn't it be fair, if we wanted to get accuracy,
that we would go back all those generations and we would simply
have this rise and fall of, as close as we could, the same job
year over year? So wouldn't we have found, as a result, that at
the beginning of this recession we lost green jobs?
Mr. Hall. Absolutely, it is quite possible. A new data
series doesn't really tell you about the past, so you really
don't get an idea of what has changed over time.
Chairman Issa. So the, if you will, propaganda value or the
disingenuous part of green jobs is we are not talking about the
fact that green jobs undoubtedly, since it includes welders
and, like I say, people that empty septic tanks and people who
mill wood, since there were jobs lost in those areas, we lost
those jobs and then we got them back. So when you score 3.1
million new jobs, some of those are jobs that undoubtedly were
lost and then reclaimed.
Mr. Hall. Oh, absolutely.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Moss, I am going to return to a line because this is
the committee of transparency and it is the reason that we will
continue having not only these hearings, but we will continue
to push to not have the kind of behavior, and I can't remember
what the gentleman of Virginia used in relation to boot, but
his allegation, but the press historically gets treated one
way. When the press gets changed to another way and you feel it
impinges on your freedoms, isn't that in fact at the core of
where the press must push back and force government to justify
two things: one, the need to do it and, two, pursuant to the
First Amendment, the right to do it?
In this case, haven't they failed both tests? They failed
to give you the specific need of why they needed to do it and
they certainly have not shown where the specifics of forcing
you to use government equipment, government lines, bring in no
key fobs, et cetera, et cetera, and, of course, then have the
access to your typed material on their computers so they can
look at your material later if they choose to, hasn't that in
fact crossed that First Amendment question, as well as the not
stating the need?
Mr. Moss. Mr. Chairman, the DOL, in its discussions with
the media, has highlighted the need for security. We understand
that. It is our belief, based on some of the proposals we have
discussed with the DOL, that the stated concerns about security
can be addressed and the media's First Amendment rights
protected. We have had some productive discussions. There are
some areas where we are close. We are not there yet.
Mr. Chairman, may I just make two quick points in response
to Congressman Connolly's remarks?
Chairman Issa. Of course.
Mr. Moss. Firstly, regarding Dr. Hall's response to your
question, sir, he said that some efforts had been complicated
by non-Department of Labor lines. Again, that is an argument
for enforcing the existing policy.
The other point I would make, sir, and Mr. Chairman, is
that under the proposals that we are currently negotiating with
the Department of Labor, Department of Labor technical staff
will be able to install equipment that is owned by the news
organization.
Chairman Issa. If I could ask unanimous consent for just
one more question, because Mr. Doherty--thank you.
Mr. Doherty, you have been involved and are more
knowledgeable of the negotiations. At a minimum, wouldn't the
government be able to ``specify'' and approve equipment coming
into the lock area, rather than, say, as Sandia apparently says
in this confidential finding, that they can't know? In fact,
isn't it something where part of the negotiations could be that
they will approve and specify in advance any equipment coming
in? Doesn't the government effectively have that ability to
negotiate what comes into the room, thus never being surprised
that they didn't know what you were using?
Mr. Doherty. Yes, and that is part of our discussion.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
With that, we go to the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr.
Tierney, for five minutes.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Thank you all for your testimony here this morning. I want
to follow up on something that Mr. Connolly was following on
that. There was an op ed recently by a financial advisor,
former journalist named Larry Elkin. Some of you may have seen
it. He said that outfits such as Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and
Reuters compete fiercely for subscribers who pay a lot of money
for split-second access to market-moving information.
So, Mr. Doherty and Mr. Moss, who receives the first access
to the reports on employment data from your outlets, is it the
general public or is it subscribers to the service that you
offer?
Mr. Moss. Subscribers to the Bloomberg Professional Service
are included in the public, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Doherty?
Mr. Doherty. The same with us, sir. And it should be noted
that everything goes out at 8:30 at the same time, so whether
it is a story or a table or data, it all leaves the lockup at
8:30, or whenever the Department of Labor pushes that switch.
Mr. Tierney. Are there any incentives, do you think, for
some people, at least, to try to get that data out a split
second earlier than their competitors? It seems there is a lot
of money moving around. If somebody could do that, there would
be a certain advantage to that.
Mr. Moss. Congressman, right now the Department of Labor
has a master switch----
Mr. Tierney. No, no, I understand that. What I am asking
you is the more general question: Is there a real concern that
if somebody were to get that information out quicker than
others, they would have an unfair advantage?
Mr. Connolly. Would my colleague yield?
Mr. Tierney. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. I would just point out that Mr. Doherty
testified a little earlier ``we want to get that information
out as fast as possible to our clients.''
Mr. Tierney. Of course. And that is the only point I am
trying to make. There is an advantage of getting it out
quickly. If you get it out quicker than your competitors, that
is a good thing for you.
Mr. Doherty. Absolutely. But as I said earlier, as well, in
that earlier response, everything that we do needs to be done
within the rules.
Mr. Tierney. Obviously.
Mr. Doherty. And as has been said a couple times, DOL has
control----
Mr. Tierney. I think one of the important points that Mr.
Connolly made was that the Department of Labor isn't under any
obligation to provide prerelease access at all, correct? There
is no legal or constitutional requirement that the Department
of Labor issue that information prematurely or earlier than one
fell swoop.
Mr. Doherty. That is correct. But as we said earlier, we
think lockups are important.
Mr. Tierney. But I think they do that and I think The
Office of Management and Budget made clear they do it because
they think there is a value in fostering improved public
understanding of the data and that there is a value to having
accuracy for any initial commentary, and that, I think, you
folks agree with, right?
Mr. Moss. Congressman, if I may.
Mr. Tierney. Briefly, please.
Mr. Moss. Our attorneys have looked into this question,
because it is something that the DOL has brought up in our
discussions. It is our belief that once a agency establishes a
policy that affects a substantive right, in this instance the
First Amendment, an agency cannot arbitrarily change that
without due process of a proper notice and comment period.
Mr. Tierney. That is not the question. The question was
whether they were under any initial obligation to share it at
all. They can go through their due process and come back to the
point that they are just going to issue it once and everybody
is going to get it, and that is it, without any prerelease
information. I don't think there is any disagreement with your
lawyers or any other lawyer on that.
But I agree with you, what you are working for is a process
that strikes the balance that Mr. Cummings was talking about,
one that allows for securing it so nobody gets an unfair
advantage and one that makes sure that you get that ability to
have a better public understanding and more accuracy in your
initial commentary. You have been working towards that with the
Department, have you not?
Mr. Moss. We have, sir. The discussions have been
productive.
Mr. Tierney. Exactly. I guess that is my next point, that I
think you have indicated that you have held a series of
constructive meetings, Mr. Doherty, and you were left
optimistic that you are going to be able to agree on procedures
and policies, is that right?
Mr. Doherty. We are hopeful that we will finish it, yes,
sir.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Moss, you said that even as you prepared
the testimony today, the media and the public interest groups
appear to be making progress. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Moss. We are not there yet, but we have made progress.
Mr. Tierney. So the current status is that you are almost
there. Have you got an agreement in principle?
Mr. Moss. I am not sure I would say we are almost--well, I
think we are getting close on some issues, sir.
Mr. Tierney. And have you agreed to ensure security and
still try to allow you to choose your own hardware and
software?
Mr. Moss. Those are amongst the proposals we have made.
Mr. Tierney. Okay. And that proposal also would be the
Department would still control the physical access to the
hardware?
Mr. Moss. They would install it and manage it.
Mr. Tierney. Okay. And if that agreement were to go into
effect, would that allow you to continue to prepare your news
reports and statistical data appropriately? Would that be a
direction in which you would want to move?
Mr. Moss. There is no--sir, at the moment, there is no
formal comprehensive agreement----
Mr. Tierney. But there is one that you are working on,
right?
Mr. Moss. If we were to work toward and arrive at
something----
Mr. Tierney. Well, how close are you? How close are you?
Mr. Moss. On the technical issues?
Mr. Tierney. Yes.
Mr. Moss. I am told we are close. There are some issues
that DOL has said they would get back to the news services on.
We are awaiting DOL comments on rules of the lockup.
Mr. Tierney. And are you feeling good; all parties are
working in good faith?
Mr. Moss. I do believe everyone is working in good faith.
Mr. Tierney. Good. Okay, thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. I guess I will go to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Kelly.
Could you yield to me for just one second?
Mr. Kelly. Certainly. Go ahead, Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Moss, Mr. Doherty, were those
discussions fruitful during the period prior to this Committee
taking a direct interest in it? Were you having the same level
of discord, where you were resolving that an arbitrary rule
perhaps wasn't going to be the final judgment?
Mr. Moss. Congressman, it is my understanding that the
interest of the Committee has been vital in that process.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly. I thank the Chairman.
One of the things that I have been looking at, I try to
look at the statistics and I know that what I did previously
was in the automobile business, and we always looked at markets
and we looked at markets that were available to us, and we kind
of looked at the definitions and then we looked at the
statistics, but they only mattered if they were actually
accurate and they actually had some type of credibility.
And my questions come on the green jobs initiative. I am
trying to understand, Dr. Hall. Does BLS not count blue collar
jobs or white collar jobs, but BLS was asked to begin counting
green jobs? Now, do you believe that BLS was asked to begin
counting green jobs for political reasons?
Mr. Hall. I think it was for policy reasons. I think there
was a good deal of interest in green occupations and I think
there was clearly going to be some policy, at least policy
debates on the issue.
Mr. Kelly. And I understand that. So in order to give
credibility to the policy, then we had to come up with metrics
that made sense. So when you talk about green jobs that were
created, do you think we have actually done a great job with
that? Has there been a good, positive ROI?
Mr. Hall. Well, I think part of the issue is that BLS was
not trying to feed into a particular policy. It didn't have
policies in mind. And they took two approaches: looking at
green industries and then green occupations. I think part of
the problem is those two things get mixed.
But what they were trying to do was they were trying to be
helpful. We were trying not be helpful. We were trying to make
a definition, a fairly broad definition so that people could
use this data, people could even make up their own definitions
of green jobs--there were a million definitions around--and use
the data to piece together their own definitions and use that
for policy.
Mr. Kelly. I understand that. But whenever you change the
definition of what a person is doing and you game it or shade
it so that the answer that you are looking for can be supported
by data that you very carefully craft to come up with the
answer that you want, and that is the problem that I have with
this. I am trying to understand it. If we are really looking to
develop policies or develop the future of the Country and say,
boy, there is a great jobs market out there, and a guy that
drove a bus before, if he went from driving a regular fuel bus
to a propane bus, we created a green job. We didn't create a
job, we just shifted a person from one category to another.
And I think for people like me, I think you want to see
some type of positive return on your investment, and I get the
feeling that a lot of what we are looking at was a policy that,
while it was well intended, hasn't really created the jobs that
the Administration thought it would create. I have no problem
with that; I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. The only
thing is I just didn't keep on that path if I thought it was
wrong. And the reason I couldn't do it is because I was using
my own money.
But this has been very bothersome to me. So tell me how do
you get from one position to another position and say, well,
this supports what it is that we are doing? That is, I think,
the problem that the American people have with this. Because if
we are truly talking about creating jobs, if we are talking
about making an environment that is more conducive to creating
jobs, this doesn't do it.
Mr. Hall. Right. I think the first thing I would like to
say is one of the things I learned quickly when I was at the
Bureau of Labor Statistics is you can produce the best data you
want, the best data you can and explain it, but you can't
control how people use the data. They are going to use it
however they are going to want to use it. And that is true with
all BLS data. In fact, my big goal was that we at least make
sure that when people use the data, they know when they are
using it wrong, even if they want to go ahead and use it wrong
to begin with. So that is sort of an impossible thing for BLS
to sort of control.
Mr. Kelly. Ms. Roth, how do you feel about that?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Well, first of all, I am an economist,
so I don't feel. But looking at the numbers----
Mr. Kelly. Well, let me put it this way. As an American
taxpayer, because that is what we all are, regardless of
whether you are sitting up here or you are sitting down there,
we are responsible to people to pay all these bills as
hardworking American taxpayers. So I have to tell you how I
feel, and I feel at times that we are so separated from reality
in this town, I need to know, okay, you use whatever term you
want to use, but what is the result of this? Do we have any
positive answers?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. No. No. I think the whole concept
doesn't make sense. For example, in the transportation area,
buses and trains are green jobs, but taxis are not green jobs.
But sometimes it makes more sense to be able to take a taxi,
rather than build an expensive rail line. So there isn't any
point in adding any of these together. Or science museums, for
example, vis-a-vis another museum. A science museum is a green
job; another kind of museum isn't a green job. The American
people want just jobs, and I don't think they mind if they are
green. With unemployment over 12 million, with the unemployment
rate above 8 percent for over three years in a row, we just
need lots of regular jobs. We shouldn't worry about whether
they are green, blue, red, whatever.
Mr. Kelly. Well, we are looking for red, white, and blue
jobs; it doesn't have to be any other color than that. I
appreciate your answers and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
With that, we go to the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay,
for five minutes.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Le me start with Dr.
Hall.
Doctor, can you describe the work that went into developing
the BLS's methodology for counting green jobs and what were the
expert sources the BLS consulted when developing this
methodology for counting green jobs?
Mr. Hall. Sure. First, let me say that the folks at BLS are
experts in conducting surveys and collecting data, they are not
experts in what is green and what is not green. So BLS spent a
good deal of time talking with Federal agencies who are
involved with green things, I guess; spent some time looking at
how some of the States are defining green jobs and found how
they were finding it useful, and with the private sector.
So the idea was to sort of try to vett ideas on what should
or shouldn't be included in green jobs and come up with a
definition that was sort of--that had some logic to it. But I
will say, though, one thing that is pretty clear is that there
is no one definition; there is clearly an arbitrariness to it
at some point. I thought it was important, and I think we did,
we erred a little bit on the side of broader, because our goal
was to be useful to people. We weren't thinking of ourselves as
being the definitive folks who determined what is green and
what is not green.
Mr. Clay. And let's be clear that the Department of Labor
Statistics is a nonpartisan statistical agency. Did the
Department of Labor, or any other entity within government that
is focused on the development and advancement of policy,
interfere with the BLS's development of the methodology of
counting green jobs?
Mr. Hall. No, they did not. In fact, we went to some of the
agencies to talk with them about what they thought maybe should
be in a green job or considered a green job or not, but it was
entirely up to BLS as to what to include or not include.
Mr. Clay. Ms. Roth, you evidently do not agree with the
Federal policy to promote renewable energy technology or invest
in green jobs, but, as you know, today's hearing is not about
that policy. The hearing title plainly says that the hearing is
about DOL's reporting of jobs figures, which includes the
definition and the number of green jobs calculated by the
Bureau of Labor Stats. On that topic----
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Clay.--what you----
No, I am not going to yield. Let me finish my question.
Chairman Issa. I just don't think you intended to disparage
the lady's intent. That was the only reason----
Mr. Clay. No, no. No. Let me----
Chairman Issa. I thought you couldn't have meant that.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Chairman, can I get some more time? Thank
you.
On that topic, this is what you say in your testimony:
Federal and State governments re-label existing jobs in an
attempt to convince themselves and the public that such jobs
exist. This entire exercise is an attempt to justify government
initiative.
You have heard Dr. Hall testify that the BLS, which he led
as a President Bush appointee until recently, is an independent
statistical agency, not influenced by politics and
disinterested in policy formation. Yet, you accuse BLS in
engaging an attempt to justify government initiative.
Ms. Roth, did you mean to accuse Dr. Hall and the BLS of
engaging in the biased activity of promoting certain policies?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Well, I would say that Dr. Hall is my
very good job, and I would not want to accuse him of anything
other than trying to do the utmost good with the data. But I
think before you came in I showed this cup here, which says
``The power to save energy.'' And this fits in with a
definition of green jobs: environmental, compliance, education,
training, and public awareness. It is ludicrous to say that
there are more jobs created because we are drinking out of
these cups than if we were drinking out of plain white cups.
We should be concerned with increasing employment in the
United States. We, taxpayers spend a great deal of money, they
pay a great deal of money, and they should get the best value,
and the best value should be job creation as a whole, rather
than dividing the jobs into green jobs and other jobs.
Mr. Clay. Now, do you have any anecdotal evidence of where
it has just been a huge boondoggle? I know in Missouri we have
a certain wind farm that was created by one of the President's
bundlers. Could you point to something like that and say there
has been no jobs created? Do you have any anecdotal evidence to
that?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Well, there is Solyndra, a company
that received----
Chairman Issa. I would ask the gentleman have an additional
15 seconds. Without objection.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. There is Solyndra, that received $535
million and then went bankrupt. You had a hearing last month on
Bright Source Energy that showed involvement in the highest
levels at the White House and the approval of that loan
guarantee. These are all green jobs. Meanwhile, coal is not
green, but employs many, many Americans. We have 200 years of
inexpensive natural gas that we could be mining and giving
Americans lower household utility bills. Wind and solar might
be green jobs, but they result in high electricity bills for
households.
Mr. Clay. What about the Keystone pipeline, would you count
that as green jobs?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I would say this is something that
should be approved so that we can bring more oil down from
Canada----
Mr. Clay. Would that be characterized as a green job?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Under BLS, would you think a pipeline
would be a green job?
Mr. Clay. No, no, I am asking you now.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I don't know that--I believe that
construction of the Keystone pipeline would not be a green job,
even though it would create more jobs for our refineries in the
Gulf of Mexico.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. We now go to the gentleman from New
Hampshire, Mr. Guinta. Could you yield to me for just 10
seconds?
Mr. Guinta. I would be happy to.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
I might make note that Hilda Solis, now the Secretary, was
a sponsor of the Count Green Jobs bill, which got put into the
act. So the very idea that this is not political, when in fact
our former colleague is responsible for it and now oversees,
making sure that the numbers come out. I think we have to be
honest; it is all about politics, it has always been all about
politics. And to answer your question on pipeline, quite
frankly, the President was standing in front of green empty
pipelines when he went to Oklahoma, so they probably would
count as green just because of the color of the pipelines.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman?----
Chairman Issa. With that, we go to--it is the gentleman
from New Hampshire's time.
Mr. Tierney. Would the gentleman from New Hampshire yield
to me for 15 seconds?
Mr. Guinta. No, thank you, I do need to get to my
questions. So I appreciate the Chairman yielding me back the
time.
I am glad we are actually having this discussion, and I
wanted to address my comments and questions to Ms. Furchtgott-
Roth. I personally believe that there is some politicism in
this particular issue. Other people may disagree, and they are
fair to have their point of view and their perspective, and I
respect that.
But you said something in your earlier testimony that I
think is very important. Why distinguish a green job from a
job? A job is a job is a job, and we are in an economic climate
where we just saw our job growth for the last month at 69,000.
The unemployment rate has now jumped a tenth of a percent, and
we have CBO estimates that they could meet or exceed 8.5
percent by the end of the year. So people at home, at least in
New Hampshire, aren't distinguishing between a green job or a
job. What they are looking for is a career.
So, to that end, the Department of Labor receives a $500
million grant in stimulus funds to train workers in green
skills. I probably would not have done that had I been in the
position to make that decision, but that being said, the $500
million was appropriated. I think we have 189, somewhere around
there, different programs that we are now training for careers
in this related field.
I guess my question to you would be has there been an
economic benefit to these green job training? Have we seen a
demonstrable or have we seen a specific economic benefit to our
economy?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I would say that there has been
practically no benefit to the green jobs training. The
assistant inspector general at the Department of Labor
testified in June 2011 that, at that time, there were only
1,366 green jobs trainees that had been in their jobs for six
months afterwards, which was a very low return. The cost was
over $100,000 per job trained.
If you want to look at where there is low unemployment, you
look at North Dakota, with an unemployment rate of 3 percent,
the lowest in the Country. There is a boom because of fossil
fuels, hydro-fracking, natural gas development, and I believe
there are very few--I don't know of any green job trainees in
North Dakota. But there is so much business you can't even get
a motel or a hotel room there. The same with Eagle Ford, south
of San Antonio in Texas.
Mr. Guinta. And then of the people who were trained, do you
have a percentage or a number as to how many of those were
people currently employed or incumbent employees?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I do not have that percentage offhand,
but I could get back to you on that.
Mr. Guinta. Would it surprise you if it was about half?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. That would not surprise me.
Mr. Guinta. Okay. And then, finally, do you have, or if you
don't have it here, how could we find--I am curious to know, of
the people who were trained, how many of them actually are now
working for an employer that got a DOE loan?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I don't have that information with me,
but I could look for it and see if it is available and get back
to you.
Mr. Guinta. That would be wonderful, and I would yield back
the balance of my time to the Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Guinta. Yes, please.
Chairman Issa. Back to that point, though, we are not
debating green jobs; we are debating whether in fact what they
are calling green jobs are green jobs here. If you drive a bus,
you have a green job. If you sell used sporting goods, you have
a green job. If you do--well, we already went through this--
septic tank emptying, it is a green job. If you work at the
Salvation Army recycling clothes, it is a green job.
No problem with any of these, but when people say there
have been 3.1 million green jobs produced, aren't they, in
fact, talking about jobs that have been around since before
anyone in this room was born, and, in fact, those jobs rise and
fall and have very little to do with anything unless you look
at them in context over a long period of time with a same job
analysis, as an economist?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. That is correct, yes. The science
museums were in place beforehand; now they are labeled green
jobs, so they are part of this green job creation, even though
they were there beforehand. The same with the cup
manufacturers; they just didn't put this log on the cup.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Speier, is recognized
for five minutes.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am pretty perplexed by this entire discussion, and maybe
you on this panel can shed some light. What happens with this
lockup is that you get information at 8:00, you have a half
hour to digest it, and at 8:30 you release it to your clients
and to the public. That is how I understand it. And all of the
time, effort, money, extra efforts, extra expenses that go into
creating this lockup could be erased if we just had the
Department of Labor issue these statistics at 8:30, you then
digest it, and rather than get the information at 8:30, the
traders on Wall Street get it at 9:00. And what have we gained
or lost as a result of that?
I would suggest that this is all about what works for Wall
Street, and I would like to ask a question of the two
representatives from Bloomberg and Reuters, Mr. Moss and Mr.
Doherty. Why would anyone subscribe to your newsletters if they
weren't getting some benefit in terms of accessing information
before the public? In response to one question asked earlier,
you said that your information is provided to your clients and
to the public at the same time. So could you answer for me why
would anyone subscribe to your newsletters if they are not
getting some kind of advantage?
Mr. Doherty. Well, you know, how we send it out is one
thing, and, as I said, everything goes out at 8:30. How people
receive it and use it is totally up to them. So as to how they
would use it, that is where the benefit would come in. As I
mentioned earlier, the information does go out to a variety of
places; it would go out to people on Wall Street, and not just
Wall Street, but the financial community worldwide. It would
also go out to media clients, who can use it on their websites.
It also goes out to the consumers via Reuters.com. But I think
the idea is how people use that information once they have it
is what the difference is.
I would say, to your comment, that if BLS or the Department
of Labor put things out at 8:30, it wouldn't be things to the
general public; people would be grabbing that information and
putting it out as quickly as they could, and without the
benefit of having had that half hour to digest it and make some
judgments as to the importance of the data.
Mr. Moss. This is not just about Wall Street. Our
subscribers throughout the Country and throughout the world
include people managing the pension funds of teachers and
firefighters; they include universities and other places of
higher education; they include philanthropic ventures; they
include coffee makers; they include airlines.
Ms. Speier. It is all about making money, though, isn't it?
Mr. Moss. Our concern here is about ensuring that the
public continues to receive something that they have been
receiving for more than a decade and that the public is fully
informed and able to make its decisions accordingly, remains
fully informed.
Mr. Doherty. And I would say----
Ms. Speier. I still would like an answer to the question
why should I subscribe to your service if you are presenting it
to the public and to your clients at the same time.
Mr. Moss. If you have an interest in economic statistics
and the full context, not just what the unemployment rate is or
what the payroll creation or the structure may be in any
particular month, then you want a news service that provides
you with as much context, analysis, and data as possible. The
lockup facilitates the transmission of just that at 8:30 sharp.
Mr. Doherty. And I would say, in terms to your point,
people subscribe to us for a variety of reasons. People can get
our coverage of Congress, of the White House on the Internet as
well, but other people do pay for that coverage.
Ms. Speier. I will yield the rest of my time to Mr.
Tierney, if he wanted to ask that additional question
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much. I knew the Chairman
really wanted to do that because he had about 8 minutes extra,
and I knew he wanted to give at least half a minute to another
member of the panel, so I thank you for doing that.
I make a point here, just that the Green Jobs Act, which
Ms. Solis cosponsored with me, was not about creating jobs, it
was about training people with the skills and education needed
to take the jobs that were created. So I just didn't want to
conflate the two and I want to make that distinction on that.
Also, there have been about 100 new renewable energy and
energy efficiency manufacturing plants that opened up in this
Country since 2009, a number of them in my district, that were
telling us they needed people able to do those jobs and asking
for that job training program. So I make that distinction on
that.
And I guess the only ones not interested in making sure
that the green energy and energy efficiencies industries thrive
at the Republican party, because I note the emphasis the
Department of Defense is putting on green energy right now for
a number of reasons, safety of our troops being one----
Chairman Issa. The gentleman will suspend.
Mr. Tierney. I thought you might want to finish that.
Chairman Issa. Pursuant to the rule, as you know, you may
do a great many things; you may not disparage the intent of
members of either party or any individuals here.
Mr. Tierney. Did you feel disparaged, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Issa. To make a comment about the intent----
Mr. Tierney. Well, I am asking you to clarify. Did you feel
disparaged?
Chairman Issa. Yes, I did.
Mr. Tierney. And how did you feel disparaged?
Chairman Issa. For the same reason that when the gentlelady
just down the dais went to the Floor for a long period of time,
if the gentleman would please refrain from violating the rules
of the House.
Mr. Tierney. Well, help me out here. Tell me how you felt
disparaged.
Chairman Issa. The gentleman may continue for his 15
seconds.
Mr. Tierney. I have had my 15 seconds, but I would use the
rest of it to yield to you to tell me how you felt disparaged.
Chairman Issa. To allege that we don't care about energy,
when in fact what we are seeing is people emptying sewage out
of porta-potties being counted as green jobs is in fact----
Mr. Tierney.--personal issue by you, is that correct?
Chairman Issa. You disparaged----
Mr. Tierney.--about seeming that the Republican party----
Chairman Issa. You disparaged the Republican party. The
gentleman's time has expired.
We now go to the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
McHenry, for five minutes.
Mr. McHenry. Well, I can't follow up those fireworks.
Chairman Issa. Don't try.
Mr. McHenry. I won't, Mr. Chairman. I do respect--I try to
respect my colleagues, even if they are wrong. But the
question--in North carolina----
Dr. Hall, you might be the right person for me to ask,
based on your experience with BLS. I am deeply concerned about
our statistical agencies. We should be a light for the rest of
the world on how governments keep track of data, whether it is
labor statistics, whether it is our census, whether it is these
very key, important pieces of data that we need to have very
clear understandings of strikes and balls, you know, the whole
thing. So I am very concerned about both the strength of that
data and the independence of it, and then making sure that
release is done well and correctly, the public has this
information.
My colleague asked about why you would subscribe to
Bloomberg or Reuters, or whatever these different services are,
and I subscribe to a whole variety of services in my office so
I can have data assembled in a way that I can consume it better
than maybe what is on the website. Maybe putting 50 pieces of
data together that are all publicly available and giving you
good analysis. I think the free market works in that regard
that we can actually have access to that.
In North Carolina, Dr. Hall, we have this issue, for State
level data, Governor Beverly Purdue in North Carolina, who is a
governor who has had a variety of issues, but in this
circumstance she released the State unemployment data in a
private group. She was speaking to a Rotary Club and released
this data before her office put it out officially to the wider
variety. How is that done at the State level? Is there a great
latitude that governors have on putting out the State level
data? And what is that relationship?
Mr. Hall. Sure. BLS works with State partners to collect
the employment data, and one of the things that happens is,
because we are working with the State labor agencies and they
are helping us, they themselves get the data ahead of time, it
is before BLS has done some things. So they get the data before
the release. And because they are not Federal employees, we
can't really control what they do with the data.
We can ask them, for example, when they write the data up
and present it, we can ask them to try not to be political.
Sometimes they are in how they describe the data, something I
wouldn't be comfortable with. And sometimes, as is in this
case, it appears like the State office may have shared the data
with the governor, who then shared it. I happen to think that
is a little bit of a problem and it is something that is sort
of falling between the cracks because of this marriage between
the Federal and the State governments.
Mr. McHenry. Well, there are penalties. The Confidential
Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002
carries a fine of $250,000, up to five years in prison, or
both, for breaking that. It has been hashed out in the
newspapers and my understanding is that the governor didn't
violate that law. Has there been any action in terms of fines
or penalties for release of this type of data?
Mr. Hall. Not that I know of, and I am not an expert in the
law, but that law you mentioned, I believe it governs Federal
employees.
Mr. McHenry. Okay.
Mr. Hall. And the Federal handling of data.
Mr. McHenry. So that goes to the State latitude.
Mr. Hall. Yes.
Mr. McHenry. So to that regard, you served in a previous
administration, but do you think that this Administration has
been too lax in its release of the monthly unemployment
numbers?
Mr. Hall. No, I don't think there is any issue with
anything with the release other than the technology has changed
and it has made it harder to control the security of the
release.
Mr. McHenry. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to yield the 33
seconds I have.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
Dr. Hall, you keep talking about the security, the
security, the security. Ultimately, if no wireless device is
allowed in the room and if wires do not accidentally or
inadvertently bypass controls of a switch, and you don't let a
reporter walk outside to set up his camera, if you don't do
those things, you still have the same level of security you
have always had, which are people, 10 times a month or more,
when convenient to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when you
want them there, because otherwise you just release directly,
but when you want them there, you put them in a room and, in
fact, you don't give them access to send out information until
you turn the switch.
So I understand the technology. I spent a lot of time
growing up in business in technology, but this doesn't sound
like technology where it just oozes out. Ultimately, the
failures that we heard about were mechanical failures, weren't
they?
Mr. Hall. Yes, they were. Let me just say that BLS sees
value in the lockup, because we are not only tasked with
disseminating the data, but they also want people to get it
right. They want a chance to explain it so that it is reported
correctly and then, when it is disseminated, it is disseminated
correctly, there aren't mistakes made, et cetera. So there is
real value in the lockup. Our concern is just that it needs to
be done in a secure environment.
Now, the taking out of equipment out of the room, I can
tell you what is really behind that. It is an effort to get
traders out of the lockup, automatic traders. So there was a
decision, in my opinion, to get the traders out of there and
have a lockup without traders in there. That decision is kind
of a really critical policy level decision for statistical
agencies.
I know of two agencies that have traders in the lockup.
USDA has traders in the lockup, they have commodity trading
that come out of there. They, for years, have encouraged that.
They are trying to facilitate traders working out of the
lockup; it is on purpose. They have much higher levels of
security and they take care of things better. What this is,
this is an effort, to some degree, to sort of bail on allowing
the trading and try to get it----
Chairman Issa. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. I would be happy to yield time to the Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Then I will pick up where I left off, which
works out really well here.
I started on a line, though, and I want to continue it. It
is in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' interest to have lockups,
and that is why they have them.
Mr. Hall. Absolutely.
Chairman Issa. When it is not in their interest, they
simply put the information out.
Mr. Hall. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Okay. When I watch CNBC, Bloomberg, and
other services, all the various--I came out of business, so I
used to have multiple TVs in my office that distracted me from
everything. But, in fact, when I would watch those, I would
hear people trying to analyze your very statistics after the
lockup had ended, after the numbers were out, and they were
arguing, often, Quintanilla and others, they were arguing back
and forth about whether it really meant something, how it dealt
with the previous revision, since you are somewhat famous for
having a set of statistics and a revised set and a revised,
revised set. And all of that takes analysis that is far beyond
the number, doesn't it?
Mr. Hall. Yes, it does.
Chairman Issa. And whether, as Ms. Speier mentioned, there
is a financial interest by people watching it or simply a
businessman trying to figure out whether my forecast for future
products is going to go a different way and I may want to
reconsider how much I stock up on inventory for Christmas,
whatever the reason is, your facts, your statistics in a vacuum
are dangerously useless if you don't have people who can make
secondary evaluations and turn them into meaningful information
with comment, dialogue, and perspective.
Mr. Hall. Absolutely. It is a very important part of BLS.
It is also one of the reasons why BLS is tremendously available
directly from the public. You can call us, et cetera. This is
why I thought it was really important that nobody stands
between BLS and the public in not only disseminating the data,
but being able to describe it and help people understand it.
Chairman Issa. Well, I am going to close with just one
question for Mr. Moss and Mr. Doherty. If this rule, as it was
originally requested, were to take effect, in which your people
are put into a room with only essentially a typewriter of
modern making, a PC with Word on it, and no reference data, no
ability to bring in anything more than they happen to have in
their head, wouldn't the quality of your reporting from your
two major news services go down, and wouldn't the
differentiation of your services be narrowed, meaning wouldn't
you tend to look more alike if all you had was your source
material and a half hour to scratch up what you could on a
typewriter?
Mr. Moss. Mr. Chairman, that would be very detrimental to
the quality, accuracy, and context of what is now published at
8:30. For one reason, we would not be able to bring our
software, which helps us with historical context, it helps us
formulate tables, reams of data on everything from
participation rate to gender to industries.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Doherty?
Mr. Doherty. I would just add not just that, but the
quantity of information we are able to put out at 8:30 would
drop dramatically because we would be doing a lot more by hand,
as opposed to things that are done by the software automation.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
In closing, I know there has been a lot of controversy here
on how we count and what we count as green jobs, and we will
have more of that on the second panel, but I would like to
thank the representatives of the press, both broadly and
specifically. It is unusual to have the press before this
Committee. It is not a standard for us to be asking you
questions. And we really appreciate being able to get the
answers.
But it is so important that what you do and the fact that,
as a businessman, I never subscribed to your services. I wasn't
looking at it in that detail. I wasn't worried about making a
trade immediately. But the things I read in the Journal, in
paper, and so on, in the days and weeks afterwards I knew were
affected by the quality of your initial reporting; not by the
source data itself, but by the analysis of the source data. So
on a personal basis I want to thank you for pushing back to
make sure that people in all aspects of life have the
opportunity to have a free and differentiated press coming out
of those lockups.
With that, I thank you. We are going to stand in recess for
about five minutes while they reset for the second panel.
[Recess.]
Chairman Issa. We now recognize our second panel. Mr. Carl
Fillichio is the Senior Advisor for Communications and Public
Affairs at the United States Department of Labor. Mr. Fillichio
has not been through the Senate confirmation hearing, despite
the fact that he is responsible for conducting his duties, he
is responsible for those conducted during the Bush
Administration by a Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of
Public Affairs.
Mr. John Galvin is the Acting Commissioner of the Bureau of
Labor Statistics; and the Honorable Jane Oates is the Secretary
of Employment and Training Administration at the United States
Department of Labor.
Again, pursuant to the rules of the Committee, would you
please rise to take the oath? Raise your right hands.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth?
[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
You are much more skilled, perhaps, than the members of the
press, so I know that you will understand that your full
statements are being placed in the record, and summarize when
the light begins to go yellow and finish when the light turns
red, if you possibly could.
Mr. Fillichio.
STATEMENT OF CARL FILLICHIO
Mr. Fillichio. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings, and
members of the Committee, thank you very much for the
opportunity to share with you the efforts we are taking
regarding the release of important national economic data.
At the Department of Labor, we take our security
responsibility seriously and we value the critical role the
press plays in disseminating this information. The Office of
Management and Budget's Statistical Directive No. 3 permits,
but does not require or recommend, prerelease access to the
news media of principal Federal economic indicators. Should an
agency elect to prerelease, OMB requires it to establish the
security necessary to ensure that there is no premature
dissemination of the data prior to the designated release time.
We provide what is called press lockups solely for the
purpose of serving the public. Reporters are sequestered and
given the data on an embargo basis at 8:00 a.m., and have 30
minutes to examine the data and prepare their stories for 8:30
a.m. release. We believe that the lockups facilitate good
journalism and a more enlightened public debate. Through press
lockups, we release all principal Federal economic indicators
produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as an
unemployment insurance weekly claims report produced by the
Employment and Training Administration.
Our lockups have evolved since the mid-1980s, when
reporters would congregate behind a closed door in a DOL office
and were provided with paper copies of the report. Since then,
obviously, technology used by the news media to transmit
economic data has evolved rapidly.
In 2001, the Department took steps towards implementing
additional data security controls in response to speculation
that movement in the markets prior to 8:30 a.m. was the result
of premature leaks. Not long after, automation in trading
became prevalent and we began to hear directly from traders
eager to know which news organization had prerelease access to
the numbers.
Over the years there have been different types of
violations of security protocols, technological and otherwise,
and the Department addressed them accordingly, but in 2011 more
than a decade had passed since we undertook a thorough review
of our policies, our procedures, and protocols regarding the
lockup.
We understand that there is an intense competition to
provide information first to investors and to the general
public. We also know that the competition now extends to making
the raw data available to subscribers trading on it through
algorithms, which is not the purpose of the lockup. But we very
much believe that it is possible to balance our commitment to
contribute to an informed public debate with an equally strong
commitment to prevent the premature release of economic data.
So we recently announced new security protocols that will give
participating news organizations the continued opportunity to
write their stories in a secure lockup environment, while
taking additional precautions to prevent early release.
Last year we entered into a Memorandum of Understanding
with Sandia National Laboratories to identify potential
vulnerabilities in our lockup and provide mitigation options
for vulnerabilities identified. Sandia is a government-owned
entity, recognized as a leader in preventing technological
surprise, anticipating threats, and providing science-based
system engineering solutions.
Sandia began its work in July and provided the report to us
in August of last year. The report included recommendations
that we: one, replace the variety of privately owned equipment
with standardized equipment that will significantly reduce the
possibility of data leaks; two, secure standardized phone data
lines that are physically off limits to news media
organizations; and, three, require that reporters' electronic
devices and personal effects be stored outside of the lockup
room.
In addition, we announced new credentialing processes
ensuring that reporters in our lockup represent primarily
journalistic enterprises and produce time-sensitive summaries
and analysis of department data to a broad audience. The
decision on credentials were handled by a committee of career
employees, and neither editorial nor political viewpoints were
considered in the process. Concurrently, I instituted internal
rules regarding DOL personnel who staff the lockups, including
prohibiting noncareer employees in the lockup facilities.
Some media organizations have expressed concern that our
plan would not permit the use of their private, individual
high-speed data lines, their customized publishing software,
and their personal computers and other hardware. We met with
the news organizations on May 15th and then brought them and
our technical experts together for discussions on May 23rd, May
30th, and June 1st.
These meetings have been productive and I am encouraged by
the progress that we have made towards a solution that
addresses our security mandates, as well as the media's
business and journalism goals. We are also working with the
news organizations on a code of conduct for reporters who
participate in our lockup, and we are on track to institute new
and additional safeguards based on Sandia's recommendations, in
consultation with representatives from the Associated Press,
Bloomberg News, Dow Jones News Wire, and Thompson Reuters.
Technology is going to continue to change at a rapid pace
and adjustments to protect the integrity of our data must be
made on a continuing basis. I believe that we have laid a great
foundation to move forward.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for the opportunity to
testify, and I am pleased to answer your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Fillichio follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Galvin.
STATEMENT OF JOHN M. GALVIN
Mr. Galvin. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member
Cummings, and distinguished members of the Committee. I
appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss the
methods used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to protect
economic statistics prior to their official release to the
public.
Immediately upon the official release date and time of BLS
statistical products, the BLS widely disseminates these
products to the public through the BLS website and an email
subscription service. Prior to that official release the BLS
spares no effort in securing the confidential information from
unauthorized disclosure or use.
The BLS is responsible for protecting two types of
confidential information: respond and identifiable information,
and prerelease information. Respond and identifiable
information is collected from businesses and households under a
pledge of confidentiality and is protected from unauthorized
disclosure and use by the Confidential Information Protection
and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002. After that collection,
the information is aggregated in a manner which allows its
release to the public through a statistical report, while
ensuring respondent identities are not disclosed.
Prior to its release to the public, the aggregated
statistical report is considered prerelease information. The
Office of Management and Budget exercises authority for
coordination of the Federal statistical system and
dissemination of its outputs. Consequently, the handling of
prerelease information is governed by OMB statistical policy
directives.
Specifically, OMB Policy Directives 3 and 4 govern all BLS
prerelease information. Directive 3 applies to our handling of
principal Federal economic indicators, or PFEIs. The Bureau
produces seven of these PFEIs. All our other data are governed
by OMB Policy Directive No. 4.
The BLS has strong internal policies and procedures in
place to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the data
we compile, store, analyze, and provide to the public. BLS
employees and contractors are informed of these policies and
procedures in annual training. Furthermore, the BLS restricts
access to confidential information to only those individuals
who need the information to carry out program missions. BLS
policy explicitly prohibits employees from using their access
to these data for personal financial gain. The BLS information
systems that store and process confidential information have
implemented security controls to meet or exceed those required
for moderate systems by the Federal Information Security
Management Act. Personal identification cards are used for all
physical access to the BLS building and to specific locations,
housing, critical telecommunications equipment, and IT
equipment.
OMB Statistical Policy Directive 3 allows for sharing of
prerelease PFEI information in a lockup arrangement. In such an
arrangement, prerelease access is provided within the confines
of a secure physical facility 30 minutes prior to the publicly
announced release time. Participants are not permitted to leave
the lockup room until the information has been released to the
public. No external communication is allowed during the lockup.
BLS has used a secure prerelease arrangement to provide
prerelease data access to the Office of the Secretary of Labor
and to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. BLS uses the
Department of Labor lockup facility to provide secure
prerelease data access to credentialed members of the media.
In 2011, DOL, with the full support of BLS, entered into an
MOU with Sandia National Laboratories for a vulnerability
assessment of the DOL lockup facility. That assessment
identified vulnerabilities that the BLS and the Department of
Labor plan to eliminate with the changes to the lockup facility
scheduled to go into effect on July 6th, 2012. BLS and the
Department of Labor are working with participating news
organizations to finalize solutions based on the Sandia report
recommendations that satisfy the government's need to protect
the prerelease data from unauthorized dissemination and use,
but also facilitate timely and informative analysis of the data
by the media.
In summary, the reputation and credibility of the BLS
depends on our ability to release economic data to the public
in a fair and orderly manner. The BLS has strong internal
policies and procedures to ensure the security of our sensitive
prerelease information. The BLS agrees with the Sandia report
recommendations and fully supports the Department of Labor's
implementation of these recommendations.
Thank you again, and I would be pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Galvin follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Ms. Oates.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JANE OATES
Ms. Oates. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to come
and talk with you and update you on the progress of your
investigation----
Chairman Issa. We still are really not able to hear you.
Could you pull the mic to where it is sort of in front of you?
Thank you.
Ms. Oates. I am so sorry. It is the first time in my life I
have been told to speak up.
Chairman Issa. And one of the amazing things is you project
perfectly to the dais, but this wonderful woman over here, who
is off to your side, is the only person that makes your
presence permanent.
Ms. Oates. I will be much more attentive to you, madam.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Ms. Oates. So good morning again, and thanks for the
opportunity to update you on our progress on your investments
and the ability to train workers for good jobs in green
industries and other industries.
The Department plays a critical role in ensuring that we
have a prepared workforce for the economy of today and
tomorrow, an economy that deals with all sectors, including
green. Over the last few years, we have made a number of
strategic investments to ensure that, as the green sector
grows, businesses will have the talent they need to prosper.
Strong partnerships with employers have been critical to
these investments from the very beginning. That is why the
Department required that grantees work closely with employers
to assess the real employment needs of their local areas, and
we encourage grantees to be flexible throughout the full life
cycle of the grant.
In some communities employer needs have changed since the
grants started, and grantees have made adjustments to continue
to ensure that their projects are aligned with employer needs,
such as providing training for additional occupations that
require the same skill sets, but were with different employers
than they had originally anticipated.
The Department is also committed to making sure these
investments work. We have implemented a number of new processes
to monitor progress and intervene as necessary to improve grant
outcomes and hold grantees accountable, including a
performance-based process for identifying and prioritizing
grantees with high technical assistance needs.
We provide technical assistance through several mechanisms,
including in-person meetings and workshops, facilitated peer
learning conference calls, webinars, and case studies examining
promising practices implemented by our highest performing
grantees. Technical assistance covers many topics, including
the basics of proper reporting and accounting procedures, but
also focusing heavily on job placement and employer engagement
strategies.
Some of the grants to train workers in green industries did
take longer to get off the ground than the grantees planned,
but through the strong partnerships with businesses, increased
flexibility to meet those local needs, the targeted technical
assistance that I have outlined, and our comprehensive
communications with grantees, the investments are now paying
off.
Through the Recovery Act, the Department invested nearly
$500 million, directed by Congress, in 189 green job training
and related programs to help train workers for careers in
sustainable manufacturing, energy efficient construction,
biofuels, and other renewable energy sources. These grants have
served, and are still serving today, more than 99,000 workers.
To date, more than 65,200 have completed training, and of those
88 percent have received an employer or industry recognized
credential such as a certificate or degree.
Despite tough economic times, after completing their
training, more than 25,200 workers have already found new jobs,
with 81 percent of them in green training related jobs. It is
important to note that of the over 99,000 workers who have
received services, almost 49,000 were incumbent workers and
were not necessarily seeking new positions, but looking to
attain credentials that would help them improve the
productivity of their employer and basically help them keep
their job.
To date, 29,899 incumbent workers that have completed
training have received a credential. While some incumbent
workers who received green job training did find new positions,
for incumbent workers that did not find new jobs, we estimate
through the data we collect that at least 90 percent of those
workers retained their current job, which may have included
advancement potential.
Similar to the upward trends in performance, the current
expenditures reflect increased grant activity. As of the
quarter ending March 31st, 2012, 62 percent of these grant
programs have ended and been closed out, and 68 percent of the
total funds for all grantees have been expended. This
represents more than a twofold increase, compared to the 29
percent expenditure rate cited by the OIG in the September 2011
report. In the coming months we expect the positive trend to
continue.
To ensure we learn as much as possible from these
investments, the Department is conducting formal evaluations of
the green training grants. The interim report for the
qualitative evaluation of the training focus grants was
recently published and included a descriptive analysis of eight
grantee projects. In the essence of time, we will keep you up
to date on those through your Committee staff.
Thanks again for inviting me and I look forward to
answering any questions.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Oates follows:]
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Chairman Issa. Thank you.
We now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford.
Mr. Lankford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, all of you. Actually, it is good afternoon,
approaching quickly on it. Let me try to run through a few
things.
Ms. Oates, you got a chance to chat a little bit about the
definition. That was initially the first hurdle for what is a
green job, in forming a definition. Did you feel like that is
solidified at this point, that we have a definite definition of
what a green job is now?
Ms. Oates. To be honest with you, we take whatever
definition is given to us and get that information out, but our
focus is really on relying on States and local areas to tell us
where the employers have needs, filling that skills gap that we
hear, and having our grantees respond to that.
Mr. Lankford. So let me just run a couple things.
Ms. Oates. Sure.
Mr. Lankford. If they work at a solar manufacturing plant,
green job; wind manufacturing plant, green job; the energy, the
actual production of those, electricity, hydroelectric dam, I
assume that is a green job. What about a custodian that puts in
fluorescent light bulbs? They used to put in incandescent, now
they put in fluorescent?
Ms. Oates. Again, sir, that is not my job. My job in
Employment and Training is to make sure that if a local area
needs somebody who can work with natural gas or put in a
fluorescent light bulb----
Mr. Lankford. But you understand where I am on this? The
difficulty of trying to find out, getting them ready for a
green job.
And let me tell you the perspective for me, because I
visited one of the programs, got a chance to walk through, see
the training, met some great folks that are very dedicated to
training people that are unemployed to get employed. In my
conversation with them, they had just finished up, they just
graduated a group out, so we were able to talk about how many
people got placed. My conversation with them was how many of
the individuals in this program were placed in a green job.
They hesitated and responded back to me all the skills are
transferrable, which, great. They ended up in a job, but they
couldn't name a single person that ended up in a green job, or,
if they worked the numbers right, for instance, if they ended
up in home repair, they said, well, they will replace windows,
so that is a green job; or they will end up in waste
collection, so that is a green job; or this individual now
works at a used book store and that is a green job because it
is recycled materials.
The challenge is not employment, the challenge is the
number of what is a green job and what is not, and that seems
to be a very fluid number in this process. Based on the
definition, almost anything could be considered a green job at
this point, if you had some connection to it at some point.
Ms. Oates. Again, Congressman, maybe it could be better
directed to someone else, this question. My concern, my charge
when I took this job was to make sure that job training was
aligned to the needs of employers. And if that guy wants to
hire somebody for $10 an hour to replace fluorescent bulbs,
that is what my training providing should do. As you know, we
had the chance to talk a little bit in your district and I was
amazed that what was happening with natural gas and what was
happening with some of the things like that, and I was thrilled
that our training programs were working on that. But I was
equally thrilled when I visited Sonic, that we were also
getting people that they needed in their back room functions at
the Sonic headquarters there in Oklahoma.
So, again, I understand this is a political debate. I hope
you would agree my job is to make sure my training programs are
meeting the needs of local employers.
Mr. Lankford. I absolutely agree. It is only a political
debate because it is designated for just green jobs, and that
is the challenge of it, to try to determine are we doing job
training, are we trying to focus in on a specific sector. And
even when we had the chance to chat at the career tech, it was
this ongoing challenge, even when I visited with some of the
leaders there, to say they have programs that are focused on
that, but they also have challenges based on, when people
graduate, trying to place them in a green job, and it is trying
to redefine what is that definition and how does that really
get accomplished and how do they track those numbers back.
I was at a wind farm a few weeks ago, and when I was out
there I asked how many people do you employ total. It is a huge
wind farm. It was 12. So when we train people in trying to do
repair on a wind farm, there is not a large population of
people that are needed on that, and all of them formerly had
done something else and been trained onsite to do that job. So
that is the push and the pull on that, is how do we get around
the training-related employment type figure of it.
Now, there is a difference between trying to just employ
people and trying to target for an industry that may or may not
be there actually for employment, and that is the challenge of
it. So that is not the push and pull. I want it to be a growing
sector.
Your comment also about incumbent workforce is a great
comment about half the people that are in the program were
already trained, they are just getting retrained for something
else within the same company on that. That helps them be able
to keep a job, but it is a challenge for people, when we have
such massive unemployment, to focus in on why don't we train
people that are unemployed on that one. How did that work out
for you as far as retraining and training? How did you all make
the decisions on that?
Ms. Oates. So I don't know how familiar you are with how we
award grant money. First of all, usually you are pretty
prescriptive, as this was. I didn't make the decision how to
spend this money; I tried to enact what Congress told me to do.
And then we change the way we panel. Previously, our paneling
had been three Federal workers, mostly retirees. I really felt
that in this changing economy we needed to shift that and have
two outside experts on every panel that we open to the general
public and one Federal worker. So I don't even see the grants
until they are awarded. So part of that is that we are really
looking at the strength of the applicant, the local training
provider, the local government, the State government to really
make a case for what the need is.
Now, we know that oftentimes six months or a year could
elapse between when you really started writing that grant and
when the money is awarded. That is why this flexibility. So we
said to people, when they were writing these grants, in the
instruction, in the request for applications, that you need to
look at what the greatest need is. Quite frankly, in some
States it was definitely getting unemployed people trained
because there were job vacancies. In other States there weren't
job vacancies, but there were threats that employers were going
to leave the State or that companies were changing the way they
did business. So they made a strong enough case that that panel
said incumbent worker training, making sure we are doing layoff
aversion is the most important thing in that local area, and
they made that case strongly enough that they were awarded.
And as we see, some of them really hit the nail on the head
and some of them we have had to be really spending much more
time with in technical assistance. The wind farm example is a
great one. Some people who had no--not in Oklahoma, but in
other neighboring States who had no experience with wind farms
before thought they were going to have thousands, hundreds of
jobs, and when they found out there were three technicians per
shift and that is all they were going to need to service these,
they were shocked.
So we then went in to real overdrive to connect them with
the local utility companies who were looking to green up, and
they actually have been able to hire new people. It is a very
graying industry and it is an industry that is everywhere. So
we have been able to work with CEWD to redirect some of those
workers because the training was the same that they would get
if they were doing wind power technician stuff, but the jobs
weren't there.
Mr. Lankford. I yield back.
Ms. Oates. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. Thank you. I guess that means that they
didn't get real green jobs by the definition of the public, but
they did get jobs that they got trained for. So the good news
is your training worked; the bad news is the scoring of 3.1
million green jobs had to include all kinds of things that
people didn't think were green in order to hit some
hypothetical political number, which I think is what you were
talking about when you said this is a political discussion.
Ms. Oates. Mr. Chairman, at least we got the chance to talk
a little bit. We don't know each other at all, so please take
this with the great respect that it is given. My job is to make
sure the training matches the job vacancy needs, and whether
they are green or white collar or blue collar jobs, that is for
the local areas to decide and for the statisticians and the
researchers to say which was what. My job, and I think you
would, I hope, agree with me, is to make sure that we are not
wasting taxpayers' money training people for jobs that don't
exist.
Chairman Issa. We couldn't agree with you more.
With that, which one of you, I believe Mr. Lacey is next
for five minutes.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Look, I hope we can agree that green jobs are a new
emerging economy. If we can grow jobs in this sector, this can,
more than likely, help our economy in job creation. I would
just hope we on this Committee and in this room can agree on
that simple aspect.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Clay. Sure.
Chairman Issa. I think in my wholeheartedly agreeing with
Ms. Oates, what I was really saying is out of 120 million
workers, 12 million of whom don't have jobs, there is nothing
we could think of as more acceptable in Federal dollars than
finding people who either don't have a job or would lose a job
without training and get them trained. I think in our
discussion of the green versus the green in one's pocket, we
are all for keeping green in one's pocket by making sure they
have the skills in order to do the jobs that are available.
That is where you and I agree more than you will ever admit.
Mr. Clay. So you do agree that this is an important sector
of the economy that has the potential for growth.
Chairman Issa. No, actually, the gentlelady had, if the
gentleman would continue yielding, she actually said that she
found often that the windmills didn't create very many jobs,
but the public utility had some very good jobs and they were
able to get it. So I think where we are agreeing is that you
should fit people into jobs that exist, or are likely to exist,
and that is what these training programs are for. And I think
that is where we can all applaud the work that she is trying to
do to use local boards to make sure that this money ends up
training people for jobs that exist.
Mr. Clay. So, Mr. Chairman, no matter where the jobs are
created in the green economy, then that has to be a positive
impact for job growth. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. That is all your time.
Mr. Clay. Assistant Secretary Oates, on March 13th of this
year, Secretary Solis sent a letter to the Chairman of this
Committee, and I am assuming you are familiar with that letter.
Ms. Oates. I will get familiar, sir.
Mr. Clay. On page 8 of this letter, in response to the
question of how many jobs had been created with Recovery Act
money, Secretary Solis writes this: ``In your letter, you
further claim that the Recovery Act green jobs program cost
$121,856 per trainee retaining a job. That calculation, which
appears to be based on a preliminary and incomplete retention
data cited by the OIG in its reporting, does not accurately
portray the per trainee costs. The Department believes that the
most accurate method for calculating the actual cost per a
participant is to divide the total number of funds expended by
these grants by the total number of participants who receive
education training through the grants once the grants are over.
Assuming that the targets for the numbers of participants who
receive education training under these grants are met, this
results in an approximate green jobs training cost per
participant of $3,777.''
Assistant Secretary, if I am reading the Secretary's
response to the Chairman correctly, DOL never spent anywhere
near $120,000 per job, but actually spent considerably less,
about $4,000 per trainee, is that correct?
Ms. Oates. That is correct, Congressman.
Mr. Clay. Okay. Can you detail for this Committee the types
of skills provided in these training programs and how you
believe they will assist trainees to keep a job or get a job if
they do not have one?
Ms. Oates. Absolutely. I mean, we take applicants from
where their clients are and where they want them to be, so for
some of our programs there is some basic IT or basic adult
literacy. But for most of them, because we have put a targeted
concentration on industry recognized credentials, they are
getting credentials that industry is saying they need. That is
why they are staying longer in training and that is why it is
costing us a little more. For many of our participants, that
means things like getting the entry level credential they need
and getting a higher level credential as well.
Mr. Clay. And how does the roughly $4,000 that DOL is
spending to train workers to keep jobs or get jobs compare with
the cost associated with being unemployed?
Ms. Oates. Well, I mean, it is definitely a savings on so
many ways. They are not on unemployment, they are not on any
other government subsidies; but they are also productive
members of their communities. So our whole vision is on
reemployment, getting people back to work as quickly as
possible, and some of the strategies that we have used, like
on-the-job training or our registered apprenticeship programs,
put them to work while they are being trained.
Mr. Clay. Thank you so much for your response.
Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the cost of training
employees so they can retain or find employment is clearly a
wise and cost-effective investment, and I applaud DOL's effort
for making this modest investment.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. Clay. Sure.
Chairman Issa. The debate that you brought up in the
question that we sent to the Department of Labor versus the
answer, between over $100,000 per job actually created, in
other words, someone who got a job, and the $3,000 estimated to
be how much will be applied per trainee, which is important,
the $3,000 of training or the $100,000 for each job that
actually occurs?
Mr. Clay. I actually think that that data is rather
inaccurate and incomplete. I mean, if you look at the actual
costs of training these applicants, it is far less than
$120,000. And as the Secretary testified, it is more cost-
effective, instead of these people having to draw unemployment.
Chairman Issa. Well, I guess I would ask the same question,
though. If training costs $3,000 per person, but you look at
the amount of people who get jobs, it is $100,000 per jobs.
Mr. Clay. But you are lumping in all kinds of other costs
here that are not associated with the training or retraining of
workers. A laid off worker with typical skills, $3,777.
Chairman Issa. Well, we are looking at how much was
expended per trainee. But $100,000 per permanent job created.
Mr. Clay. You are counting the grants. The grants to
individual companies. That is what is going on here. That is
how--that is your calculation of it. I don't agree with it.
Chairman Issa. Well, I assume we will agree to disagree.
Mr. Ranking Member, would you like to go next? Mr. Tierney
is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Oates, I am looking at some of the data around this and
some of the information. First of all, would it sound
reasonable to you, our statistic here, that about 100 new
United States renewable energy and energy efficiency
manufacturing plants have opened up in the United States since
2009?
Ms. Oates. That is the data that we have seen as well, sir.
Mr. Tierney. And that is just one broad study. There are
others as well, if I am not mistaken, correct?
Ms. Oates. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. Because I know in our State in particular we
have done that. Are you also showing that States that have made
their own investment, sort of leveraged Federal investments in
this area have had a particular boon in the clean energy
manufacturing and efficiency areas?
Ms. Oates. Without a doubt, some States have really pushed
to get businesses to grow there. I think Massachusetts is an
example. But I also think North Carolina has pushed to get the
lithium battery business there is well documented, as well as
their push to get Siemens. So I definitely think States have
been aggressively looking at how to attract foreign investment
and how to incubate and grow American business as well.
Mr. Tierney. And one of the grants--you give energy
training partnership grants, I notice on that, so a range of
whole careers on that. One is the hybrid electric auto
technician career.
Ms. Oates. That is right.
Mr. Tierney. Are there particular skills and education
people have to have to be employed in the hybrid electric auto
technician area?
Ms. Oates. In the plants that I visited, they have been
totally reformatted. They use different equipment. The body
stays the same, but the engine and mechanism is totally
different. So there has been a real need to upgrade the skills
of both incumbent workers and recruit new workers with
different skills that fit the needs of that industry now.
Mr. Tierney. I know in my district alone, but in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts as well, we put a tremendous
number of people together on weatherization projects on that
and that they did need particular training for that. A number
of the companies, as well as some of the communities that were
involved in that, made comment to that and asked for these
resources. Are you finding that to be generally true throughout
the Country in weatherization projects, that it requires a
particular set of skills and education to be able to perform
those tasks?
Ms. Oates. Absolutely. And while some of those skills, like
using a blow door and doing insulation would be seen as entry
level skills, we have seen a trend now through our work with
CEWD that the folks that enter that career path went on to go
to some of their Centers for Excellence, which we don't fund,
and went on to work and get permanent good jobs in utility
industries.
Mr. Tierney. We have a lot of people in our State doing
wind and energy auditing, which has become a very active field
on that.
Ms. Oates. Especially at the Cape.
Mr. Tierney. Especially at the Cape, exactly right. That
takes a particular skill set and education as well, does it
not?
Ms. Oates. Absolutely. And a higher academic skill set than
many of the other jobs that would have been seen in these
sectors in the past. People have to know how to use handheld IT
devices.
Mr. Tierney. And solar panel installers. We have some up in
the old Lucent plant I think you are familiar with up in the
Andover area, where those companies are doing very, very----
Ms. Oates. That is right. Four layoffs ago, right.
Mr. Tierney. Four layoffs ago. But those companies which
fill a lot of that building now, some of them are installing
panels. They do everything from the panel installation to
actually the claws that connect the panels to the rooftops on
that. They are all asked to help with training their employees
because it was a special skill set and education level, is that
correct?
Ms. Oates. That is correct. And you know the problem when
you bring up Lucent, Congressman, that is exactly the trend we
are seeing around the Country. Places that used to employ 6,000
people are now starting to incubate smaller businesses that
hire a fraction of those people, and getting their needs,
filling their skills gaps is much more difficult than it was
talking to the HR director at Lucent 15 years ago.
So it has really become much more complicated for all boots
on the ground, the people that we pay through the money that
you give us, through State and local areas, the WIBs and the
one-stops, it has become much more laborious for them to go to
employers that employ 50 people and really understand what they
need. That is why we are pushing industry-recognized
credentials.
Mr. Tierney. And part of what you do is allow job seekers
to really connect with the jobs that are out there, that is
part of the Workforce Investment Board responsibility.
Ms. Oates. That is correct.
Mr. Tierney. And I have watched that happen. One thing is
the training; the other is, in a tough economy, trying to
connect people with the jobs that exist.
But in our district, and you can correct me if I am wrong
because I know you have been up there, we have found a
significant number of new jobs in the energy efficiency area
and the energy manufacturing area, so our Workforce Investment
Boards have actually been connecting people and trying to do
more training that allows for internships and apprenticeships
that give them some income while they are getting the skills
and education, and then a transition because the employer now
is familiar with the perspective employee and can bring them
on. Is that something you have noticed as well?
Ms. Oates. That is absolutely right. And some of the models
that are in Massachusetts are the same as California, quite
frankly, and Maryland, that if you want to get a dislocated
worker immediately to pay attention to upgrading their skills,
you have a much better opportunity to do that if you put them
in on-the-job training, because they don't want to sit home,
they want to get back to work; and they are afraid, in this
economy, if they sit home too long, there is not going to be a
job. So they want to get back to work, and those programs in
all three of your States, quite frankly, have been the most
productive.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador.
Mr. Labrador. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Issa. Ms. Oates, the gentleman from Massachusetts
listed a number of jobs. Weren't most of those jobs jobs that
in fact rely on subsidies? In other words, the boom in the
industry of insulating new windows, that was a stimulus
program, so you were creating job training for jobs that were
created under the Stimulus Act in that case. That is where the
boom in that industry has been.
Now, don't get me wrong, it is an energy savings, I am all
for it, but the fact is some of the jobs that you are job
training, the green jobs, were linked hand-in-hand with
stimulus. To the extent they were windmills, they were mandated
by State law to get a certain renewable, they were funded, they
were given subsidies, and then you were producing training. So
you were, in a sense, directly an arm of providing green jobs
for green stimulus money that had created green opportunities
for business. Solyndra and all the others, in one way or the
other, benefited from either mandates to do or stimulus money
or grants, correct?
Ms. Oates. I hesitate to say correct, sir. Again, with all
due respect, I was educated in Massachusetts, I went to Boston
College, and Massachusetts has been at the forefront of looking
at how to do energy conservation----
Chairman Issa. Right. But we are having a discussion about
3.1 million jobs that are constantly being touted by this
Administration. Those jobs in fact include people who empty
porta-potties, they include who print on a cup that says power
savings. So not only do we have the misleading figures because
we are counting jobs that have been around for generations. You
testified here today that your green jobs, you went to find
where there was a job opening, not necessarily where there
could be.
What we are trying to understand is how significant is it
when they claim 3.1 million jobs, and it appears as though it
is not significant at all; that these are, to a great extent,
$100,000 to create per job that is ``lasting a year'' and, at
the end of the day, you simply took the money and did a jobs
training program as the jobs existed. You weren't ``training''
for some magical new jobs; you were training for jobs that
happened to exist, and if it was somebody operating a piece of
software while working for a power company out on the power
lines, you did it.
So I am all for what you are doing. I just want to make
sure that we define that when the President is constantly
touting 3 million new jobs, or Secretary Solis is, they are
touting jobs that, under the definition, I think we would have
a hard time finding them.
Let me switch subjects.
Ms. Oates. Sir, if I may. I can't answer making an if-then
clause. So I just don't know if the people that we trained in
Massachusetts with our dollars, and we trained a lot of them,
were being trained for jobs that existed because of other
government subsidies. I don't disagree with you, but I think
you were asking me to say that those jobs were only created
because of----
Chairman Issa. Well, some of them were. That is all I was
asking.
Ms. Oates. Yes, I don't disagree that there were jobs
created everywhere. But I hope that we don't train for jobs
because they get a Federal subsidy. We train for job----
Chairman Issa. Let me run you through some questions here
because you are here because we are having a green jobs
counting discussion. Someone who assembles turbines, is that a
green job?
Ms. Oates. Wind turbines?
Chairman Issa. Yes, wind turbines.
Ms. Oates. I think we would call any kind of sustainable
manufacturing fitting the definition----
Chairman Issa. Does someone who sweeps the floor in a
facility that makes solar panels, is that a green job?
Ms. Oates. I will give that to Jack, if you don't mind.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Galvin?
Mr. Galvin. We define--we have a two-part definition----
Chairman Issa. We already had the briefing on that, so just
answer the question. If you are sweeping the floor in a solar
panel production facility, is that a green job?
Mr. Galvin. If you ask me for the number of health care
jobs in the United States, I will give you the employment from
the health care industry.
Chairman Issa. Look, Mr. Galvin, Mr. Galvin, you did not
want to come here as a witness. You are not a delighted
witness, so let's go through this. I asked you a question; you
know the answer. Would you please answer it? If you sweep the
floor in a solar panel facility, is that a green job?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Thank you. If you drive a hybrid bus, public
transportation, is that a green job?
Mr. Galvin. According to our definition, yes.
Chairman Issa. Thank you. What if you are a college
professor teaching classes about environmental studies?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. What about just any school bus driver?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. What about the guy who puts gas in the
school bus?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. How about employees at a bicycle shop?
Mr. Galvin. I guess I am not sure about that.
Chairman Issa. The answer is yes, according to your
definition. And you have a lot of them.
What about a clerk at the bicycle repair shop?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. What about someone who works at an antique
dealer?
Mr. Galvin. I am not sure about that either.
Chairman Issa. The answer is yes. Those are recycled goods;
they are antiques, they are used.
What about someone who works at the Salvation Army in their
clothing recycling and furniture?
Mr. Galvin. Right, because they are selling recycled goods.
Chairman Issa. Okay. What about somebody who opened a store
to sell rare manuscripts?
Mr. Galvin. What industry is that?
Chairman Issa. People sell rare books and manuscripts, but
they are rare because they are old, so they are used.
Mr. Galvin. Okay.
Chairman Issa. What about workers at a consignment shop?
Mr. Galvin. That is a green job.
Chairman Issa. Does the teenage kid who works full-time at
a used record shop count?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. How about someone who manufactures railroad
rolling stock, basically train cars?
Mr. Galvin. I don't think we classified the manufacturer of
railcars----
Chairman Issa. Forty-eight point 8 percent of jobs in
manufacturing railcars counted, according to your statistics.
About half of the jobs that are being used to build trains.
Okay, how about just one more here. What about people who work
in a trash disposal yard? Do garbage men have green jobs?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Okay, I apologize. The real last last is how
about an oil lobbyist. Wouldn't an oil lobbyist count as having
a green job if they are engaged in advocacy related to
environmental issues?
Mr. Galvin. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
With that, I go to the Ranking Member, Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As I sit
here and I listen to all of this, I live in the inner city of
Baltimore and I think about, Ms. Oates, all of the young men
and women who I see every day, I will see them this evening
when I go home, and all they want is a job. If they get a shot
at any of the jobs that the Chairman just mentioned, they would
die for it. They want dignity; they want a job. They want to
take care of their families; they want a job. They are not
trying to get to Disney World; they are just trying to get to
the local park with their family. They are not trying to buy
$200 tennis shoes; they just want to buy a $10 pair at the
bargain store. They want a job.
Job training, I think, is very, very important, and I want
to applaud you for your efforts because I know of them, and I
know that you don't just wear green today; you believe in what
you are doing, and I appreciate it.
In May, the seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate
for people whose highest educational qualification is a high
school diploma was 8.1 percent and the rate for those without a
high school diploma was 13 percent. The unemployment rate for
people with a bachelor's degree or higher educational
qualification was 3.9 percent. Given these numbers, it is
critical that this Congress do everything in its power to
create and support sustainable good paying jobs for working and
middle class Americans.
William Dudley, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York, said at the quarterly regional economic press
conference one of the problems facing America's middle skilled
workers is job polarization. He stated this: Over the past
three decades, job opportunities have become increasingly
concentrated in high wage, high skill occupations and low wage,
low skill occupations, while job opportunities or those in the
middle have been shrinking. At the same time, he says, there
has been a growing gap in wages between jobs that pay the most
and those that pay the least. Taken together, this phenomenon
is often referred to as job polarization.
According to President Dudley, there are steps we can take
to address this problem, and he said this: More than ever
before, jobs are requiring a greater degree of knowledge and
skills. In order to adapt to these changes, it is increasingly
important for workers to acquire and upgrade their skills,
whether through formal education or other forms of training.
Mr. Fillichio and Assistant Secretary Oates, can you
describe the programs within DOL and ETA, for example, the
Workforce Investment Act programs, that have helped employee
middle skilled workers transition to new careers? Briefly.
Ms. Oates. Sure. I would be happy to start, Carl, if you
have something to add.
ETA is really the part of the Department of Labor that does
the lion's share of this work, although we do it with our
friends at Vets and Office of Disabilities and Women's Bureau
as well, but I think basically, to sum things up, we are really
focusing on credentials, industry-recognized credentials that
employers want. We are partnering with our friends both at HHS,
mainly in Children and Families, the folks that are
transitioning from TANF and our partners at Education. So, for
instance, take somebody who has worked for 20 years. They could
work in a factory and make a good salary, and that factory went
away. Their high school diploma, if they have one, may not be
enough to get them a new job in a new sector. But it is
ridiculous for them to have to go to adult basic education and
job training separately.
We have created integrated programs where people can
upgrade their reading and math skills and their IT skills at
the same time they are learning the new trade. So the easiest
example for me to give you is somebody who doesn't read very
well, but wants to get into health care. They don't need to
learn to read a menu today; we shouldn't be paying for that. We
should be teaching them how to read using medical vocabulary.
And that is what we have done. We have those programs in
Baltimore City and Baltimore County right now so that a 40-
year-old who is dislocated doesn't have to learn to read before
they can learn medical vocabulary or billing and coding.
So those are the kinds of things we have done.
Mr. Cummings. And that is a very practical thing because
that is real. I think a lot of folks just think that--I have
heard all kinds of things like people don't want to work and
there are people who can easily get jobs if they wanted to.
There is a lack of jobs, unfortunately.
When I was listening to what you were saying a little bit
earlier, I was thinking about the training. Training is very,
very important and, unfortunately, training dollars have been
slashed tremendously under Republican budgets, and I am just
wondering if you are going to get somebody on their feet and
make sure that they do not become a detriment to society and
lose their dignity, I think one of the things that we could do,
and I think this is what Mr. Dudley was saying, is you have to
give them some kind of training. Some folks think that folks
can just walk into a job and automatically do a job.
I think what employers want, we often talk about what
employers want. I think, and you can correct me if I am wrong,
I think what employers want is a trained employee. They want
someone who is going to come to work, going to do the job,
going to do it well, and if they can have a trained employee
from the very beginning, I assume that that would save them
some money, and that is one of the reasons why they want a
trained employee. Is that right?
Ms. Oates. Absolutely. It costs employers a fortune when
somebody leaves after four or five weeks because they weren't
the right fit for that job.
Mr. Cummings. The other thing, the flip side of that is
when they have to train, if they can find programs or whatever
to train these folks before they get there, then they don't
have to spend resources training people, is that right?
Ms. Oates. That is exactly right.
Mr. Cummings. Another thing that is very interesting is
that when we look at these folks, the ones that I talk about,
the ones that I see every day, while they may train in these
areas, they are given skills that hopefully are transferrable.
In other words, they may not have a job today, or they may get
a job and the job may not last but so long, but at the same
time they get skills and hopefully, as I tell folks all the
time, sometimes you have to tread water until you can swim. So
I assume that that is part of your philosophy, too; even if you
can't get something right away, what you want to try to do is
make sure that you give them the skills to be able to fend for
themselves and hopefully get a job.
Ms. Oates. That is exactly right. And we do it on a core
competency model so that, for instance, the same basic core
competencies could be for construction as well as the utility
areas. And then as people demonstrate through the acquisition,
passing a test, performance-based test usually, to get an
industry-recognized credential, that is what makes it really
transferrable. It is not just that Jack said Jane could do the
job; Jane has an industry-recognized credential, an assessment
that she can show a new employer.
Mr. Cummings. So whether you call it a green job, a blue
job, or a purple job, the fact is that they get training and
hopefully they will be able to acquire a job.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
We now go to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Galvin, you are the Acting Commissioner of the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
Mr. Galvin. Correct.
Mr. Connolly. The Chairman made note a little while ago
that our former colleague, now the Secretary of Labor, was
herself the author of some of the environmental legislation
that seems to guide the whole issue of classification of green
jobs. Just to clear that up, has the Secretary herself
personally intervened to ensure that jobs, green jobs get
classified or reclassified as such?
Mr. Galvin. No, she has not. In developing our definition,
we did a very thorough survey of what other Federal statistical
agencies around the world had done. We looked at what various
States had done. We talked to, as Mr. Hall said earlier,
experts in other Federal cabinet agencies with sort of a green
portfolio, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department
of Energy, for example.
We came forth with a draft definition, published it in the
Federal Register Notice for comment by the American public, got
something like 150 comments, processed them, made some changes,
and then came out with our final definition. In all of our
responsibilities, we have complete independence in the
development of----
Mr. Connolly. The Secretary hasn't called saying, hey,
don't make me look bad because I am the author of that
legislation?
Mr. Galvin. No.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentleman yield for a second?
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. As the other author of that legislation, and I
can tell you as the one who started the legislation and was
happy to be joined by the Secretary, this did not start as a
subset of the Recovery Act; this started as a separate bill
when my State made clear to me, through the employers or
whatever, that they had emerging technology areas in clean
energy and clean technology and clean manufacturing, and had a
need for people that were trained in that area.
I would suggest that there is a good showing that the
global energy efficiency and renewable use industry
internationally is going to grow by billions of dollars, going
from 3 percent to 15 percent of energy generation on that time
by clean energy by 2035. Some $6 trillion of money will be
invested. And this Country wanted to be a leader in that area
internationally, and my State, North Carolina, and others
wanted to be a leader within this Country.
Mr. Connolly. I thank my colleague.
Chairman Issa. If that were the case, we needed to have
people that were able to take those jobs because you need
capital and a workforce that can do it.
Mr. Connolly. I thank my colleague.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Connolly. And let me ask my colleague what year was
that legislation before the stimulus?
Mr Tierney. I think we started drafting that in 2008, early
2009, but I think 2008.
Mr. Connolly. Okay. I thank my colleague.
But in listening to some of the comments and some of the
questions about this, is the idea of classifying jobs in a
particular category sui generis? I mean, it is unique to green
jobs, it has never happened before in the BLS, Mr. Galvin?
Mr. Galvin. No, absolutely not.
Mr. Connolly. Oh, when else has it happened?
Mr. Galvin. Well, you know, we have----
Mr. Connolly. Quickly, Mr. Galvin.
Mr. Galvin. Okay. Really, our insight for defining green
jobs are two that came from our previous efforts to define
high-tech jobs.
Mr. Connolly. Would IT jobs be an example? Including the
existing jobs, but reclassified so that we have a broad band
category to identify what people are doing, is that correct?
Mr. Galvin. Correct.
Mr. Connolly. Now, what about the criticism that in our
eagerness to classify and reclassify jobs as green jobs, we
have taken century-old jobs that were there long before anyone
thought of them as green jobs, sewer jobs and all kinds of jobs
that seem silly, and we are just tripping over ourselves to
redefine things as green so we have a good number? Why would
the BLS be doing that?
Mr. Galvin. Well, the BLS put the data together in a way
which clearly breaks down each industry's worth of green jobs,
and users who disagree with regards to our judgments regarding
some industries, as to whether they are producing green outputs
or not, can remove the employment associated with those
industries from our numbers. But, again, this was an exercise
just like defining high-tech jobs. There is no OMB definition
for high-tech; it was our responsibility to look at existing
jobs, decide which ones we wanted to classify as high-tech, and
then count them up.
Mr. Connolly. So despite the negative inferences to the
contrary, what you are trying to do, as you have done before in
the modern economy, is aggregate jobs in some broad
classification so we can better understand the nature of the
workforce and what people are doing, and create a baseline so
we can measure is it growing or shrinking.
Mr. Galvin. Correct. To provide usable, measurable
definitions and data.
Mr. Connolly. Sounds socialistic to me.
My time is up. Thank you.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
I now recognize myself.
Mr. Galvin, when you were doing high-tech jobs, did they
include a portable toilet emptying people? Did they include
people who manufactured steel? Did they include people who did
garbage job or ran recycling centers, sold used high-tech
equipment? Were those high-tech jobs?
Mr. Galvin. Not that I recall.
Chairman Issa. Okay, so as is probably not true, but has
been attributed to the late Joe Stalin, it is not the vote that
counts, it is he who counts the votes. Ultimately, it is about
whether or not the count is selective or whether it is not.
You are not a political appointee, you are a career
professional. If you were given the ability to reduce, for
greater accuracy, true high-tech, would the number be smaller
than it was in the past, since the gentleman mentioned that? In
other words, if you could say, well, I would like to really
make this very focused on high-tech, could you make the number
a little smaller and reflect more directly ``high-tech?'' And I
know high-tech is a tough one. Let's say biotech. If you were
going to try and do biotech, you probably wouldn't include the
person sweeping the floor in biotech; you would try to only
look at the jobs created for which those high skills and what
we assume biotech is about.
In the case of green jobs, when we count nearly 50 percent
of everybody making a box car for a train as high tech and
everyone driving a transit bus, aren't we in fact inflating the
number beyond what is the reasonable expectation by somebody
who hears a quote, 3.1 million new green jobs?
Mr. Galvin. No, in that methodology we are counting green
jobs the same way we count jobs in any industry.
Chairman Issa. Okay, I guess we are just going to assume
that emptying porta-potties is a green job and that it is a
fair counting, and I guess we will go on.
Mr. Fillichio, you are probably the most important person
here today. I assume you have read the Sandia Lab report?
Mr. Fillichio. I have, sir.
Chairman Issa. Would you agree to provide this Committee a
copy of that report, a full copy?
Mr. Fillichio. Mr. Chairman, the Department of Labor's
lockup is still operating under the conditions that Sandia
looked at, so it wouldn't be prudent to release the report just
yet. As you know, we are trying very hard to change that system
on July 6th. After July 6th, or after the situation that we
have where we no longer are operating under what Sandia looked
at, we would be happy to explore with the Committee how to
release that.
Chairman Issa. So you are refusing to give us the
information based on an assumption that we cannot look at your
vulnerabilities and your proposed rulemaking and make an
analysis? I am not asking to post it on the website; I am
asking you to release it to the Ranking Member and myself.
Mr. Fillichio. Mr. Chairman, we are dealing with security
issues, and making that report public while we are still
operating----
Chairman Issa. We are not asking you to make it public.
Will you make it available to this Committee?
Mr. Fillichio. I would----
Chairman Issa. Our people asked and your people said no, so
I am asking you.
Mr. Fillichio. If I could get back to you today, Mr.
Chairman, I would consult with our staff and we will get back
to you today on that, if it is just to the two of you.
Chairman Issa. We are looking at it being an embargo
document, but it is very hard to look at your rules and your
negotiations without knowing what was in that report.
Mr. Fillichio. I understand, sir.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
I am going to ask you just a few questions. I am old tech
geek, so I apologize if these don't seem like the questions you
expected. But was there any reason that you couldn't have come
up with a standard that, for example, instead of your producing
at your cost a line for these folks to send out T1, T3,
whatever you are sending out, couldn't you have in fact
specified and had specific standards and limitations, but had
these reporting entities use their own dime to produce their
own lines? Is there any reason that you could not have put the
burden on, if you will, the editorial folks?
Mr. Fillichio. Mr. Chairman, the way that the lockup is set
up, the burden is shared by almost everybody, with most of the
burden carried by the Department of Labor.
Chairman Issa. Well, let me ask you the question. What is
the cost of operating the lockups? You use them 10 times a
month. What is the budget for that?
Mr. Fillichio. There is no set budget; it comes out of----
Chairman Issa. So you don't know what it costs to do
lockups?
Mr. Fillichio. I don't, sir.
Chairman Issa. Do you know what the cost of the Sandia
report was?
Mr. Fillichio. I do, sir.
Chairman Issa. How much was that?
Mr. Fillichio. We entered into a Memorandum of
Understanding with Sandia. We obligated a little over $184,000;
we spent $70 of it. I think we will spend probably $20 more in
the next phase of this----
Chairman Issa. So it is a contract of performance where
they come back and forth, so it is an ongoing contract.
Mr. Fillichio. And we will probably not use about $80,000
to $90,000 of that money.
Chairman Issa. Use what you need to be secure. I don't
think anyone from the dais is disagreeing with that part.
Well, let me just ask the hypothetical. If you have private
sector willing to spend their own money to move data, and this
is a burst data, this is dated in which you don't use the
bandwidth at all for hours and hours, and then you need a
tremendous amount and, as was mentioned earlier, you had a
fairly catastrophic crash of your own system. If you have
private enterprise willing to spend their own money, wouldn't
it, from a tactical standpoint of protectors of the taxpayers,
wouldn't it be better to put the burden on them, whenever
possible, to pay their own way, rather than, as is proposed,
that you have the taxpayers pay for their dissemination of
information?
Mr. Fillichio. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we have
been exploring over the past month is better ways than what we
proposed. And as you well know, we are in a much better place
with the media organizations. I know that there are some rules
where we cannot accept, there were some proposals made by the
media organizations that would constitute a gift to the Federal
Government, and we couldn't accept that. But I think we are
being very creative and very innovative, and balancing our
security concerns with their business and public
responsibilities to find a solution
Chairman Issa. We could probably just come up with a tax.
That is how we do gifts to the Government, we just tax them. So
I am sure there is a creative way to do that.
Let me just close with a question that is most important
for this hearing and why we wanted you here today. Would you
commit to this Committee to stay the June 15th deadline unless
a final agreement is met, and then reset that deadline for this
transition to a date sufficient for whatever is agreed to? In
other words, here we are less than two weeks away. If you were
to implement your rule today, without change, it would be a
very short period of time. Quite frankly, I think both the
Ranking Member and I would be concerned. Would you agree to
have a rolling stay on that while these negotiations that both
of you have said have been fruitful so that we can have
confidence that it will in fact be, as I am sure you really
want it, a mutual buy-in by the fourth estate and yourself?
Mr. Fillichio. Mr. Chairman, I am very anxious for this to
work, and I am very anxious for you to have confidence in the
security of our data and the security of our processes, our
procedures, and our protocols. We are exploring with the media
organizations fudging the time line a little bit, where we can
get some things done by July 6th. We would prefer to. The more
we can get done by July 6th, I think the better off we would
be.
Chairman Issa. So translating that, I think, for both of
us, we certainly are not asking--if you have anything that is
agreed with in this get-together with the press involved, we
have no problem with implementing. But to the extent that you
have not resolved issues, could you stay it and inform the
Committee on a periodic basis of, if you will, the new date
while you continue to negotiate additional items?
Mr. Fillichio. I would be very happy to.
Chairman Issa. I would be pleased. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Would the Chairman yield?
Chairman Issa. Yes, I would yield to the gentleman.
Mr. Cummings. I just want to say that, Mr. Fillichio, I
agree with what the Chairman just said. It seems like there is
an issue of balance and it sounds like the parties are acting
in good faith, and I just think it is the right thing to do to
have that flexibility until you all can get done what you say
you are going to get done. I am glad you said what you said and
I am urging you all to provide that flexibility so that nobody
will be, I don't want to say penalized because that is not the
right word, but nobody should suffer as a result of the
inability to get this worked out.
I have full faith and confidence that it will be, but at
the same time I think it is important that we give the media
folks the comfort of knowing that they have room to do that
without suffering any kind of undue hardship.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
I thank you for your bearing with us on a hearing that
uncommonly was somewhat on two unrelated, but related,
somewhat, subjects. It is not often, but thank you for being
here for both of our hearings.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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