Donald Payne Jr.

I give a lot of credit for you admitting where some of the shortcomings were.

I think there are a lot of areas where you could have done better.

I also want to thank my colleague and my friend, Don Payne, whose home town we are conducting this hearing in, for his concern for our children, particularly since I am the father of a 3-year-old.

There are resources out there, but if you don't know the correct question to ask the Federal Government, no one really volunteers the information.

So we just want to make sure that Secretary DeVos knows what the President is saying, and the President knows what Secretary DeVos is saying.

Securing our educational institutions and ensuring a safe, healthy, and productive learning environment for our children is a priority for me and for all of our witnesses here today, along with Mr. Payne.

If nothing else, we have learned that students want to be at the table when discussing school safety.

So the Commission is going to study, or is not going to study?

I like to point out that in other communities, as you state, to keep the guns outside of the school, that is a problem for other students, is getting to and from school safely.

It has to do with school safety.

But we agree that in all these instances, the one common factor was a gun being used in these acts of violence; correct?

As a parent of triplets, the concerns regarding school security have kept me up many nights.

In terms of the flexibility, we know with the evolving threat it needs to be nimble.

Everyone here understands that protecting the Nation from bad actors is of the utmost importance.

we are just linked by commonality between the two areas

If there is not specificity in the language in the grant, then the money kind of goes wherever it will.

homeland security is just as important as military budgets

I have been troubled by the fact that the last two Trump administration budget proposals would make significant cuts to these critical funding streams.

We feel that more attention has to be paid to the special circumstances not being with the parents reconnecting them after disasters.

I represent a very congested urban area with every mode of transportation within my district.

On March 6, 2018, the Secretary announced VA's plan to launch a Nation-wide telehealth program to help Veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Are you planning additional requirements with respect to, you know, on-going training and that type of thing, you know, the human error that was cause for a false alarm in Hawaii?

I am concerned that the false alerts and alert fatigue could in fact lead to people to opt out of WEA alerts.

Ultimately, for the public alerts and the warnings to be effective, the public has to be able to trust them.

What these incidents have taught us is that we need enhanced trained and guidance for State and local governments.