Transcripts For CSPAN Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Testifies On Presidents 2021 Budget... 20240713

Secretary wilbur ross on budgetnt trumps 2021 request and he talks about the 2020 census, space commerce and trade relations. Held by a subcommittee, this is two hours. Sen. Moran good morning, everyone. The subcommittee will come to order. Welcome to our first Budget Hearing on commerce, justice, and science and related agencies for this fiscal year 2021. Today, we have the honor of hearing from secretary of commerce wilbur ross about the president s fy 21 Funding Priorities for the department of commerce. Welcome, secretary ross. Thank you for your appearance. We look forward to hearing from you this morning. The department of commerce executes a broad range of activities for our nation, things that are important to every american. Range of critical activities for our issues that we care a lot about. Research and development, cuttingedge technology, predicting the weather, increasing trade and investment, recruiting businesses to our communities. A componentas been of the departments business for the last several years. Essential component of the departments business for the last several years. The president s request is eight billion dollars, 6. 7 billion below the fy 20 enacted level, which represents a 44 decrease in the departments overall budget. While this is a large decrease on paper, much of it is due to the planned ramp down of the funding of the 2020 census. That said, i am troubled by some of the proposed cuts to core programs that are overshadowed by the magnitude of reduction to the Census Bureau. While this is a Budget Hearing about fiscal year 2021, we cannot overlook that in under a month the department, through the bureau of sense, it will be receiving millions of responses from the public for the to see any ill census. I encourage everyone to fill out their forms to do the census. I am pleased to see the budget would increase Richardson Development investments and supportive industries for further initiative. This initiative is important for maintaining the United States position as a leader in innovation. But we must also recognize currently more than 90 the nations Innovation Sector growth occurs in only five metropolitan areas, all of which are located on the coast. This type of concentration underscores the importance of continued funding for the departments nationwide Economic Development programs which allows to expand the geographic extent of all innovation economies, of the innovation economy, and capitalizing on the potential for all regions of the country. Departments Budget Proposal also includes a 25 Million Dollar increase to prepare ntia for testing new Wireless Networks and advancing spectrum management, an important component of us winning the 5g race. However, i believe we also must not forget the concerns from communities across the country who are unable to fully access broadband, because they either are underserved or an served. Im interested to hear how the departments proposed investments will address this issue as part of this budget request. Mister secretary, i applaud you and others and the administration for recent trade related achievements including the usmca and the phase one trade deal with china. These deals are critical for restoring and stabilizing markets for american exports, which are the lifeblood of the kansas economy. We are an export state and these issues matter greatly to me. Although the departments fy 21 budget does not include specific request related to these agreements, i would like to hear what role if any the department will have in regard to supporting the trade agreements i just mentioned and the trade agreements that are still contemplated. The department tariff exclusion process, again, is a large component of the departments fy 21 trade budget. In light of the recent Inspector General management alert which detail several concerning irregularities with this process, i have a renewed concern about the fairness and transparency of the overall execution of section 2 32 exclusions. Its beyond time that the department of commerce get this process right. Another way the department impacts everyday life for local communities and citizens is through the activities the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or noah. The programs are very important to people in kansas and we regularly experience weather events and water events. I am pleased to request includes full funding of noahs weather satellites, but im concerned there is a lack of funding of noaas core Operational Assets including its fleet of aircraft. The programs which i have highlighted today and also those which i have not around questionably critical for addressing the needs of the department of commerce. We rely on people, and we currently have a people problem. The vacancy rate and time it takes to hire across many of the departments and bureaus has become problematic. For example, he dea has only filled 24 of 55 positions, or 44 that are responsible for overseeing and executing the nearly 1. 2 billion dollars that 88 received in 18 at 19 for disaster relief. Within the Office Inside know that is responsible for managing our nations constellation of weather satellites, there is a 24 vacancy with 243 vacant positions, 132 of which have been vacant for over two years. The Department Must ensure its bureaus are sufficiently staffed, and im interested in hearing what the secretary has to say in that regard. Mister secretary, i thank you for being here. I appreciate the relationship that we have. I look forward to hearing your views on these and other matters during todays hearing. And i now turn to my colleague and friend from New Hampshire, senator shaheen for opening remarks. Thank you mister chairman. Good morning, mister secretary. We are glad you could join us this year. As the senator indicated, the budget is really bad, its about our priorities and where the department puts its priorities. If we look at this budget, what does it say about the priorities of this administration. The major increase in this budget is for the office of the secretary 35 million or 58 . At the same time, the budget kept Scientific Research and development at the National Institutes of standards and technology by 14 , overall it cuts the department by 30 . At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by 40 , the research provided by these agencies leads to innovation that fuels american technological leadership. The budget eliminates more than half a billion dollars in noaa grant programs, which are critical to helping communities understand and prepare for climate change, and to support our seacoast and fisheries in New Hampshire and across the country. I was particularly disappointed to see that the budget eliminates the 10 Million Dollars that the committee secured last year to help the new england fisheries which have really been devastated by the reduced catches for decades. Any additional fees will drive so many of the remaining fishing operations out of business. The budget eliminates the Manufacturing Partnership that helps domestic producers improve their competitiveness at a time when so many of our small and medium sized manufacturers have been hard hit by the administrations tariffs trade wars have cost american businesses and consumers 50 billion dollars according to an Organization Called tariffs for the heartland, including at least 111 Million Dollars in New Hampshire. The budget also eliminates the Economic Development of the administration which funds Infrastructure Projects and communities around the country, and it is particularly important to small states like New Hampshire but also states that have large rural areas that need help with development. Mister secretary, i have to say, it feels like we are in groundhog day, the movie. We have seen these same proposals decimated each year of the budget submission by this department. I understand that in the first year of the administration, given that you are looking at where your priorities want to be, but when Congress Rejects those decisions, to see it submitted again and again seems there is a disconnect between where we all should be going to support business and commerce in this country. On a separate topic, the 2020 decennial census begins next week, it is critical to everyone in the United States and i appreciate your commitment to say you want to get this right. This is the largest peacetime government mobilization. It is imperative that we do get it, right because the census is used in congressional apportionment, and it directs 1. 5 trillion dollars in federal funding. In fiscal year, 2020 the committee provided several, 7. 5 billion dollars for the Census Bureau, sufficient to fully cover the cost of the 2020 dissimilar, doing additional outreach too hard to count communities and to provide a contingency if any major issues arise. So i look forward to getting a briefing in the coming weeks from New Hampshire as they are looking at the census in our state. And i look forward to seeing how the department executes this huge challenge. With that, i look forward to your testimony and to the discussion today. Thank, you senator sheen. We are honored to be joined by the chairman. I asked my written statement be made part of the record. Without objection. Mister secretary, time has come for your testimony. Welcome and we look forward to hearing what you have to say. Members of the Senate Appropriations committee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss President Trumps fiscal year 2021 budget request for the u. S. Department of commerce. Its a privilege to appear before you today. We are committed to working with you to grow the u. S. Economy, defend our industries from unfair foreign competition, and protect our National Security. The 2021 budget for the Commerce Department achieves these goals by providing the resources needed for successful completion of the 2020 decennial census, by ensuring American Leadership in spades, by bolstering trade promotion, trade enforcement, and export controls. By providing for satellite acquisition, and vessel recapitalization for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Generating the timely Economic Data needed by businesses to analyze markets, investing communities, and hire american workers, and by supporting research development, invention, and standards in leading industries and technologies. In the short time allotted to my Opening Statement, i will discuss three priorities for next year. First, the Census Bureau, then space, then trade. The request for the Census Bureau for fiscal year 2021 is 1. 6 billion. I am pleased to report that with your support, we are on budget, on schedule, and on track to accomplish the 2020 to central census. Next years budget supports the important post enumeration operations for determining apportionment and the allocation of federal funding. The calmest Apartments Office of space commerce is the second Priority Initiative that urgently needs funding. Our request of 15 Million Dollars advances u. S. Leadership in space. As we shift responsibility for tracking tens of thousands and that hundreds of thousands of pieces of space to breathe. From the department of defense, to the department of commerce. The exponential growth of commercial satellites is increasing geometrically. The risk of catastrophic collisions that could generate additional debris and threatened critical space assets. The task of tracking this debris and providing accurate warnings to Space Operation operators was set for it and space policy directive number 3. Finally the budget requests 474. 4 million for the International Trade administration, the 80 a enabling u. S. Companies and their domestic employees to compete on a Level International playing field. We seek an additional 5 million for i. T. Age and forsman and compliance division, to keep up with anti dumping encounter veiling duty cases funding will also enable us to conduct additional reviews a foreign acquisitions of u. S. Companies, as required by the Foreign Investment risk review and modernization asked act. We can discuss the Commerce Departments budget request for all of the bureaus, including noah, including the Bureau Industry insecurity u. S. Patented and Trademark Office and other agencies within the department. Thank you, and on behalf of the department i will try my best to answer any questions that you have. Mister secretary you are right, a short amount of time for a Big Department with lots of important rules and issues. Let me start, my questioning concerning noaa and aircraft recapitalization mister secretary i touched on this in my Opening Statement. Noaa recently provided with to recapitalized its freedom of aircraft. Well i recognize the president s fy 21 budget does not include funding for that, i believe the projected obsolescence of no was aircraft a man that we take action to recapitalize those assets. Do you agree that no is fleet of aircraft are in need of recalculation and can you elaborate with these immediate needs for aircraft are . Yes mister chairman. No was aircrafts recapitalization plan was a published in october 2019 and looked at long term recapitalization strategy and the management of current aircraft. The plan recommended noaa procured to aircraft based on the 2018, consistent with this plan noaa was able to procure to additional aircrafts. The gulf stream 5 50 and a king aircraft. Utilizing fiscal 2018 appropriations. These aircraft are essential to ensure noaa maintains the ability to plan for and respond to the nations most damaging and most deadly weather event. Agricultural security, and water security. The plan also recommended the future purchase of a 3rd aircraft. That 3rd aircraft is being studied right now, and it would have the primary missions of charting surveying in weather forecasting. That was very likely to be a king air, but they have not made a final decision as yet. Mister secretary thank you. I appreciate it if you would if you could ask your staff to follow up with me, subcommittee in regard to the cost to cover that recapitalization, including that additional king aircraft. I would be delighted to mister chairman. Let me turn my attention to trait. I mentioned this in my Opening Statement about usmca in phase one deal with china. Mister secretary what would roll would your department play and helping implement monitor or enforce usmca trade deals with china and the fy 21 support that role . Let me answer the 3rd part first. Yes. The budget request does provide the funding that we need for those rules. The rules weve played so far have been working very closely with u. S. Tea are to help them the want list, the negotiating list, the product list that theyve had. Subsequently, we will be dealing with the enforcement of the provisions that are in their. We are very confident that we have the staffing and the expertise to perform those functions and we are in constant communication as between our office and u. S. Tea are on those topics. The president the presence fy 21 budget of increase of 3 million with an 88 for section 2 32 exclusion process, which is based off previous pending reports i take to mean the total cost to administer the process is going to be roughly 18 and a half Million Dollars in fy 21. Mister secretary is 18 and a half Million Dollars amount that is that the pow amount that the Department Needs to effectively execute this process, if not what would you say is required . And as you know, there have been criticisms that were levied against section 2 32, exclusion process by the departments Inspector General in late 2019, and there are members of congress who certainly are dubious about that process. The 2nd part of my process is what you ensures today that this process is being executed in affair consistent and transparent fashion . Yes. First of all as to the Inspector Generals comments, they were basically 3 suggestions he made, all of which we have adopted. So his constructions were well themed and we have implemented each of them. When was, with to make sure that any ex parte communiques were posted and made available to everybody involved. 2nd was to make sure that once we posted a decision, it was required guarded as a final decision. Those were the 2 important part of the Inspector Generals recommendation. We are adhering to those. Once in a while, it does become necessary to correct an era, and that is the only deviation from regarding the posted decision as final. What causes that is the huge number of requests that we have received to date. We have actually received 171,742 exclusion requests. Of those, we have posted 138,243. There have been 31,381 objections filed, and that is an objection rate of about 23 . We have processed 112,819 requests. Granted 87,008 oh 8 to 9 25,000 oh 11 and returned for improper and incomplete filings some. 3 31,005 53. We have active pending cases 27,322. Meanwhile we had achieved a 17 9 decrease in the initial posting times. We have achieved a 63 decrease indecision times under the new portal system that we introduced mid year last year. That is greatly accelerated the process that we do. On average, the department now post requests within 3 days of submission. It renders decisions on cases without objection within 59 days of their submission. So what really takes the time are the ones that have objections to them. Because that requires going back and forth between the applicant and the objectors to determine whether or not the request meets the requirement of product that is not made in sufficient quantity sufficient quality, sufficient timeliness to meet the applicants requirement. So there is a lot of given take and that is the variable in the time equation from when objections are raised. When there are objections, in the case of ceo, we have granted the exclusion in 18. 8 of the cases, and in the case of aluminum tos bite objection, we have granted exclusion of 21 of the cases so more or less 20 of the time, when there have been objections, it is proven that they were not well founded and therefore we granted the exclusion request in any event. Thank you mister chairman. Mister secretary, are appreciate the effort that the department has to try and improve the exclusion process. But i just have to point out that there are a number of Small Business folks in New Hampshire who we have heard from, who, while, the percentages may sound good, still are affected by the process. One of those is a company and a person from New Hampshire called. Walk and pets its a pet supply company. Their signature product is a dog wheelchair that has been produced for them in china, and so they are subject to terrence. The Company Believes that is a mistake, so they hired a lawyer to help with the exclusion process. The company has been unable to get an exclusion because the tariff schedule has been this classified and they are just trying to stay afloat. While i understand the numbers may look better, the fact is, we have to see many Small Businesses that are struggling because of these tariffs. When i asked ambassador lighthouse or a year and a half ago with the administration was thinking about to healthy Small Businesses in the same way that they are helping farmers, the answer was, zero. There isnt anything that is being done to help them, so i would just urge you to let us know if there is more or there are more resources that are needed, but we have to smell these Small Businesses especially as we are looking at some of the struggles around the coronavirus for businesses to be able to stay afloat. Certainly, i am a supporter ofs a Small Businesses. It happens though that the 3 oh one tariffs are the domain of the u. S. Tea are, not of the department of commerce. I think your discussions with ambassador lighthizer are really the right ones to have, but we are not the ones who can grant exclusions under section 3 oh one. Hopefully you will weigh in with ambassador lighthizer about the need for Small Businesses. I will be very happy to carry informally to the ambassador your comments. As i said in my Opening Statement i was really disappointed to see, again, the but should propose to eliminate the economic deval development administration. It is the Principal Office within the department of commerce that supports communities that are hurting from traderelated pressures, and at a time when communities and Small Businesses are facing these challenges it would be helpful to continue to support those efforts that can make a difference for them. One of the its also inconsistent with a recent tweet that you issued, supporting the Economic Development and administration and we have a copy of that here where you said, that the Trump Administration continues to work diligently to rebuild communities devastated by natural disasters by providing Small Businesses would get financing to recover in growth, this investment will create stronger communities within the region, and then you go on to talk about their revival fund, and economically resilient communities, and the fact that the eds is the agency that is helpful with that. So, i dont understand the inconsistency between eliminating this agency and your comments about the effectiveness of it. Va has been a useful component of the department. It has been useful to the economy however the fiscal 2021 budget supports the Broad Administration goal of promoting National Security Public Safety Economic Growth and job creation. But given the need to prioritize, commerce is funding budget requires difficult decisions in order to maintain the core activities. Unfortunately, this is one of the difficult decisions that we have to make. I understand the difficulties decisions around budgeting, as a former governor ive had to make those decisions, but at a time where we are trying to promote the growth of Small Businesses and economic innovation, it seems to me that to eliminate one of the agencies that has been most successful at that is shortsighted. I am glad the Administration Working with congress was able to get the u. S. Mexico canada trade agreement approved, i think that is something that is been very important to business in New Hampshire. But 97 of exporting firms and our country are Small Businesses and only about 1 of those Small Businesses are doing business overseas. One of the things that is so helpful to them is the International Trade administrations Global Market division, particularly, the commercial service that is within the u. S. Department of state that is part of the Commerce Department. So, again, i do not understand if we are trying to reduce our trade deficit, trying to grow our exports, why would we want to eliminate those agencies that are helping our Small Businesses do that . Well, we are continuing very actively at the Foreign Commercial Services to have programs, specifically geared to help small and medium sized businesses. And in terms of the u. S. And seek a, raising the levels in export is a great help for Small Businesses, because a lot of them are Retail Businesses selling relatively low price Consumer Products so, that really opens up very much bigger market for them. Further, he Digital Services component of the usmca and of the japan agreement, are also useful for Small Companies to export as a practical matter, they can afford to set up an office offshore. But they need to use our guys and especially need to use the Digital Economy as a means of marketing their products. We have been working very hard in those regards to be responsive to the potential export needs of Small Businesses and large ones for that matter. Which i appreciate and that is why it is so hard for me to understand why you are cutting those very programs that would help the Small Businesses like the commercial service. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you. Now the chairman of the committee. Thank you for your service. This is your 4th year as secretary of commerce, that is a pretty long tenure. Longevity counts. Sir longevity yes thank you very much. I want to have a conversation with you for a few minutes about the census. The census is a very Important Mission set out in the constitution and it is a responsibility of the secretary of commerce and the Census Bureau under you to meet those responsibilities. Reed said the day on where you think we are or where we are as far as the census which will be a coming this year . Yes mister chairman. My biggest worries have been twofold. When he was with the systems be up and running, would they be integrated will, with they be ready to perform, because we are in the process of bringing technology to the census. The most prominent form that that has taken as the availability of responding by internet. It is not a requirement. People cant still response by paper just as they always have, but now they can all so respond over internet or by phone. I am happy that all the systems have passed all of their tests. We think that they are ready to go. As to the other big hurdle, my biggest worry was, how do you hire up to 500,000 part time workers in a relatively full employment yes it is a real challenge. What we have done is a number of things. One, we have worked with all kinds of organizations in the private sector. Some of the retailers who only have seasonal needs like walmart have been very cooperative to us and have given us access to the people they layoff seasonally. 2nd, we made a huge outreach to colleges and universities because college students, given that it is only a parttime job, given that in many areas, it pays 20 an hour or more, it is a very attractive job for college students. 3rd, has been, we have gone back to the people who have previous least served as census takers, and an amazing number of them are happy to do it again, particularly retired people, and particularly spouses who dont want fulltime employment but wed like parttime. So what is the net result . Mister secretary can i ask you to pull the microphone closer to you . It is not being picked up on the life feet. Must i repeat what i said we missed a repeat what i said or continue . Okay sorry. The net effect is this, we had had a goal of getting 2,600,000 people to begin the application process we actually have 3 million and 56,000 initiated the application process. That is a very good ratio compared to the up to 500,000 that we need. Similarly, we have 2,662,000 that have achieved adapts that is entry into our computer system. We have rests roughly, 5 times as much applicant pool actively here, as we need. So we are very happy with how that has been going. The other part, what really emphasize, it is partnerships. Local Community Partnerships with trusted organizations and National Partnerships. In terms of community partners, we have already lined up and have been working have working 324, 596, in 2010 they had about 256,000. That is quite a lot more similarly, we hope to reach 900 National Partners by the 1st of april, which is the key date we already have 743 on board. In addition, we have worked with state and local authorities to create for us complete count committees, and we have now 10,833 complete count committees. Including, we have state level complete count committees, with 48 of the states. We only lac 2 states from that, and those are their are parts peculiar reasons to those states. I feel all those aspects are in pretty good hands and therefore i feel quite comfortable that we will be able to accomplish what we need to. Thank you for that report. Mister chairman thank you. Thank you very much. I secretary ross has come back here i hope you will be more honest with the committee today than you were when i last spoke to you when you when you were part of this panel back in 2018. I asked you when you testified here in may 2018 why the Trump Justice Department with suddenly ask you to include a Citizenship Question on the census to enforce boarding rights. You deflected my answer. You testified while the Justice Department made the request. You then testified before the house that your department was responding solely to the Justice Department which had initiated the request for this is Citizenship Question. Your statements were totally false. There is no avalanche of evident evidence showing that you repeatedly partial to the Census Bureau for nearly a year. In may of 2017, you told that you quote that nothing had been done in response to my months old request. Close quote after you were told at the justice of department refused to request you personally discuss with the attorney general sessions and the justice of Department Real and voted to ask the question. Democrats and republicans alike on the subcommittee with the distinct impression that your department had absolutely nothing to do with the origins of the Citizenship Question or the Voting Rights pretext. My questions are, why did you mislead the committee . Why havent you corrected that falsehood for the record . My statements were correct then, they were true then, they are correct now, and they are true now. Every bit of the evidence that weve seen shows that they were not true. Everything that we have seen from the Justice Department and everybody else, they were not true. An early 2017 you are in touch with steve bannon and chris callback about the question. Adding the question became a priority for. You im going to repeat the question i asked you 2 years ago. Where did the push for adding the Citizenship Question come from . Specifically, who was the first person to push you to add this question . Im sorry who is the first person . To push you to add this question. I dont know that anyone to pushed me to add the question itself. My conversations with people in the executive branch are privileged, are subject to the constraints of that privilege. Your im aware of your answers last time was on the record. You said you are not the wind to initiate this. I did not. The fact is the Justice Department did make the request. After you pushed a very elaborate process of examining the request, we have failed probably pluck publicly the process that we used, the bases on which we came to the conclusion that i did. Those were all a matter of public records. A matter matter of public record, the questions that you did not answer correctly the last time. Thats why privilege exists with chris kovacs for example. There is no executive privilege there. Chris cole back is certainly not part of the executive prince. All that he asked for was that i take a phone call and listen to what he had to say. He requested that we add a whole bunch of questions to the census, none of which we added. You know, mister secretary, i dont think you are any more forthcoming than you are the last time. I know in the screens courts struck down adding this question Justice Roberts called this question contrived. A month ago i saw you interview during a fox business interview, that the corona virus is good for american businesses. Senator shelby and i will have on the floor in a few minutes our bill to dramatically increase the amount of money the administration has asked for an coronavirus. Do you still believe the corona virus is good for american businesses . Those quotes with were taking out of context. This was an interview that i had with maria barr tomorrow, and her question was about the longer term impact that it would have and began my response by saying that nobody wants to do a victory dance over a deadly virus such as this. But, i went on to add that the supply chains will be reexamined and in fact are being reexamined as a result of it. I am afraid the excerpt that you cited is totally out of context and it is not a complete version of what i actually said, sir. I note that the market is now down by 700 points, but go ahead. Mr. Levy thank you i recognize senator kennedy. Thank you mister chairman, and thank you mister secretary. For being here today. Mister secretary i want to talk to you about the seagoing fleet of noaa law. It is days it stays at seas are down. The ships are old, and they are falling apart. We spend more and more money trying to maintain them, and they fall apart faster and faster and faster. This congress and the last congress and i think the one before, has appropriated about 375 hardearned precious taxpayer dollars to build new ships. Those ships have not been built. I understand it takes time. In the meantime, while we are building the ships, would it not be prudent for noah to think about leasing some seagoing vessels from the private sector so noaa can accomplish its purpose . That is a very interesting suggestion senator kennedy i will take it up, with no and see how we can do that. I would like to conceive mister secretary, maybe you could, the 3 of us, the head of noaa you, and me, ill buy a solid cup of coffee and we can sit down and talk about this, because even if we Start Building those ships tomorrow it will take a while in the meantime our current vessels keep breaking down faster and faster and faster, and there is an easy solution to this. Unless you think there is no longer need for noah. Its the contrary sir. I believe that to. I would be delighted to set up a session for you and me with noaa, and let us have a real discussion of this concept. Great thank you sir. I want to ask you a philosophical question law that, and i want you to forget about the politics and forget about law the disagreements that we and congress have had over legal and illegal immigration. The let me ask you this mister secretary. It is the River Country to conduct a census every ocd country. I think pretty much everyone. Does the there may be some that doesnt, but generally countries do conduct census yes sir. My understanding is, most countries, well all the countries that do conduct census, they want to know the number of people in their country. They want to know where they live. They want to know who they are. Do you have more men then women . For example, who is a naturalized citizen, who is a citizen who was born into the country, who is applying for citizenship, who is in your country illegally . If people are willing to report those stats. What is wrong, philosophically, putting the politics aside, with asking the question, it seems logical to me, are you a citizen or not . Many countries do ask one version or another of the Citizenship Question. Those include canada, mexico, united kingdom, ireland, indonesia, france, germany. It is not at all an on common question. Nor is it uncommon that it was asked historically in the United States. We did it for a long time to do . We yes sir. Why do we stop doing it . That i dont know. Even though ive been here several years, that greatly preceded my arrival here sir. Thank you mister chairman . Thank you senator shots. Thank you mister chairman, thank you mister secretary. Following up on the census, i will not reiterate with senator lee he said, but i would be remiss if i did not say to you, that we do feel miss led by your testimony regarding the census and the Citizenship Question. And because it was resolved by the court, i am prepared to move on because the Census Bureau has very competent directors. I am prepared to move on. I think the most important thing that happens next is the administration of the census i am prepared to move on but i do feel like i do not want to move on without at least stating for the record that there is a contradiction between what you told us and wet eventually appeared through the Court Proceedings but, here is the question. This is really important because a large percentage of the people who live in the United States still think there will be a Citizenship Question on the census. So as a secretary of commerce, will there be a Citizenship Question on the census . No sir. Thank you. Under federal law, census data is confidential and protected correct . Yes sir, every census employee including me, takes an oath, a lifetime both, not to disclose the personal data. If someone is convicted of having done so, they are both monetary penalties and the prospect of time in jail. Any identifiable information about of personal household or business will never be shared with another government agency, law enforcement, or court, is that correct . That is correct sir. Under federal law made only be used for statistical purposes and no other purposes. Correct sir. Thank you. I want to talk to you about the coronavirus law. As you know, we have a lot of noaa core members who are colocated with the navy a lots of us have department of commerce employees generally, noaa noaa employees and in particular because of the extent that they are underway, they end up in very close quarters. Have you issued formal guidance are you allowing the issuance of formal guidance in terms of the safety, security and health of the department of commerce employees, and if so can we see it . The various departments within commerce each have a different relationship to this potential problem. You are certainly correct and saying that noaa has an individual problem with the people being confined to a very small area on a vessel for a long time. We have been trying to follow the advice issued by the health authorities, which is as i understand, it largely requests that people be very careful about washing hands. Either using chemical detergents or using a lot of hot water and so. As far as i know, that is the best effort that one can do for prevention. I would just ask you to follow up on the specific question of whether guidance is being provided to noah core members. My understanding is there are a lot of anxious employees within the department who want to know specifically what they are to do, not just the sort of general hygiene stuff which, i would certainly hope by this time everybody knows, dont touch your face and wash your hands regularly, but there are additional pieces of guidance, there are that are specific to the jobs that they are doing and to the extent that that guidance is not being allowed to go out, i would like you follow up on. That im certainly not prohibiting any guidance to go out for noaa, and i would be happy to have staff of noaa or any other parts of commerce to brief you on the detail of what they individually are doing. It would suffice if you could just sent me if you just send me what is being sent out. I want to talk about scientific integrity. Scientific integrity. In your confirmation hearing, i remember what you said. You said the science is the science. Then we had the Hurricane Dorian incident which i will not show up my last 15 seconds on, but i want your commitment to cooperate with noaa scientific Integrity Division on the investigation into the Hurricane Dorian incident. Certainly. I definitely commit to cooperate with any investigations. And just to really iterate, i meant in the confirmation hearing, and i have not interfered with any report that any scientist has prepared, whether it is on climate or see i believe you mister secretary. I believe you have not personally interfered. I think there are some instances with which you may have inadvertently allowed the interference to occur below the level of secretary, and so i just ask you to supervise that question, and if i turn out to be wrong, then i will be pleased to be wrong. But im not totally persuaded that up and down the chain at the leadership level, that everyone shares your view on scientific integrity. My time is up. Thank you. Sir collins. Thank you mister chairman. Secretary ross first, let me thank you for taking the time to discuss with me some issues that are so important to my state. Mains lobster men and women have always been great stewards of the resource and leaders and protecting our oceans. In addition to implementing measures and strong lobster stock for decades to come the Maine Lobster industry has also taken multiple actions to prove or gear interactions with marine mammals. This includes the replacement of 27,000 miles of floating ground with ways whales sinking line in 2009, and vertical line rules that removed 2700 miles of buoy line in 2014, it is not as if the industry have not revised its gear and spent a lot of money and then its part. Notably, and this is important, there have been no entanglements directly attributed to Maine Lobster gear in more than 15 years when it comes to the white whale. Despite these effective previous measures of data indicating that ship strikes and canadian fisheries activities are major contributors to right whale more talent is, the main lobster industry in our view is being unfairly targeted by no was proposed regulations. Very troubling, some of the proposed regulations would actually pose safety risks to our lobster when men and women as noah works with the industry to protect this fragile speech seas and must do so without endangering human lives or livelihoods, and that is why in last years report, specific language was included. It goes on at considerable length but i just want to read one line that says, noaa shall fully evaluate that these stability and economic implications of any management actions relating to the north atlantic right whale, so today im going to ask you, are you committed to following the direction that was provided by this committee right last year and to ensure that the rules that noaa recommends are done and consultation with the lobster industry, with the regulators in maine and throughout the region, and that they are safe and dont placed the burden on an industry that is not responsible for the state of this fragile marine mammal. I will not only come into future collaboration, we already have been collaborating with the Fishing Community and with the states and with all the other interested parties. One of the complications is what you pointed, out which is a lot of the problem actually occurs in canadian waters. We do not have Regulatory Authority over those waters. We have, however been negotiating with them, and as recently as the beginning of this week, we got a new proposal from them, which on its face seems more promising than what we had had before. A lot of the ship strikes a chord in the st. Lawrence seaway. That has been a big focus, and the sub topic of that is, when do you have the vessels slow down what they are doing, when do you not permit the vessels into those key areas where the female whales are domiciled. There are a lot of very technical issues that we are trying to sort out. On the safety issue for the lobster men, we understand that as you add additional traps to an individual line, it creates a potential hazard for the people as the fishermen, as they retrieve the traps. We are keenly aware of that. That is one of the many factors that we will take into account as we tried to go forward with resolving these very serious issues. Fishing and general involves a lot of tradeoffs because they are competing interests at stake. Our task is to try to balance it. I thank you mister secretary. Tomorrow night is the annual maines fishermen form. I go every year, and believe me this will be a topic that that will be of great concern. I have met with the industry many times, but this is the one time of year when they are all gather together, not only the lobster industry but are fishermen as well. Mister chairman i would like a unanimous consent, i have a number of other questions on epa, i share views on the sea grim programs and on the gray zone between canada and the United States where there is dispute over who owns the water, and whose regulation should apply that i would like to submit for the record and i thank the secretary for his response. Without objection. Mister secretary please make sure you answer senator collins question. We will sir. Senator coons. Thank you secretary ross fall, there are 4 topics id like to get to in the 5 minutes that we have if i could. First, manufacturing usa is a strategy and now a network of 14 Public Private partnerships across the country creating to ensure manufacturing thrives in the United States something i have and those yes declare advocated for. As im sure you know, the one institute sponsored by commerce, actually has its headquarters in new york delaware, it is the National Institute for innovation in manufacturing by pharmaceuticals. In the middle of our response to the coronavirus, this institute is particularly relevant as it is helping to develop more efficient modern means for manufacturing things like vaccines, and bio defends measures really it has leveraged roughly 2 to 1 its got a nationwide network of leading farm and buy a Company Research universities, yet i was struck that the proposed budget eliminates funding for nimble. Let me just assert that it is my hope that this is because the bill signed in the law by President Trump late last year, the Global Leadership and advanced manufacturing or glam act, which reauthorize as funding and encourages commerce to stand at new institutes, may have been signed after your budget was finalized. Please, if you would, tell me about your plants and how you might be adjusting your plans for funding for nimble, and tell me how you see the value of manufacturing usa and how we might Work Together to ensure you have the resources to deliver on this promising opportunity for the department of commerce . I am very much pro manufacturing usa. In fact, missed is requesting 25. 3 million in this budget for fiscal 2021. That is an increase of 9. 3 million over the prior year. The reason for that is to coordinate the Institute Network into fund and open competition to select a new manufacturing usa institute. So we are trying our best to be supportive of the concept of manufacturing usa. Thank you mister secretary. The specific, and i look forward to working with you and your department on that. The specific point i want to emphasize was just that the budget proposes eliminating funding for the one Current Department of commerce, nest, funded and directed manufacturing usa institute, which. Given the covid19 or the coronavirus crisis, strikes me as particularly relevant institute to continue under statute that authorizes its extension was signed into the law by the president just as in at the end of the last. Year i look for it to following up with you and the department on us. Let me move to the mvp program. Mep is the manufacturing extension partnership, it is something that i have seen on the ground in delaware, in my own manufacturing experience and local government. Its value, actually your predecessor join me in a Delaware Company act you dine systems which is a custom ashin building builder the delaware each mep help them get their isis certification and that commercial service just yesterday highlighted act you dine for its 2 million new export sales. Export sales of emit hp was essential. Would you be willing to reconsider the departments position of a eliminating the mvp, something i think of it has been a low cost high impact support for manufacturing impact in the United States . 2 things senator, one of the mvp programs obviously does do good work. There is no question whatsoever about that. But, the unfortunate thing is the fiscal 2021 budget does have some constraints. The budget supports the Broad Administration goals promoting National Security, Public Safety, Economic Growth, and job creation. Given the need to prioritize funding, commerce budget requires difficult decisions. I understand. To maintain our core activities, and this is unfortunately one of them. We hope sir, that it will be supported by local and state level people. It is considerable local and state level support, and we hope that will continue. Mister secretary, in the minute i have remaining im going to ask to more questions with the chairs forbearance. We had that exact Exchange Last year. I will do my best to ensure there is federal match for the mvp program, because in my experience the local support does not meet the need and the promise. I appreciate your comment that the neb does good work. Senator wicker and i have work to pass a law that was signed by the president in december to strengthen enforcement against illegal and unregulated fishing, i concern to all of us who are coastal states with strong fishing communities. I saw no specific investment in the department of commerce is budget that would support no was work to combat illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. I would appreciate some followup from your office on that, and last, let me just join senator shaheen they mentioned this in passing but we all have, a sea grant beneficiaries and noah Sea Grant College program which has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support focusing on the practical use of coastal and ocean resources in my state see grant works closely with communities to enhance our oyster aquaculture industry which is critical to improve the health of the england base. I will fight fight hard for the funding of steel and program and recognize it is long enjoyed bipartisan support, so it is my hope when we appropriate for it will be fully implemented. The as the aquaculture, we made a specific request for some increased funding to promote aquaculture. Aquaculture, i think, is a very important solution to lots of things. For one thing, we have a trade deficit in seafood, which strikes me as bizarre, given the wonderful amend of oceanfront that we have. Im a strong proponent of aquaculture and continue to be. Thank you mister secretary. These 2 points connect to the extent we have, either you and or unreported unregulated pirate fishing off our coasts and other costs around the world that contributes to that exporting into the United States for a cheap seafood. I appreciate your answers and i appreciate the chairmans forbearance. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you mister secretary for being here. I understand this topic has been addressed so i want to make a quick statement of my vigorous support for the Economic Development administration that uva funds that have come to West Virginia particularly in this administration have been exceedingly helpful, expanded our abilities to expand our infrastructure and create jobs particularly in rural areas where it is very difficult to raise capital. We had doctor john fleming just recently and putnam county, he announced several millions of dollars of investment in our state that we now see expanding into that job creation, so i just wanted to get that on the record with you. My question is totally different. It is on the topic of importing aluminum. The topic of what . Importing aluminum. We have a large aluminum producing that uses aluminum and produces aluminum products from that. There was a trade remedy in 2019 which helped with the trade imbalance with china, but we are seeing aluminum products, that the import is up. In your board in your budget you recommended aluminum import Monitoring Program within the i. T. A. I was wondering with this new program how will the department be able to monitor the aluminum imports to cease and identify problem areas . A couple of things, we, earlier initiated a steel monitoring activity. That has proven very helpful to the steel industry. Because what it essentially allows is earlier identification of problems so that we can try to get after them. I believe the aluminum monitoring is very much the same. 2nd, earlier this year, the president accepted my recommendation about prohibitions on derivative products, namely products both steel and aluminum. They really are circumvention of our basic structure in that with the do is they add a minor feature to what is essentially flat rolled sheet or coil or some other product, and since that technically puts it as a new age tee as, then they bring it in. So we have gone after several most notably aluminum cable and wire, which had been one of the big violators in my view, of the circumvention. Thank you. Why would encourage you also and im sure as youre developing this to work with the manufacturers who use these products obviously to develop the best ways to go about. That the good news is, the tariffs for aluminum have increased the operating rate from 43 of capacity to 62 of capacity. It is not up to where we wanted to be, we want to get it up to 80 , that at least directionally, that some pretty big percentage increase in the utilitys asian of aluminum facilities. We have 2000 workers and Jackson County and West Virginia which are very dependent on this. My 2nd question is as the federal government moves towards shifting to the cloud, data to the cloud, no roy and other companies have emission that requires a hard iron infrastructure. Can you speak to the significance of this hard wire capability to our weather forecasting . We have a noaa facility in West Virginia. The myriad initiatives underway at noaa to improve the weather forecasting, would be divided i would be delighted to set up a session with you and your staff and noah and myself to get into the details because it gets high highly technical very quickly. I think that would be the most useful way to respond to that question senator. I look forward to that. Last question is on the broadband map. I think many of us sitting around, weve been in various committees talking about the inaccuracies of our broadband math. The end tea i a was provided 7. 5 to help us developing served in an served areas to make sure its granular data and that it is accurate. Do you have any comments about how that process is moving forward . Yes, 2 things, one, we have made break great progress and watching the map that you are referring to. We entered into a contract to secure Geographic Information System Platform that will allow ntia to take data sets from outside vendors and incorporate those into its own internal activities. That should permit ntia to implement a secure cloud based approach to this problem. We are very optimistic. 2nd, ntia has entered into data sharing partnerships with 13 states. California, maine, massachusetts, north carolina, tennessee, utah, virginia, and im happy to add West Virginia. Good good. I would encourage you to do more on that to make it more accurate if you only rely on the suppliers you will not get accurate data. It has to be an alland kind of proposition which i think is the direction you are moving and thank you so much. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you mrs. Secretary for joining us today. Let me begin by thanking you for putting in for putting in 40 million for construction. As we understand noaa like any other agency has a significant infrastructure needs. Let me continue by thanking you mister secretary, because you end the noaa leadership have prioritized the leadership construction project for noaa ships for the naval station in newport island. I want to make sure it stays on track. I received a letter this morning for doctor jacobs that noaa will be committing the first 22 million to this important project. I understand that increase course somewhat will be reflected in the timeline. I received a schedule last february 5th from the navy that showed an indicated that no it will provide the necessary design funds on april 9th 2020 with a projected design on april 22nd and the expectation is that the contract for the construction phase one in the project will be awarded leader in 2020. Can you confirm that this timeline is still on track . To the best of my knowledge, yes senator. Thank you mister secretary. Noah is quite excited about it. We are continuing to work with the navy to move the project into the next phase. They will complete all federal permitting, because that some of that is needed, and state approvals, preparing for construction and fiscal 2021, using the funds that were provided and fiscal year 2020. Thank you very much mister secretary. Thank you for your support of this infrastructure i deeply appreciated. Let me turn to an unrelated question and that is the census. Again i have to thank the chair in the Ranking Member because there is important language that was put in the census that would ask for specific outreach and chartering and Providence County road island. Specific outreach and targeting to the population and province county rhode island, and i will tell you. There is one end to end test last year of the census to get all the bugs out, hopefully. That was in Providence County rhode island the only place in the nation. Because rhode island is a modest sized place, i have to put it in perspective. The population is 638,000 people. The population of rhode island is about 1 million. So 2 thirds of our state was in this end to end test. What happened is we are getting feedback, many people feel they already filled out the census, that all of this stuff is just extra. What we have asked is that the department sort of reach out specifically, this is one county, and say no you did not fill out the census. You have to fill out and you have to go and fill it out, etc. If you could update me on these efforts. We did send the letter in january were waiting for a response. Can you update me . It would be good if you could do that. And also, are we doing this in languages other than english, because Providence County is also a place which is not unusual in the United States of multilingual. First of all, the end to end task that we ran and providence was a greatest success. They proved up the systems, they proved out a lot of things that we needed. We are very unhappy with the cooperation of the local authorities. Just to add, we are running ads right now, digital and print. In english and in spanish. And in radio. In the case of radio, were doing english spanish and portuguese, so we are trying very hard to make the proper communication. We will make sure that they do emphasize and i would hope you would emphasize and in communication with your constituents, that this was just a test that they participated in last year, and i must say, the Response Rates were very good there. It is a very cooperative community, including relatively good cooperation in the difficult to enumerate a part of it. We will do the best we can to overcome their thinking that they might already have filled it in. That is the problem with testing. You do a test, you want to look like a real test because if it doesnt you wont get reliable data. It kind of creates a little bit of confusion. Fortunately it is just localized in that one area, so we will try our best to deal with it. We will get back to mr. Chairman if we see continued sort of difficulties in that area. Let me conclude by saying thank you. Grassy us. Obrigado. Im expressing my sympathy east to the senator from maryland keeps getting preempted. The senator from alaska. Mister chairman might this be a good time to take a break . We have been added a little bit over an hour, and from a human point of view i very much needed. Youre very discreet in your request the committee will stand in recess for 5. I did not mean to interrupt senator housekeep. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019]