So doctor, pharmaceutical Development Today frequently involves what is called shooting in the dark, making key decisions can with very limited data. For example, decisions including indication selection, dosage end points and Inclusion Exclusion criteria. The data that informs such decisions lies in inaccessible silence at least to most stake holders. It includes to hire longer time lines. Now the fda already has much of this data, this otherwise siloed information. So my question for you is has the fda taken any steps in ago ri gaiting to improve the process and if not would the fda be willing to analyze the data to accelerate and derisk . I appreciate it. The bottom line is there are situations. Well be taking steps to make it improve it where they can be ago gri ka there are situations we provide from data we use to make decisions particularly around drug safety. The information is confidential. We are looking at how to make it public without because my belief is if we are making regulatory decisions that isnt accessible to the public thats probably something we should try to address chl address. This is a very complex area. There are legal complexities. We are out of time here. I look forward to working with you. Thank you, senator young. Thank you. I want to also congratulate you and senator murray on this. I wonder if you could give a little bit of an update on where you are that we worked on together. Well, i appreciate the question. Ill try to be brief. We announced major components of some of those today. We continue to move forward with those. I think its a good example of what we are trying to do. Or to exclude used by clinicians. We will also exclude certain Decision Support tools that are used by patients as long as they meet certain things. What do you expect to see in tomorro terms of new devices . I think in the area of Decision Support tools. There are tools that could take information and help support decisions before the clinician or the patient. I think in part there are a lot of reasons we havent seen as much as you would have thought. It probably played a role for a period of time. Fda always intended to dpexerci enforcement. So this provides us the opportunity to put out guidance that creates per am ters on what does and doesnt cross the line. I appreciate your focus on it. I also noticed that the fda approved the first breakthrough designated diagnostic test to detect genetic mutation. It came through the breakthrough device section we wrote last year. I was interested to see that there is a decision to also cover the diagnostic test. I wonder if you could share with the committee how you conducted these reviews. I think you can, senator. We work to have there place coverage at the same time. We think Going Forward this is a panel of cancer markers that will help guide the prescription thera therapy. This is a lot of innovation. Ill let them articulate it more carefully is that panels that come through fda for voluntary approval will automatically receive coverage determination. It is for more such tests to come through. We can provide greater assurance. I think thats a big step forward. Thank you. T the last question i have, senator rubio and i last year worked on the race act for pediatrics cancers. I know you put out guidance on developing drugs and rare pediatrics diseases. I hope you can expand on that. Thank you. What we did yesterday is final ease guidance that we had. It tries to look at very rare pediatrics diseases. Trying to outline a more efficient prosecess. It is to represent the experience of the placebo and allows sponsors to collaborate to try to test multiple drugs in the same Clinical Trial. I think why they are important is because it is very hard to enroll patients in these rare diseases. They are trying to allow them to look at ways you dont have to can facilitate more efficient development. I didnt thank them for their service to this country and i deeply appreciate it. Thank you sflaenator bennett. Senator collins. Thank you. Always glad to see you. I claim you as my cousin regardless of the facts. I accept. Thank you. The state of maine is doing some real loi exciting medical research. I have visited a lot of the labs and medical institutes we have in our state. The main Medical Research Center is conducts cutting edge work to develop medical treatments for chronic diseases. In september one of the researchers with whom i met and his team at Maine Medical Center received an award through the nih im sorry, regenerative medication process. Using adult stem cells he is working to develop novel therapies. Regenerative medicine holds great phone shl for understanding ageing and reversing diseases like mac lar degeneration. I understand that the dharm has already introduced oliver. He too is from the state of maine and grew up only 11 miles from where i did. He shared his compelling story about losing and regaining sight through regenerative therapy. What especially can we do to support research into biological ageing is this. What a great question. Thank you for pointing out a number. As we are gathered here this morning with an intens discussion several hundred people talk about applications to kidney disease, ageing and such things as diseases and the whole landscape. I even forecasted if we do this in the way i think we could we could cure disease like sickle cell. We are learning a lot about what that process is. I mentioned one example. That is that as you age theres a certain category of cells that are no longer able to keep going. They dont completely exit the stage. They are still there. It turns out they will not good actors. They are making the healthy cells around them not so healthy. As we could figure out how they could be told okay, youre done now it could slow down the normal process of ageing. There is a new exciting development. And i remember visiting Harvard University and talking are researchers there. They are also looking at the possibility of turning proteins back onto restore cells that have been lost. We have a partnership with industry you may have heard about. It is advancing this at a pace i wouldnt have thought possible a couple of years ago. That brings my question to you about that program. Which aspects do you find most promising . For alzheimers there are two areas. We really need to find out what are the indications that are therapy is working without finding out whether it was protective. Theres a lot going on there with various types of images. One is involved in this. The other part is this systems biology where we are try to go st trying to step away to find out whats doing on and how could we use that to develop this next generation of therapeutics taking away all of the general rations and apply t early. We have to start early if we want to get a good we if he cef. Thank you. Thank you senator collins, senator murphy. Thank you both for your service. I know it comes with great sacrifice. I know the sacrifice that you make to serve our country, thank you to both of you. I wanted to talk to you more about the all of us research program. This is a program that designs to build a medical data set for Precision Medicine initiative. Im interested in it because one of the participating Community Health centers is based in middleton, connecticut. I think its great you have gone out and worked with Community Health centers. They tipedly serve a Patient Population that is often under tps served it is currently part of this Community Health center. Very pleased with your partnership on this and we would loouf love to see more like this involved. We are seeking to enroll participants in this in the United States. We are inviting people to participate by a variety of means. One is through the Community Health centers. We have a very specific goal here of having at least 50 being individuals that are un r underrepresented. They provide care to those in situations are very excited about being our partners. We are starting with tin gettin up and going. That is a pilot to see if we can enroll many more. At the moment we are in a beta test. We are learning everything we can about highwow the moving pa can Work Together. It is looking good. Wanted to switch topics to another exciting development. This is the establishment at the fda of the Oncology Center for excellence which creates a cross center team to Work Together on a variety of products to treat cancer. Just an update on what you have learned. What do you take into account when you think about creating other disease specific offices. I appreciate it. This is an extremely important effort. I appreciate you asking the question. We consolidate into one combined center. So this was instrumental. The products by consolidating were able to look at some of the buy logi b biologics. We are looking to other areas we can do this. I think before we can progress onto other areas we want to make it work. We are looking forward to try move this program forward. Another reminder we have to give you the funds to implement this. Quickly back to you, one more question and that is on another part of the 21st century we worked on a provision that allows for the cdc to collect information ton incidence of neurological diseases. Talk for a second act the importance of having this data. It is important to know what it is for neurological conditions. It is challenges and expensive to do that kind of analysis and to do it effectively and to keep it updated. Thank you very much. Thank you. Senator hatch, welcome. Thank you so much mr. Chairman. I think youre some of the best Public Servants i have seen there all of my 40 plus years of the United States senate. Im proud of both of you. I hope youll keep doing what youre doing. I want to thank you both here today. I joined senator bennett in the act included in the 21st century cures for new antibiotics by allowing them to be studied in smaller more rapid Clinical Trials. As you know developing guidance regarding this limited population. Can you detail ways in which it is being incorporated into the guidance . Thank you. We plan to issue the guidance and we have been meeting with stake holders in the development of that guidance in the development. We think it is an extremely important pathway. We believe it will be a robust vehicle to create new pathways for significant medical needs. Thank you. I was pleased to see the nih was able to start a project that several from this initiative and as you may know i have been a champion for quite some time. It may prove to be what do you think as the project continues . Thank you for your question. I think there is an enormously deciding time because we have tools now that are starting to work. He referred a little bit ago to therapy. Really dramatic events using gene therapy that delivered the gene. It is with really remarkable benefit over the course of many weeks. Thats a single example of whats possible. My hopes we could yur circle cell disease by correcting the mutation and putting them back. It is a transplant to yourself. Rekrentdly s plrks a whi now Clinical Trial some of those kids are make it to prekinder garden a prekindergarten. I think it is to push the science as hard as we can. It gives us that kind of inspiration. Im glad to say the barriers are not an issue right now working with scott and his colleagues that are also made it a very high priority. There is an issue about investment. Countries may not be so interested interes interested because it will be so small. It has a stronger responsibility to push hthem as far down the road as possible. One thing you did is make it possible for us to run phase 3 which we had not previously had the privilege of doing and which we will be using aggressively for this purpose. One was designed to improove opportunities. My time is up to thank you for your willingness to serve and how much you mean to people like us. Thank you. Thank you senator hatch. Senator baldwin. Thank you. I want to add my words to the others of the bipartisan work you had. It is on the 21st century cures act. I thank you for your service. During the Committee Deliberations i have any number of times about being the granddaughter of nih funded scientists and how it influenced my championing and strengthening report for the nih. But in my first year in the United States gnsenate i had an inspirational meeting with a young man, a high school senior. His name is ian. He is a bone cancer survivor from wisconsin. He said it helped save his life. Thats why he wanted to grow up to be a scientist, to help others with his disease, but he was concerned that it wouldnt be possible for him to break in as a new researcher due to his awareness of nih funding cuts at the time. He inspired me to author the next generation researchers act along with senator collins to fight to improve nih opportunities. I am proud to report that ian recently graduated from college where he was helping a researcher study the genetics. He is now working with a scientist in salt lake city, utah on pediatrics cancers. I am encouraged that the nih has begun to robustly the initiative to help support future scientific leaders like ian. As they discover cures for cancer and pursue other life saving research. You in the earliest parts of their Research Careers to help them sustain or achieve research independence. I would like it if you could please describe how each institute and center will prioritize awards and how this will help improve and stabilize opportunities for our next generation of researchers. Thank you for the question. Youre touching on a personal passion that i feel and many of the other Institute Directors do as well. We actually just published about a month ago a description of what this policy is and how we are going to implement it. We passionately agree that it is really critical for our future. It has been a tough they sustained between 20303 and 2015. They were having a hard time getting started. We cannot lose that. We were starting to. So each one of the institutes depending on where they think they can find their flexi flexibilities are freeing up dollars to make it possible for those that would just miss the pay line to just get started. We started this quite late but we were able to make a buncho o awards. We are trying to see if we can reach back into some of those years and fauund a few more of those. It is not just the gray imnan imminences and people that are involved in this. It will make this priority really happen. Im running out of time but i want to just note you estimate this new effort will would be about 210 million in the next year and 1. 1 billion over the next five years. Do they need it to ensure that it fulfills its promise and continue to advance all other critical kefefforts . We can do more if the resources are available. Before we go to senator warren let me recognize senator murray. Thank you. I will be submitting more. This has been an excellent haerg. Hearing. It is really educational for all of us and look forward to continuing to work with you. Thank you senator murray. Senator warren. Thank you. We have been talking about the cures act. Im really glad became law. During our recent hearing we discussed Research Participants that they had borworked on together. Right now they are benefitting from a provision that senator bennett wrote to clarify the authority relating to gene therapies. Its a long list. Cures also fell short in a really big way. Thats on funding. Im glad democrats on this committee and calling for an extra 50 billion and cures did not send one single new dollar to these agencies, instead it only said that future congresss might spend about 10 of that amount on nih and fda. Im glad so far congress has been increasing funding but i dont think its time for us to pat ourselves on the back yet. So dr. Collins, let me go through this a little bit. Duds the nih fund most of the grant applications if. No. We certainly arent able to do that. So out of every hundred applications you get youre funding about 19 of them. Is that because the other 81 would have been bad investments that would not have helped us make bio medical breakthroughs to advance science . If we look back around 2000 and 2001 we were funding because funds were more available. We looked to see did it actually turn out to be less productive . The answer is no. We cant really tell the difference even though they are trying to draw distinctions it is very hard to do so. So in order if we doubled the number of grants we were able to fund you think theres still a lot of good science . I think there would be fantastic science. Okay. Thats powerfully important. I want to follow up on the point that senator baldwin made and researchers in the early part of their career. Getting that first nih grant. It can be the difference on whether or not the scientist stays in the fight or whether the scientist has to leave academic medicine and go somewhere else. I want to z more. Where are we on early career researchers . What percentage of the grants we were able to get. Beginning in 2008 we with instituted a policy so that they got a bit of a boost. They come peelted against each other as opposed to the most experienced ones which meant terms that got a few extra points. Thats not good fluff. We are still losing lots of those. They were well below what you would want to see. We think it would be most healthy if at least 25 of those were going to get funded. Thats what we are trying to do with this new initiative which is named specifically for the words that were used in the bill. Thank you senator baldwin for that encouragement. I understand right now we have been at about 16 . Is that right . Youre saying we ought to be boosting that at about 25 . We looked closely to try to figure out how to get there with this new policy, yes. I know nih has done what it can. Nih funding is still down about 15 of where it was a decade ago back when we had a higher success rate for the proposals that were coming across reviewers desk. It didnt even come close and thats why today we are reintroducing research angt which providing funding for the fda. I see youre sitting up straighter there. This legislation is cospo sonso by all of the members of this committee as well as several of our democratic colleagues who are not on the committee. Families across this country are walting for med waiting for medical breakthroughs and researchers waiting so they can make the breakthroughs. It is time to step up and put more money into nih. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much for being here. Along with us thanking the two of you for your Service Please thank the women and men who work with you for the extraordinary work they do on behalf of the people of the United States. I wanted to start with a question or two for you. We had discussed the devastating impact it is having in new hampshi hampshire. One of the tools in combatting the epidemic is treatment that plays an Important Role in recovery. We also both of you mentioned in your opening comments the possibility that we will develop felon nonaddictive pain. So doctor, can you discuss how it could be used in relation to developing new medication assisted treatment and development of new nonaddictive pain treatments . I appreciate the question. They can be a very important tool. I think the provisions will help inform the per am ters in particular medication that couldnt have developed new dongments are. We want to create those products. We be look at alternative end points we havent looked at. We know craving is a factor that leads people to continue to use opiods. If it can be an an end point it might spried a more efficient pathway. Thank you. You made a comment about the impact of the other Transaction Authority that you now have. Can you excellent a little bit about how that could be helpful in the opioid space . So the plan we have put in place will involve a lot of rapid action to come up with new ways to treat addiction. We need more. It will require per ner ship. It may have formulation kachmentes. If we have to process on the traditional money. Other Transaction Authority lay hows us to do something in six weeks rather than nine monos. We learned dhou it for the common found. We think it would be a great place for it to be available. Thank you. Finally i wanted to talk little bit about our new generation of scientific researchers. Nih has been responsive to these efforts and announced a new policy for special funding consideration for graduate students. In recent weeks i heard from a number of students who were fearful how the republican tax legislation, particularly the house version of it could impact the ability to pay back student debts and whether it could force them to drop out of their programs. One would require graduate waived tuition, a clahange i ha heard could really impact. One wrote it would increase my yearly taxes by more than 10,000. It wouldnt be able to afford rent and groceries. Can you excellent on what you think this provision would mean for the future of our young researchers . Very quickly because of the time these are our future. They learning to be the flexine generation of leaders. Anything that happens is something we should approach with great concern. Thank you. Senator white house. Thank you. Dr. Collins, one of the things was the request you reduced monitoring. I just left and this was also the university of Rhode Islands request. You get things Like Brown University working together on a project and the supposed obligation to monitor subcontra subcontractors now applies to each of them. They are both monitored. Can you help reduce the burocratic . We dont particularly enjoy doing that kind of monitoring either. We have put together a proposal of a way we might reduce the amount of low risks. There are certain situations that maybe dont quite meet that but plenty of them do. Can you include us so we can be helpful in making sure that goes forward . I would be happy too. The cures act was very good at getting the fda to connect the sides. The original testimony we have from both the drug and device sides is what you really needed was a third pathway. Would you assure us that if it turns out that the hybrid effort that the cures act established isnt doing the job that you will let us know so we can take a second crack at it . Absolutely. We think the provisions give us a llt of new tools to address it. It is what we think will articulate a better pathway. I would absolutely be delighted to talk to you about alternatives. Thank youchlt just so long as we are not wasting time if it turns out not to be productive. Dr. Collins, there have been every day homes that are very significant. In 1876 he called his assistant to come into the room. In 2012 a lady namedd hutchenso. She picked up the cup of coffee and brought it to her lips through what they call at Brown University the brain gap so by mere thought she could control the robotic arm. Are you satisfied youre going in the sachl direction with darpa. Yes. We have worked for to control a robotic arm. This is a big part as well as departmentov of energy and real aims to do, to figure out how the 86 billion neurons do what they do in these complicated comments. We would like to go from where we are now to really understand it so well that you knew exactly where to place the electrodes. Last topic, we have done good Bipartisan Legislation here. The u. N. Just issued a unanimous statement of concern about plastics. Plastic, as you know, doesnt bio degrade. It breaks down to the smaller and smaller point. Creatures can consume it. It begins it track up the food chain. Never in Human History have we had to experience that kind of plastic loading into our diet. Its now found in tap water. It is found all over the place. It is obviously going to be in our food. Is it something they should begin doing basic researching on so it is certainly a new experience to have to digest that kind in the food chain there. Absolutely. The one located in North Carolina is already looking at this. I would appreciate that. We can do that offline and through your staff. Thank you, chairman. Thank you senator white house. Thanks to both of you for being here today. I hope youll follow up some time in the nenxt few weeks tha i can give to other senators who are interested in that. You have quite a story to tell i think. Also well be interested as we look forwards second anniversary to especially at our taking 10 or 12 years between idea and something in the medicine cabinet and something in the doctors office. It is how we are setting priorities and how nih are working together. I salute you for the steps you have already taken but that would be a very promising way to do things. Really you do that more than we. We can do more things in legislation but that we cant do as well. We can order you to do it. You have to do what you already started to do download is to Work Together and do it in a way that provides safety and efficacy. Without getting you in the middle, dr. Kol lcollins, i som times worry that the messages arent heard by the graduate students and researchers across the country and they worry that woe not funding their work. If it doesnt happen nobody knows it doesnt happen. President obama reduced discretionary funding for National Institutes of health and recommended an increase in funding. This isnt too hard for people to understand. This is the authorizing committee. We dont appropriate money usual limit we cant appropriate money. So for us to appropriate say 50 pistol dollars is a wonderful aspiration. Thats not what we do. We decide for example whether he shoul have a new breakthrough path. If the anobodiuations should have a breakthrough we would be upset. We would try to they would say thats our job. So let me ask you this. We have discretionary funding. We have mandatory funding. Whats the size of the nih budget this year . 35 billion. How much of that is Bio Medical Research . To be clear more than 80 of that goes out to institutions all over the country . How much of that is mandatory funding . I think theres 150,000 in there. So almost all of it is sorry, 150 million. It is what they do. Yeah. Two years ago if im correct they recommended and the congress improved a funding for nih. Yes. Lasting year they recommended and congress agreed and the president agreed a row. The congress has not yet acted. The way we normally do things here is, once we put something in the budget, we count it for ten years. First year is 2 billion. Second is 2 billion. Another 20 billion over ten years. Third, 3 billion. Third one, if we do it this year, another 20 billion over ten years. That is not guaranteed but thats usually what we do. We put it in the base and expect to do it again with the priorities that we have on this committee and in the appropriations committee, i expect that to be the case. In addition, we did something that was very unusual in the cur cures bill. Took 4. 8 billion and created a hybrid funding that created a lot of consternation with the house of representatives and the appropriations committees and gave specialization funding to some other initiatives. The chances of that happening again are close to zero. The real money that is supposed to go to the National Institutes of health and nih comes through the appropriations committee. They have been doing a tremendous job over the last few years. I say that. I am a member of it myself. But i give senator blount and murray credit for squeezing out of the Budget Resources that are a good deal larger than in the last few years. Nothing wrong with aspiring for more or looking back for 15 years and saying, if we had gone up at the same rate we had been, it would be even higher today. I think its important for researchers across the country to know that this congress, in a bipartisan way, for the last three years has been extraordinarily committed to significant increases in funding for the National Institutes of health. I think its made a difference. Senator, i really appreciate your taking the time to explain all that. I think there are people watching who are wondering how these decisions get made and where we are. Certainly there have been a lot of anxieties in the Biomedical Research community particularly from young investigators about whats going on and whats the likelihood of a pathway. You have pointed out that there is a great deal of reason to be excited and optimistic about a career in Biomedical Research, first of all, because the science now is so incredibly promising and exciting. Second of all because the support has been on the upward trajectory with two years already with the 2 billion increase already happening and significant promise it may happen for the third. That could be about a 20 increase for nih over the course of three years, which is an encouraging sign. I am grateful that, in this era or so few things seem to be bipartisan, medical Research Continues to be so. Much credit to you and your colleagues for peeping thkeepin alive. One last question. With all the excitement in the breathtaking biomedical advances, do you see any as you talk to high school and College Students, do you see an increase in an interest in biology . I dont talk to high school and College Students that much. I will tell you that my girls are 8 and 4. I think that there is an increasing excitement among those training in medicine right now about what the future holds. I will affirm that. I have a lot of contact with residents and med students. I see an increased excitement about what theyll be able to accomplish over the course of their careers that i couldnt accomplish over the course of my medical career. Dr. Collins. Certainly, when i go out to a university to give a talk and meet with students, and i always do that. Thats the best part of any visit to an academic center, to meet with the graduate students and postdocs and i dont want anybody else in the room because i really want to hear from them. I have heard a lot of anxiety in the last couple of years, and i am trying to reassure people that things are looking brighter than they think they are. The sense out there of trouble is possibly beyond what it maybe ought to be considering the path that we are on. Boy, do i hear excitement about the scientific opportunities. If you can quickly switch to that topic, then the spark goes into the conversation and the eyes light up and this graduate student tells you about the experiment theyre doing that week and how excited they are about what they can do. There are things that a single student can do right now that might have taken a team of ten people five years to do. The technology has come along so quickly. The ability to use big data in computational approaches. This is the golden era. If anybody really wants a great time in science, they should join us. I hope ian will be one of those as soon as possible. We need this. This is our future. We want the best and brightest to join us. Thanks to both of you. The hearing record will remain open for ten days. Members may submit Additional Information for the record within that time if theyd like. Our Committee Meets again next week, tuesday, december 12th at 10 00 a. M. For a hearing titled, the cost of prescription drugs in examination of the National Academies of sciences and engineering report, making medicines affordable, the national imperative. This is the third hearing on drug prices, requested by both democratic and republican members of our committee. And then next wednesday we have our oversight hearing on the Mental Health aspect of the cures act. The committee will stand adjourned. Watch cspan this week as Congress Continues work to finalize the republicans tax reform bill. Wednesday, the House Senate ConferenceCommittee Meets to work out policy differences between house and Senate Versions of the bill. Live coverage wednesday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Also wednesday, President Trump speaks at the Treasury Department on tax reform. Watch live coverage on the cspan networks and cspan. Org. Listen live with the free cspan radio app. Jefferson probably knew more about more things than any single man in north america. And i include franklin in that, who would be his only rival. Everyone was impressed by jeffersons the extent of his knowledge. Adams was smart but did not have the breadth. He had some depth, in history and in law, that jefferson didnt have. Not because jefferson couldnt, he just wasnt as interested in the law as adams. Sunday an cspans q a professor and historian gordon wood on his book friends divided about the relationship and differing political views of john adams and thomas jefferson. Adams was a realist. He did not believe that all men are created equal. He thought all men are created unequal. He did not believe in american exceptionalism. We americans are no better, no different from other nations. Jefferson is the opposite. He is into nurture. That i think is what most americans believe. Thats why we put so much were all born equal and the differences that emerge are due to different experiences and different environments. Thats why education is so important to us americans and was important to jefferson. Professor and historian gordon wood, sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan. The cspan bus is traveling across the country on our 50 capitals tour. We recently stopped in tallahassee, florida, asking folks, whats the most important issue in their state. The most important issue to my state is funding. Many times we talk about the lack of resources and the lack of the quality of education for the youth. However, it all starts at the source. The board of governors, everything. Its important that we rally to get funding. And also has to do with the amount of students who are attending our institutions. I think its important to start at home where we are telling students, come to hbcu and fam u. It starts from there and then we can rally for the funding. The most important issue to me in the state of floridaed i education. If we dont give our students the skills they need, i dont know what our society holds. One of the most important issues in florida is the Educational Opportunity access. As a first generation student and a lowincome student, i pride myself in the importance of being able to afford the opportunity for students to be able to participate in Educational Opportunities across america. I understand that funding is not always resourceful and funding is not always available, but there needs to be an ongoing push and ongoing discussion for those who are considered the underserved. My issue or my concern is the quality of life, not the quantity, but the quality of life. In my humble opinion, i believe that developers are overdeveloping nice communities that make it doesnt they dont make it as pleasant as it could be. Voices from the states. On cspan. We are live on capitol hill this morning for a hearing analyzing the federal permitting process for energy and Natural Resource infrastructure projects. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee is host. You are watching live coverage here on cspan3. It should start in a moment