mr. lankford: mr. chairman, thank you. mr. carper: happy birthday, senator lankford. mr. lankford: thank you. thanks to both of you for going through the process on this. it's not a fun process to be able to go through, but thanks for doing it. you have a great reputation among the staff that's here on the appropriations staff. so thanks for the dedication and the work. i've got about 50 questions that i want to try to run through on this that we'll run out of time on i'm sure. yesterday sitting in that same seat was jean from g.a.o. one of the things we talked about was a bill we worked on-called the taxpayers' right to know. his statement on that bill that i have worked on for a decade literally to get passed, it brings a lot of information out so the public can see how we manage things, what's in each agency, what's a program. he's been a big advocate from that saying we need that. last year he said this is the top priority for g.a.o. to be able to help them in their work. his statement yesterday was this is all going to matter on the implementation from o.m.b. are you

mr. lankford: madam president. the presiding officer: the junior senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: thank you. senator scott, senator ernst and i are not trying to ask for something that the american people aren't already asking for as well. and quite frankly, the senate and this white house haven't already said they want to be able to do. basic transparency, efficient spending. it is wednesday afternoon right now. we're about to take up a bill for, we think, $1.9 trillion. and i say we think because none of us have seen the text of this bill yet. not one of us on either side of the aisle. and the debate was supposed to begin on it today, but none of us have seen the text for this. supposedly we're supposed to start voting on it tomorrow night, though no one has seen the text of the bill yet. in addition to that, last year this congress on a bipartisan basis passed five covid relief bills totaling over $4 trillion. every dollar of that $4 trillion was borrowed. every dollar. none of that was budgeted. but there was bipartisan agreement as we walked through the process to de

mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, on january 20 of this years, president biden declared the repeal of an emergency action at our southwest border. he withdrew that and said there was no emergency that currently exists there and paused all funding for the border wall construction. stopped it. wherever it was that day, he ended it. on the same day he announced a 100-day moratorium. stopped it. within a few days the federal courts stepped in and said you can't stop executing the laws of the united states, and so the court halted his halt on moratoriums for deportation, in this case his deportation halt went through a federal court system had asked him to be removed from the united states. that's what president biden has trying to stop. federal courts stepped in and said when they have to be removed, the executive branch can't just ignore that. they have to be removed. that opened the floodgates. those two announcements together, that we're not going to do anymore border construction and the announcement of the

mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. slainchg --. mr. lankford: we're a year into the covid epidemic. a year. think about this year, a year ago in oklahoma city there was a basketball game against the utah jazz, two minutes away from tipoff and the announcer came on the speaker and said ladies and gentlemen, a case of covid has been discovered by one of the players. this game is postponed. with that one announcement a year ago this week, all professional sports stopped across the entire country. and the country for a moment woke up and realized this is more serious than we thought. and everything shifted. within a week the united states had shut down for eight weeks, and we went into lockdown. at the beginning point of that, this congress came together in a bipartisan way and passed something called the cares act, $1.6 trillion, an enormous relief bill, because we were walking into uncharted territory. we created things like the paycheck protection program. we created ways to be able to assist behind the scenes. we even

mr. lankford? mr. cassidy aye by proxy. mrs. hyde-smith? aye by proxy. mister marshall? aye. >> on this vote see ayes our 20 and the noes are zero. the nomination is favourably reported. this concludes the business meeting and will now return to our hearing. if you will just let me finish up by welcoming our panel and senator barrasso will give his opening statement. i want to thank all of you for taking the time to be here and bringing your expertise to our panel. we will have mr. jim the president of ceo of electric liability corporation. we have administrator ceo of power administration, we have the honorable path ceo of hunt energy network and former texas public utility commission chairman mr. michael shulem berger, founder president of environmental progress and mr. manu astona. i want to thank you for being with us in person and i look for to your expert analysis and discussion today and i will not turn to senator barrasso for his statement. >> thank you very much, mister chairman, and thank you for following and supporting the hearing. we all agree that affordabl

mr. lankford. >> mr. cassidy. >> aye by proxy. >> mrs. hyde-smith. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. marshall. >> aye. >> on this vote, the aye are 20s and the noes are zero. >> the nomination is favorably reported. this concludes the business meeting and will now turn to our hearing this morning. let me just finish up by welcoming our panel and then senator barrasso will give his opening statement. i want to thank all of you for taking the time to be here and bringing your expertise to our panel. we'll have mr. jim robb president of north american electric reliability corporation. and mr. gabriel and pat wood iii ceo of hunt energy network and mr. michael shellenberger founder of environmental progress and mr. manu athana and president and ceo of pjm interconnection. i want to thank you for being in person and i look forward to your expert analysis. i will now turn to senator barrasso for his statement. >> thank you for calling this important hearing. we all agree that affordable, reliable and resilient electric service is essential for every american. electricity is needed for virt

mr. lankford is able to get on the call right now. is mr. cassidy, senator cassidy, which he be available? if he is not available we will go to senator heinrich. >> thank you, chairman. ms. speakes-backman, i wanted to ask you a little bit about electrolyzer spirit we heard a lot of different chessmen today and on hydrogen and one of the things that are think it's clear whether you are commons or anybody who starting to invest in that space, that we need to bring down the cost of electrolyzer is. that's one of the key goals here. can you talk a little bit about how we move electrolyzer cost down deployment cost curve are quickly? from your d.o.e. perspective, then we should be doing as a policymaking body to support that? >> thank you for your question and thank you for your leadership on so many aspects of energy storage, either stationary or vehicle and on climate, , addressing the climae crisis. so really appreciate the time and the question. we at d.o.e. while we're looking to demonstrate and apply the technologies that are already at ha

mr. lankford: madam president. the presiding officer: the junior senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: thank you. senator scott, senator ernst and i are not trying to ask for something that the american people aren't already asking for as well. and quite frankly, the senate and this white house haven't already said they want to be able to do. basic transparency, efficient spending. it is wednesday afternoon right now. we're about to take up a bill for, we think, $1.9 trillion. and i say we think because none of us have seen the text of this bill yet. not one of us on either side of the aisle. and the debate was supposed to begin on it today, but none of us have seen the text for this. supposedly we're supposed to start voting on it tomorrow night, though no one has seen the text of the bill yet. in addition to that, last year this congress on a bipartisan basis passed five covid relief bills totaling over $4 trillion. every dollar of that $4 trillion was borrowed. every dollar. none of that was budgeted. but there was bipartisan agreement as we walked through the process to de

mr. lankford you are recognized. >> mr. chairman thank you. >> thank you.hanks to both of you for the process on this.oc it's not a fun process of thanks for doing it. you have a great reputation among staff in the appropriate since staff so thank you for your dedication work project got about 15 questions that i'm going to try to run through and we'll we will run out of time i'mi sure. yesterdayl gene dodaro were talking about one of the bills we worked on for years called the taxpayer's right know. his statement on that hill that i had worked on for a decade literally to get past, brings a lot of information out so the public can see how we manage things and what is in each agency was the program. she has been a big advocate for gao saying we need that and he said at the top party for gao to build a help them in their work. his statement yesterday was its going to matter on the implementation of omb. are you familiar with the taxpayers right to know and are you committing to implementth tt bill so we will get the information we need. sakai commits to work

mr. lankford: my house was negative 14 degrees. now, steve daines from montana is used to that but in oklahoma, we're not used to negative 14 degrees. it was overcast, snowy, cold. and then the sun broke through and we had a day that it got up to 30 degrees and it was like everyone was going to park, it felt so nice because the sun was out even though it was cold. sunshine has a great way of making everyone lift and look around and go where has that been? i think that happens in the federal government as well. i think senator -- i thank senator ernst for hosting what she's calling sunshine week to be able to say what are we doing to put a little light into the federal process to be able to make sure people can see into some of these programs. because all the time i hear from people when something comes on the news and they'll say where did that come from, and i'll say that was poked in some bill that probably no one read. let me give you an example of it. two weeks ago when the quote, unquote bill passioned for almost $2 trillion -

mr. chairman and senator lankford, members of the committee. thank you for inviting gao to discuss the status of the 2020 census. i.t. systems, cyber security and the bureau's efforts for protecting the data it collected from respondents. as the chairman noted, response system operated as intended during the 2020 census and most people who self responded did so online. the bureau reported it did not experience any system downtime during the census. in addition, the use of smart phones to conduct follow-up work played a critical role to adapt to the pandemic and achieve a higher than expected rate of producter activity. nonetheless the bureau has system implementation work to do. a critical activity to help ensure that the data are complete and formatted cell. system testing is still ongoing for operations. post enumeration survey, to assess the quality of the 2020 census. going forward, meeting milestones and scheduled deployments will be important for ensuring that the bureau's systems operate as intended. as dr. jarmin pointed out, the bureau

mr. chairman. >> at this time i will call senator barrasso -- are you sure? okay. all right. senator lankford. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. mr. tour, good to see you and thank you for the long conversations we've already had. let me walk through a few points to get some high points. how many years will be continue to have the internal combustion engine used in america? >> so, electric vehicles have made incredibly impressive strides over recent years but it is still in the single-digit percentage for car sales. other countries are ahead of that. general motors and others are making very ambitious electric vehicle targets but internal combustion engines will certainly be with us for several more years. >> you study this for long time and looked at some of the link of it so is it five more years or tender years or 50 more years? just based on the studies you been a part of and the teams you have been around. >> it's difficult to predict these technologies and it's the price point and range anxiety with electric vehicles in certain applications so there are a number of things need to ha

mr. chairman.nd >> thanks senator king. senator lankfordsenator barrasso thank you to witnesses thank you very much for what you're doing and for bringing the conversation today. let me go through several things mr. mueller let me ask you about the battery of recycling come up several times and, obviously, challenge with some of these minerals coming from conflict areas and child labor, and from multiple areas where we have nations like china, and cuba, that seem to dominate market in certain different minerals. so battery recycling becomes big issue for us and we're around 5% at this point for some of these batteries. not dealing with existing car batteries now, where we're at near 100% of recycling. but for some of the lithium-ion some of those where are we on what can we do better for that? >>li first and foremost no child should ever be harmed with materials that are used in batteries full stop. that'sat why it is so importanto understand the full life cycle of theseit materials as i mentin in my testimony from mining to manufacturing t

lankford. the chair recognizes senator osoft for your questions. senator osoft: thank you, mr. chairman, thank you to you and your team for joining us. i appreciate that you lay out a specific list of programs requiring oversight, requiring improvement of performance. naming names and being specific is vital to accountability. i want to ask if you can extend that specificity and name those federal contractors or vendors, specifically, who are the worst offenders when it comes to performance, when it comes to cost discipline, when it comes to the honesty and integrity of their engagement with the u.s. government? mr. dodaro: it would take additional research to be able to do that. i don't have that off the top of my head, so i can't respond to that right now senator osoft: your colleague who has jurisdiction includes the department of defense? mr. dodaro: yes. senator osoft: could you name specific defense contractors whose performance, whose adherence to procurement guidelines, whose keeping with budgets and responsiveness, perhaps the g.a.o. increase is most deficient? mr. dod

mr. lankford: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: we shouldn't be dealing with abortion funding. i would say pursuant of 904 of the congressional budget office, i move to waive and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 52, the nays are 47. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. the point of order is sustained, and the amendment fails. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: madam president, i call up my amendment number 969 and ask that it be reported by number. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from texas, mr. cruz, proposes amendment numbered 969. mr. cruz: i ask unanimous consent for two minutes of debate equally divided. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cruz: madam president, we are facing an absolute

mr. lankford: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i do want to thank my friend from maryland. this is an important issue. it has not had enough attention on this, as he and i have talked about this over the last several days. this deals with partnerships whether it be ag. this deals with individuals. my friend from kansas, he and i worked together on this to be able to combine a piece of legislation to make sure we're dealing with all types of businesses that will be affected. i hope to get this through on unanimous consent on the days ahead to get this resolved as quickly as possible as well as continue to be able to reach out to the small business administration and to see what they can do to be able to communicate with those folks. a senator: i ask consent that i be arrowd to complete my remarks. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. without objection. mr. marshall: thank you, madam president. i thank the chairman for his cooperation. our amendment will allow farmers and ranchers categorized as a partnership, in

mr. lankford: mr. president, last week, we paused as a congress to recognize half a million people that have died in the united states due to covid. unfortunately, that number is still climbing. half a million. that's a lot of families that are affected, a lot of lives lost, a lot of pain that we have experienced as a nation. obviously, that's a global pain that is being experienced. for the last now 11 months, this congress has gathered in a bipartisan way five times, with wide bipartisan majorities to be able to address the issue of covid-19. we have allocated $4 trillion, all of it borrowed, all of it. none of this was budgeted money. all of that borrowed money, with a common agreement that this is a pandemic in a crisis and to be able to stabilize the american economy. we have to do what we have to do, but we should not do more than we have to knowing that every dollar of spending is borrowed. last year, at almost this exact same day, this congress gathered together and put together a $2 trillion c

lankford, there was a small amount $70 million put into the s.b.a., that's additional funds. the idle loan program issued $2 billion worth of funds. that was additional funds put into the program. mr. kennedy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator has six seconds. mr. kennedy: mr. president, it's a felony for rioting. we shouldn't be giving them money. the presiding officer: all time has expired. the question is on the motion. is there a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: the yeas are is 48, the nays are 50. the motion is not agreed to. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: i have a motion to commit at the desk and i ask it be reported 6789. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from p florida, mr. scott moves to commit h.r. 1319 of the senate with instructions. mr. scott: i ask unanimous consent for two minutes of debate equally divided. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. scott: as we can tell this week, washington is completely dysfunctional --. the presiding officer: would the senator yield. mr. scott: washington is com