mr. toomey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. ey: reserving the right to object. let me say i think i agree with 98%, 99% of what i just heard from my colleagues. i -- in the 11 years that i've been in the senate, i've lost track of how many rape crisis i visited. they have gotten additional resources from congress and do some of the most important work i know of, painful work, helping a child through an appalling experience when there is law enforcement that can -- that can further traumatize the child. the work these folks do is amazing and the senator from alaska is exactly right, there is a real need here. the good news is there's a real and very clear path forward here. what the legislation that the senator from illinois is proposing does is it creates a new source of money for the crime victims fund. it's a new category. it's substantial. it's going to be new resources for the advocates for crime victims to better be able to continue to do their very, very important work. and i fully support that. so where do we disagree? he

senator toomey: ok. thank you, mr. chairman. chair brown: thank you, senator toomey. senator van hollen i am not sure is here. he's not. chair smith from minnesota is recognized. chair smith: does my identification say chair smith? chair brown: no. the excellent subcommittee you chaired last week. thank you. senator smith: thank you, chair brown and ranking member toomey. i want to thank very much from our guests today. it's great to hear from you. i think we have such a huge opportunity in this moment to make significant strides forward on infrastructure. and i approached this conversation from the former -- as being a former chief of staff for the mayor of minneapolis and understanding what mayors go through as they're trying to address real needs in their community. i'd like to focus on two of those if i can today. the first is affordable housing, and if we have a moment, i'd like to also talk about clean energy infrastructure. these are two things i think are essential to include in the american jobs plan infrastructure package that the senate is working on. so i

mr. toomey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, reserving the right to object. i've got good news for my colleagues from illinois and rhode island and that is that the modification that i'm suggesting to the unanimous consent request proffered by the senator from illinois is not complicated. it's got nothing to do with budget rules. in fact, it's the simplest thing in the world. now, the senator from illinois wants to put more money and money from a new source into the crime victims fund. i completely agree. i fully support it. i've liked this idea from the first time i heard of it, and i've supported it. but there's something that's important to note here. the crime victims fund is a federal government account and the senator is very determined that more money go into that account. so what do we disagree on? well, it's very simple. the senator from illinois seems to be equally determined that there can be no requirement that the money actually come out of that account and go to crime victims and their advocates. that's

mr. chairman. >> thank you senator toomey. i want to introduce our first witness, daniel horrigan, the mayor of akron, he was a act ron city council emin, a teacher at lebron james's alma mater. mayor horrigan thank you for being here and represent setting a legacy city from america's heartland. i will turn my colleague senator tester to introduce the witness from his state. jon. >> thank you chairman brown. and i want to thank you both for your opening statements. i just want to say a couple things before i get to cyndy andrus, the irbehalf boseman, montana. nobody likes weighsful spending. i will tell you if the believe that the pacing threat to this country is china then we better get serious about infrastructure. the bottom line is that if you don't have places for people to live, you cone have a manufacturing base, you don't have the ability for business to expand, you don't have the ability for people to recruit. cyndy andrus will probably tell you in boseman mop money there is no such thing as a first-time home buyer be

mr. toomey, lies why there's a bit of confusion in the market as we try to digest everything post-fed i will you again that's chris toomey, morgan stanley private wealth apologize, a bit abbreviated but i'll make it up next time. >>> straight ahead, investment committee's latest moves plus, june is pride month. here is personal finance expert susie ormond >> being a lesbian has been the greatest part of my life be proud of who you are. stand in your own truth. tell everybody because if you know who you are, i promise you, it will get you to exactly where you want to go. that's what happened to me that can happen for you as well. obsession has many names. this is ours. the lexus is. all in on the sport sedan. lease the 2021 is 300 for $379 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. what happens when we welcome change? $379 a month for 36 months. we can make emergency medicine possible at 40,000 feet. instead of burning our past for power, we can harness the energy of the tiny electron. we can create new ways to connect. rethinking how we communicate to be more inclusive t

mr. chair. >> thank you very much senator toomey. her first to witness daniel horrigan served as the county clerk at the akron city councilmember. lebron james alma mater -- thank you for being here representing the legacy city from america's heartland. and my colleague senator tester will introduce a calling from his state. >> thank you chairman brown and i want to thank you both for your opening statements. i just want to say a couple of things. nobody likes wasteful spending and i will tell you if you really believe greatest threat to this country of china we had better get serious about infrastructure. the bottom line is if you don't have places for people to live you don't have a manufacturing base and you don't have the ability to and you have the ability for people to recruit. there is no such thing as a first-time homebuyer because quite frankly the the cost of living is so high. i think we need to make an extent -- at the serious expenditure or turn the keys over to him and let him dip the fact of the matter is made to step

mr. chairman. thank you, senator toomey. senator van holland, i'm not sure is here. >> and does my identification still say smith? >> an excellent subcommittee you chaired last week. i won't make it a habit, thank you. >> thank you, chair brown and ranking member toomey. thank you to all of the guests. i think we have a huge opportunity to make significant strides forward on infrastructure. and i approached this as what mayors are trying to go through addressing the community. i'd like to focus on two if i can today. the first is an i fordable housing and if we have a moment i'd like to talk about clean energy infrastructure, two things i think are essential to include in the american jobs plan infrastructure package that the senate is working on. i'm sure as you are as mayors experiencing the firsthand crisis of housing. a mismatch between supply and especially affordable housing for rentalers. i'm interested to know what it's like in the city. there are a shortage of housing stock and this is something that we can address.

senator toomey, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. as i mentioned in my opening statements there are signs that the fed is trying to get into the business of environmental policy, as you know the regulatory role is to ensure safety and soundness of the financial institutions it regulates. i think this is probably a yes or no answer. are you aware of any banks that failed due to super storm sandy, hurricane andrew, the california wildfires, or any other recent weather event? >> no, i'm not. >> i'm not either. and you can go back quite a ways and it's hard to find. we haven't been able to find it yet. so it's clear to me neither the warming of the earth's temperature, which is occurring, nor severe weather events pose a threat to the stability of the financial system. as larry summers said last week there seems to be an emphasis of risks like climate change by central banks. and a quote attributable to larry -- my concern is it comes at the expense of monitoring real risks and the fed shouldn't be wasting time and resources on what is u

senator toomey is back. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. welcome back, secretary yellen. i have tore say, and i think th will not come as a surprise to you, i'm just extremely disappointed by this entire process that youss and your colleagues have engaged in with the g7. this idea that countries that are pursuing greater economic freedom and the prosperity that comes from it, that that constitutes a race to the bottom, i think couldn't be a worse way to think about this. expanding economic freedom, diminishingg the burden countris put on their businesses, their economies, their opportunitiese for growth, that's not a race to the bottom that we should t tryo prevent. that's a race wee r ought to be winning. in completely disagree. andd by the way, i think everybody has to acknowledge thatwl there's an implicit confession in this whole effort, whichle is that the biden proposals withwh respect to tax reform make americah less competitive. and that's whyri we need these other w countries to inflict th same t kind of damage on their economies that he is suggesting we do to ou

toomey. senator brown? senator scott? senator bennett is next. >> hello, mr. chairman. can you hear me? >> we can hear you fine. >> thank you very much. madam secretary, i want to thank you and your team very much for the work they have done to get ready for the monthly distribution of the child tax credit. we're very grateful, and i was wondering if you could tell me what that looks like and where we are in the process. >> first of all, senator bennet, thank you very much for your leadership on this issue. i think putting this child tax credit in place really is an important step, and we're proposing to continue it to make the nonrefundability permanent and the increase in the size of it. we've worked very hard with the irs to begin monthly payments to eligible families starting july 15th. we're -- the irs is ready to make those contributions and make sure that families that didn't file a tax return this year or last year know about their eligibility for the child tax credit and have a way to apply for it. the irs opened a non-filer portal yesterday, and it will take some time to fully