week separated, tossed into dumpsters, unreviewed books sold to booksellers. how'd you decide what you're going to review and what's going to make the last? >> guest: that's the means question to ask several like this at the book expo where and who has all of their new books out, with such excitement and expectations. but the fact is that we were doing at the new times performing a triage. nobody has time to read all of these books. what we see our role as calm as editors and as critics is to sift through everything and to find the books that are truly worth peoples times and the ones that we think people are looking to the "new york times" to have a seasoned critic weighs in on an offer perspectives. ultimately that really comes down to the book itself. you can send us a copy wrap and a birthday cake covered with candy kisses and we can all the publicity in the world and as much fanfare surrounding certain titles but in the end what we doing as editors is where look at the book itself and seeing if it is worth it. for me, for my book of books, i tend to make

we are -- the office that you described is one of those that it is unreview. no decision has been made yet on where -- what will be done, if anything will be changed, with respect to that office. but what i can assure you of is two things. first, that the significance of the subject that's addressed by that office has not diminished in any way. second, whatever information you, senator coons, or this committee needs you will get. that's my promise to you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. thank you, mr. chairman, for your

we are -- the office that you described is one of those that it is unreview. no decision has been made yet on where -- what will be done, if anything will be changed, with respect to that office. but what i can assure you of is two things. first, that the significance of the subject that's addressed by that office has not diminished in any way. second, whatever information you, senator coons, or this committee needs you will get. that's my promise to you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. thank you, mr. chairman, for your indulgence. >> we will stand in recess for 15 minutes. we will reconvene at 5:49. you are welcome to our great coffee back there or sitting and talking to others, but thank you. >>> recess will end and we'll stand in hearing again. i'll move to senator portman. thank you for being here, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary sullivan, you know how i feel about you. i appreciate the proactive approach you took on getting ot ot otto warmbier home. i appreciate you coming to his funeral. i know the reorganization was a topic of discussion and i w

otherwise, the pardon power is unreviewable.t's a non-justiceable which in english means hands off. the courts would not tough that question. >> matthew, even if you found out cuomo was pardoned by the president in exchange for a free lunch, some par gan for ebargai exchange, it was a deal, would that have any legal implication? >> potentially. we're in uncharted territory here. the better view of the legal scholars who look at these issues is that conditioning -- it's changing a pardon for something else, a quid pro quo, if you will, would be improper. what the consequence of that -- again, i don't think we know because to my knowledge it hasn't happened before, but that's contrary to how our system of laws work in all other context, even though you have the legal authority to do something, it doesn't mean you can use that legal authority in exchange for a bribe, for example, or something like that. >> robert, what do you make of this discussion? obviously this got leaked somehow. somehow this was being discussed in the white h

hearing earlier in the year in the energy and commerce committee, i assumed there was a backlog of unreviewed applications that spurred my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to draft this bill. but then we heard from experts from the federal energy regulatory commission about this and they testified that nearly 90% of these major infrastructure projects are approved in less than a year. many companies working to have other interstate energy projects approved can only dream of a federal review occurring in less than a year. this is already an efficient process. this bill is unnecessary. it is dupe lick cative and wasteful -- duplicative and wasteful. the congress has already taken action to streamline the federal permitting review process for major infrastructure projects. sometimes our memories are short. but it was just the last congress where the congress adopted the major transportation infrastructure bill, the fast act, which passed in a bipartisan manner and signed into law and the fast act authorized the steering council approve the timeliness, transparency of the environmental r