    [Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                             S. Hrg. 118-49

                      GROWING THE ECONOMY OF THE FUTURE: JOB
                     TRAINING FOR THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                            JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

                                     of the

                         CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

                                   __________

              Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee

                     [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

            Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                                   ______

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    53-818                    WASHINGTON : 2024

                            JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

        [Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress]

    SENATE                               HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
    Martin Heinrich, New Mexico,         David Schweikert, Arizona,
      Chairman                             Vice Chairman
    Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota             Jodey C. Arrington, Texas
    Margaret Wood Hassan, New Hampshire  Ron Estes, Kansas
    Mark Kelly, Arizona                  A. Drew Ferguson IV, Georgia
    Peter Welch, Vermont                 Lloyd K. Smucker, Pennsylvania
    John Fetterman, Pennsylvania         Nicole Malliotakis, New York
    Mike Lee, Utah                       Donald S. Beyer Jr., Virginia
    Tom Cotton, Arkansas                 David Trone, Maryland
    Eric Schmitt, Missouri               Gwen Moore, Wisconsin
    J.D. Vance, Ohio                     Katie Porter, California

                      Jessica Martinez, Executive Director
                     Ron Donado, Republican Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                         Opening Statements of Members

                                                                       Page
    Hon. Martin Heinrich, Chairman, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico...     1
    Hon. David Schweikert, Vice Chairman, a U.S. Representative from
      Arizona........................................................    10

                                   Witnesses

    Mr. Courtenay Eichhorst, Business Manager, UA Local 412 Plumbers
      and Pipefitters, President, New Mexico Building Trades,
      Albuquerque, NM................................................     4
    Ms. Tracy Hartzler, President, Central New Mexico Community
      College, Albuquerque, NM.......................................     6
    Dr. William Beach, Senior Fellow, Economic Policy Innovation
      Center, Former Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics,
      Washington, DC.................................................     8
    Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum, Former
      Director, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC..........     9

                           Submissions for the Record

    Prepared Statement of Hon. Martin Heinrich, a U.S. Senator from
      New Mexico.....................................................    32
    Prepared Statement of Mr. Courtenay Eichhorst, Business Manager,
      UA Local 412 Plumbers and Pipefitters, President, New Mexico
      Building Trades................................................    34
    Prepared Statement of Ms. Tracy Hartzler, President, Central New
      Mexico Community College.......................................    44
    Prepared Statement of Dr. William Beach, Senior Fellow, Economic
      Policy Innovation Center, Former Commissioner, Bureau of Labor
      Statistics.....................................................    54
    Prepared Statement of Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President,
      American Action Forum, Former Director, Congressional Budget
      Office.........................................................    62

                      GROWING THE ECONOMY OF THE FUTURE: JOB
                     TRAINING FOR THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION

                                  ----------

                         WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

                                United States Congress,
                                      Joint Economic Committee,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:16 p.m.
    in Room 216 Hart Senate Office Bldg., before the Joint Economic
    Committee Chairman, Martin Heinrich.
        Senators present: Chairman Heinrich, Klobuchar, Hassan,
    Kelly, Welch, Schmitt.
        Representatives present: Vice Chairman Schweikert, Beyer,
    Moore.
        Staff: Nicolas Aguelakakis, Christina Carr, Tess Carter,
    Ron Donado, Michael Farren, Sebi Devlin-Foltz, Tomas Gallegos,
    Colleen J. Healy, Jeremy Johnson, Brooke LePage, Mirella
    Manilla, Jessica Martinez, Michael Pearson, Christopher Russo,
    Jeff Schlagenhauf, Alex Schunk, Douglas Simons, Lia
    Stephanovich, and Garrett Wilbanks.
        Chairman Heinrich. This hearing will come to order. I would
    like to welcome everyone to today's Joint Economic Committee
    hearing, titled ``Growing the Economy of the Future: Job
    Training for the Clean Energy Transition.''
        Today's hearing will begin with my five minute opening
    statement, a statement from Vice Chairman Schweikert as soon as
    he arrives, and each of our four witnesses. We will then
    proceed to questions, alternating between parties in order of
    Member arrival. Members are reminded to keep their questions to
    no more than five minutes, and now we'll get to opening
    statements.

    OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
             NEW MEXICO, CHAIRMAN, JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

        Chairman Heinrich. In the last two years, the Biden
    administration and Democrats in Congress have taken significant
    action to advance a transition to a robust clean energy
    economy. We made historic investments in clean energy in the
    Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the Bipartisan
    Infrastructure Law.
        These investments have directly increased the demand for
    workers in a range of clean energy occupations. Whether it is
    manufacturing workers building batteries, building wind
    turbines, building solar panels, or plumbers and pipefitters
    installing heat pumps, there are opportunities here for
    millions of Americans.
        Looking at just a few of these jobs, the Bureau of Labor
    Statistics predicts that over the next decade, we will need to
    fill at least 735 job openings for electricians, 425,000 for
    plumbers and pipefitters, nearly 400,000 for HVAC technicians
    and 100,000 for utility line workers to meet demand. Some
    estimates put the increased demand for workers even higher.
        This demand for skilled trades people is a once in a
    generation opportunity to grow the middle class if, if we can
    train enough workers to meet the demand. These are careers
    people can build a family around in their home communities, and
    they don't require a four year college degree or for that
    matter, the college debt that sometimes accompanies a four year
    degree.
        These jobs feel a lot like my dad's career as an IBEW
    lineman. His work keeping the lights on in our community was my
    family's ticket to the middle class. It gave us economic
    stability. It gave my parents security in their retirement.
    Right now, we are unlocking that same pathway, that same sort
    of ticket to the middle class for even more families.
        Our current workforce shortages are a real limiting factor
    in growing the advanced energy economy. That is why we need to
    invest in proven career training pathways. We need to work
    collaboratively with labor unions, with community colleges,
    with private industry. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is
    investing $72 million in programs to train folks for clean
    energy careers, by partnering with existing institutions.
        Community colleges like Central New Mexico Community
    College, offer a range of workforce training programs, and one-
    year certificates that get participants into careers quickly.
    The Inflation Reduction Act also encourages the use of
    registered apprentices. These are programs that pay people to
    learn technical skills on the job and in the classroom,
    allowing employers to train and invest in their future
    employees.
        By investing in programs that create opportunities and
    teach the skills necessary for this energy transition, we can
    ensure that we meet workers where they are. We are already
    seeing these investments produce results. New Mexicans in these
    skilled trades have already built some of the largest clean
    energy projects in the entire nation, and we are currently
    beginning constructional on a regional transmission line and a
    wind generation project larger than the Hoover Dam.
        This one single project will be the largest clean energy
    project ever built in the western hemisphere, and this same
    project will also have a substantial economic benefit in the
    Vice Chairman's State. From wind towers to solar racking
    hardware to utility-scale solar trackers, we are also
    manufacturing the components to build out the energy
    transition.
        And in order to continue to lead on this front, we need to
    invest at the federal level in more research and development.
    We need to invest in national laboratories and universities
    that are making fundamental discoveries in challenging sectors
    like industrial heat and aviation.
        Broadening our clean energy research and development will
    help strengthen our workforce, and it will help workers build
    the skills needed for the clean energy transition, and it will
    help us grow America's middle class, while leading the world to
    a brighter, cleaner future. I am looking forward to hearing
    more today from our witnesses, including two from my home state
    of New Mexico, on ways to support and diversify our rapidly
    growing clean energy skilled workforce.
        I am eager to hear more about how we can better invest in
    educational and apprenticeship pathways to clean energy jobs,
    and how we can maintain American leadership in the industry
    across the globe. I will now, since Vice Chairman Schweikert is
    not here, I am going to hold for his opening statement, and we
    will begin with our witnesses, and we will start with Mr.
    Courtenay Eichhorst.
        [The opening statement of Chairman Heinrich appears in the
    Submissions for the Record on page 32.]
        Mr. Courtenay Eichhorst is a business manager for UA Local
    No. 412 and president of the New Mexico Building and
    Construction Trades Council. UA Local No. 412 represents
    plumbers, pipefitters, HVAC service technicians and pipe
    welders in New Mexico, as well as in the El Paso, Texas area.
        Members of the union are involved in a range of projects
    that support the clean energy transition, and prior to serving
    as the union's business manager, Mr. Eichhorst served as its
    training director. In his role as president of the New Mexico
    Building and Construction Trades Council, Mr. Eichhorst leads
    and advocates for an alliance of craft unions.
        I am going to introduce all of our guests, and then we will
    hear from them with their opening statements in the same order.
        President Tracy Hartzler is the president of the Central
    New Mexico Community College. President Hartzler has held
    several leadership roles at the college since 2015, and under
    her leadership the college has implemented a skills to jobs
    marketplace for students. She continues to expand opportunities
    to build a skills to workforce pipeline that fosters a
    partnership among students, national employers and community
    colleges.
        Prior to her time at the college, President Hartzler worked
    for the New Mexico legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico
    Interstate Stream Commission and the U.S. Senate Committee on
    Indian Affairs.
        Dr. William Beach is a senior fellow at the Economic Policy
    Innovation Center, EPIC, and the former Commissioner of the
    Bureau of Labor Statistics. Dr. Beach is also a Coffin Fellow
    at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. Prior to these
    roles, he worked at George Mason University, the Senate Budget
    Committee, the Heritage Foundation and Sprint United.
        Douglas Holtz-Eakin is the president of the American Action
    Forum and the former Director of the Congressional Budget
    Office. Dr. Holtz-Eakin has also served on the Council of
    Economic Advisors as the chief economist and the senior staff
    economist, in addition to directing domestic and economic
    policy for the John McCain Presidential Campaign, and serving
    as Commissioner of the Congressionally-chartered Financial
    Crisis Inquiry Commission.
        Mr. Eichhorst, let us begin with your testimony, and then
    we will go down in the order of introductions. The floor is
    yours.

      STATEMENT OF MR. COURTENAY EICHHORST, BUSINESS MANAGER, UA
     LOCAL 412 PLUMBERS AND PIPEFITTERS AND PRESIDENT, NEW MEXICO
                BUILDING TRADES, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

        Mr. Eichhorst. Good afternoon, Chairman Heinrich and
    Committee Members. My name is Courtenay Eichhorst, and I am the
    business manager for the United Association Local No. 412,
    which represents just over 2,000 plumbers, pipefitters and HVAC
    workers in New Mexico and El Paso, Texas.
        I also serve as the president of the New Mexico Building
    Construction Trades Council. I would like to thank the
    Committee for the opportunity to share my thoughts on how the
    best in class apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs
    offered by the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters
    and the Building Trades are empowering our unions to meet the
    workforce demands driven by the clean energy transition and
    transforming the lives of workers in the process.
        The high tech manufacturing plants and emerging clean
    energy technologies that have been targeted for support by
    recent federal legislation requires sophisticated workers with
    specialized trade knowledge to construct and maintain. At the
    UA, we see every clean energy job as an opportunity to train
    workers for the next clean energy job. This is exactly why
    attaching labor standards that include apprenticeship
    utilization to federal investments in clean energy is so
    important.
        To meet the demands for skills workers, the UA and North
    America's building trade unions put our money where our mouth
    is. Together with our signatory contractors, we invest nearly
    $2 billion each year in apprenticeship and journey level
    training programs. Of this amount, the United Association or
    the UA, as we commonly refer to our union, alone invests about
    $280 million annually.
        These training investments consist entirely of private and
    non-taxpayer dollars. Unlike the traditional four year college
    program, the five year apprenticeship developed by the UA and
    other building trade unions provide individuals with the unique
    opportunity to earn while they learn.
        Apprentices in our programs are paid an increasing scale of
    wages as they progress, receiving health care coverage and
    becoming participants in retirement plans. They graduate as
    journeymen and women, debt free and with skills that are in
    high demand.
        In addition to our gold standard apprenticeship programs,
    the UA and other building trade unions are also increasingly
    investing in pre-apprenticeship programs that can be designed
    to help prepare high school students or individuals from under-
    represented communities and others for a career in the trades.
    Local 412 has numerous apprenticeship initiatives that have
    proven to be highly successful in creating a pipeline between
    the communities we serve and family-supporting careers in our
    industry. More details about these programs are found in my
    written testimony.
        They include a 12-week accelerated weld program and a
    partnership with 14 different high schools in remote areas of
    New Mexico. Local 412 also partners with several local civic
    organizations to provide apprenticeship readiness training. We
    invest over 2.7 million each year at Local 412 in our local
    training programs, which again consist entirely of private
    dollars.
        When I first took over the apprenticeship program in 2014,
    we had a total of 88 apprentices. We now have over 440
    apprentices, including 25 veterans, 32 women and 52 individuals
    from the Navajo Nation. This large jump in apprenticeships
    speaks for itself as to the success of our initiatives.
        While I am exceptionally proud of the work that we have
    done at Local 412, there are similar stories to be told
    throughout the United Association. For example, this past June
    the UA and Capture Point Solutions committed $310,000 to a new
    pre-apprenticeship program in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, which
    will create a training and employment pipeline between high
    school juniors and seniors in Vernon Parish, and the new carbon
    capture hub being developed in Central Louisiana.
        The UA has also led the way in partnering with the U.S.
    military, to train and place veterans into our apprenticeship
    program through our award-winning VIP or Veterans in Piping
    Program. This program, which is described in my written
    testimony, currently operates in seven different military
    bases, and since its inception has provided apprenticeship
    opportunities for over 3,170 military veterans.
        I would like to end my prepared testimony by sharing my
    personal experience of coming up through Local 412
    apprenticeship program, which I think illustrates the value of
    earn as you learn. Unlike many of my fellow UA brothers and
    sisters, I went through a four year college program and
    obtained a bachelor's degree in Marketing and Sales from New
    Mexico State University, before beginning my union
    apprenticeship.
        However, when I applied to Merrill Lynch for a job straight
    out of college, I was told that I needed to get experience
    first. When I heard this, I thought what was the point of my
    four year college program if they did not provide me with the
    experience I needed for a career. So I simply could not find a
    job in New Mexico that paid well, and would provide me with the
    training that I apparently still needed.
        So ultimately I reassessed the path I was on and joined
    Local 412 apprenticeship program. The journey that decision has
    put me on has been immensely satisfying in giving other men and
    women the same opportunity is what motivates me to focus on
    expanding our apprenticeship training at Local 412.
        In conclusion, the UA and the Building Trades are prepared
    to meet the workforce demands of the clean energy transition,
    because we have the best training programs and the best model
    for delivering that training throughout--through our earn as
    you learn approach. When programs like ours are linked to
    federal funding through labor standards that require apprentice
    utilization, the sky is the limit as to what we can build
    together during this pivotal moment in the clean energy
    transition. Thank you all.
        [The statement of Mr. Eichhorst appears in the Submissions
    for the Record on page 34.]
        Chairman Heinrich. President Hartzler.

      STATEMENT OF TRACY HARTZLER, PRESIDENT, CENTRAL NEW MEXICO
               COMMUNITY COLLEGE, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

        Ms. Hartzler. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of
    the Committee. My name is Tracy Hartzler. I am the president of
    Central New Mexico Community College or CNM. I also serve on
    the board of directors for the American Association of
    Community Colleges that is based here in Washington, D.C.
        So thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today
    to discuss the significant need for a much larger workforce
    pipeline to support the accelerating growth of the clean energy
    economy in New Mexico and certainly across the country. CNM
    serves over 30,000 students annually, in about 200 certificate,
    degree and training workforce programs that range from our
    trades, our skilled trades to our arts programs that allow
    students to transfer on to universities, but also to enter into
    the workforce directly.
        We welcome students from all backgrounds. We are a
    Hispanic-serving institution, and we serve a significant
    population of tribal bands and--members from our New Mexico
    tribal bands and nations. Our students and learners include
    high school students taking dual credit classes, both in trades
    programs but also general education programs, and then also we
    have adult learners who are seeking a quick way to enter the
    workforce.
        I want to share a story about one of our students named
    Rita, who was struggling to make ends meet working in a
    restaurant for tips and a low wage. But she realized with two
    children, she could not really provide for them sufficiently,
    so she decided to enter the clean energy industry.
        She started in our electrical trades program, and within
    two years completed that program, is now at a local electrical
    company providing a range of services. She owns a car, she owns
    a home. She is able to provide for a family, and there is no
    question, as she would say, that trades was the game changer
    for her. So that is what we hope for for all of our 30,000 plus
    students we serve every year.
        So when I think about Rita, and I think about all of you
    who have community colleges throughout your district or your
    state, most of your community colleges are serving students
    like Rita. They are individuals who are seeking entry into a
    good-paying career, not a job. They are looking for a way
    forward and they come to community colleges particularly
    because we have the resources, not only the training programs
    and the academic programs, but we have the resources, those
    critical student supports that are so helpful in wrapping
    around that learner, to help them not only enroll but persist
    and complete their program.
        So just as we support our students like Rita, we also work
    incredibly closely with our employers. We exist to serve local
    workforce needs, and to grow our local economies. So we
    frequently work with employers to spin up programs, to review
    our programs, revise our programs, to make sure they are
    continuously relevant not only in our existing industries that
    are common, but in our new industries like our clean energy
    industries.
        CNM is not unique to this. All of the community colleges in
    New Mexico, but again, all of your districts and states do the
    same thing. We serve our students and then we serve our
    employer needs to grow our local economies. So in my written
    testimony, I highlighted the variety of associate degree
    certificate programs in solar and wind technology that CNM,
    many of the community colleges in New Mexico provide, including
    Navajo Tech as well.
        They focus mostly on installation and some of our
    maintenance skills, but again these are entry points into a
    career in an industry where we again continue to provide
    upscaling and pathways for individuals once they enter those
    industries.
        So just as CNM's programming is evolving to meet changing
    demands, that track record led us to a successful conversation
    with an international company, which is choosing to move their
    manufacturing facility to the U.S.
        That company was able to take advantage of tax credits both
    from the Inflation Reduction Act, also with many state tax
    credits to not only build the facility, they are working with
    federal and state-funded workforce development funds and
    partnering with CNM to help train their 1,800 employees who
    will be coming online in the next about 18 months.
        Like most community colleges, we are challenged, I am
    challenged with providing and developing strong, affordable
    high-quality programming and supporting access to frankly
    vulnerable students, students who are seeking a great deal of
    support to enter into a workforce.
        I mentioned most of our funding comes from non-recurring
    sources. We have one-time funds that are critical to jump start
    this training, and that came through a number of federal bills
    that many of you supported in the last couple of years.
        In addition, the American Association of Community Colleges
    supports continuing the Strengthening Community College
    Training Program and Strengthening Institutions Act. Those are
    included in both the House and the Senate Labor Human Services
    appropriation bills. We are pleased with those.
        But we also seek recurring funding. We use some of that
    from the federal and state government as well. Again, we also
    are grateful for the support that the federal government
    provides to our students who seek access.
        So I would encourage the Congress to consider supporting
    Workforce Pell, so that individuals who are seeking that quick
    entry into the workforce and that quick start into a career
    that is going to be successful for them and serve our
    communities, including our clean energy sector, that they are
    able to use federal grant dollars, in addition to a lot of the
    other state supports that we are able to provide.
        So with that, I just want to say that it is critical that
    community colleges receive federal support for jobs programs.
    There is no question that employers come to community colleges
    to design and provide responsive programming, and that learners
    come to us to find a better life, and the resources and the
    programs they need to help them achieve their goals.
        We are trusted, we are valued, we are capable, and that is
    why employers and students come to us. So Americans clearly
    understand the important role and value that community colleges
    provide, and I think with the support that we need, I am
    confident that we will be able to continue to provide the
    workforce solutions that our communities and states require to
    support the booming clean energy economy, not only in New
    Mexico but across the country. Thank you.
        [The statement of Ms. Hartzler appears in the Submissions
    for the Record on page 44.]
        Chairman Heinrich. Dr. Beach, the floor is yours.

    STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM BEACH, SENIOR FELLOW, ECONOMIC POLICY
        INNOVATION CENTER, FORMER COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF LABOR
                      STATISTICS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Dr. Beach. Very good, thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking
    Member, Members of the Committee. It is a real pleasure to be
    here and be on this panel with my colleagues, to talk about
    this extremely important topic. I am just really pleased, Mr.
    Chairman, to hear that you use BLS data.
        The occupational series that BLS does is among the most
    important and popular data that is produced by the Bureau, and
    I was--when I was Commissioner, I tried to get as much done in
    the environmental area as possible, because demand is growing
    by leaps and bounds for that particular kind of data.
        So let me talk about three challenges that I mention in my
    written testimony and that I think are really in front of this
    Committee and in front of the Congress when we think about how
    we support that great demand for new labor in this growing
    sector.
        The three are, and I will start with program effectiveness.
    I think this is a really important one. It is a classic one
    when we are talking about government training programs. I am
    sure you are all familiar with this. It turns out that directly
    funded and managed training programs by federal agencies, job
    retraining in particular, not so much adult education, which
    seems to be quite effective, but training for a job or job
    retraining, they just do not seem to be as effective as we want
    them to be.
        The people who enrolled in this training may be not typical
    of the class of people that you would normally think needs the
    training. So there is a self-selection problem, which is a
    classic issue with the training programs. Not controlling for
    that particular, what is called ``unobserved characteristics''
    is what makes these appear to be effective, but really not
    effective.
        So how does Congress determine effectiveness, and here is
    where you need to build this into your, into your legislation
    if legislation moves forward. You need to have what are called
    randomized tests. So you pick people who would be in the
    program at random, rather than having them identify themselves,
    and you pick people who are in the program and you pick people
    who are not in the program, and then you follow them over time
    to see whether these randomized picks actually are different,
    did they have different outcomes.
        When Mathematica did this study for the Department of
    Labor, I was not at Labor at that time. It was just before I
    started my term. They looked at a whole host of programs, from
    job training, Job Corps, about 40 programs. They did these
    randomized tests for a number of these programs. Sadly, they
    did not find too many of them to be effective. What is
    effective is what is happening in the private sector and
    certainly in the joint efforts of labor unions and private
    companies to train.
        And so we need to study why are those effective I worked a
    long time in the telephone industry, and I can tell you there
    when I picked people to go into the training programs, I always
    picked the ones who would succeed. So even the training
    programs in the private sector need to be scrutinized pretty
    carefully for effectiveness.
        A second problem is source data. You are going to want to
    have a lot of data that tells you what is the demand for these
    jobs, and these data need to be produced by a statistical
    organization. BLS stopped producing those data in 2011, and I
    will be happy to discuss the reasons why.
        At that time they--for the green jobs data, which they were
    producing, they found that there were about 2.1 million green
    jobs in the United States. That is 2011. I took the liberty of
    just updating that number, and when you update that number for
    the larger labor force, you get about five million green jobs
    in the country.
        There are many different ways of figuring out what the
    green jobs are, but you are going to want to have that detail.
    I produced a chart in my written testimony that lays out all
    the occupational characteristics that BLS was able to produce.
    It is crucial if you are going to pursue the area of green jobs
    in a systematic way, as Congressional policy, that you have
    those data in front of you.
        But they are costly, and that is my third point. Congress
    is severely challenged, as you all know. You are working on
    this right now, to bring its fiscal house in order. You know,
    we have had a 53 percent increase in publicly held debt. We
    have had a 42 percent increase in outlays just in the last four
    years, just unprecedented increases.
        And when you--when you--what has paid for your increased
    outlays? What has paid for that? Recent work by Robert Hall and
    the Nobel Laureate Thomas Sargent indicates that only seven
    percent came from tax revenues, 76 percent from bonds and 14
    percent from money creation.
        So to conclude, you have some challenges in front of you,
    and I think you need to confront those honestly and directly,
    and I am sure you will. Then you need to say how can we pay for
    these jobs programs that we are going to fund? Clearly, given
    the fiscal challenges, that kind of outlay needs to be offset
    somewhere if you go forward with it. Thank you very much.
        [The statement of Dr. Beach appears in the Submissions for
    the Record on page 54.]
        Chairman Heinrich. Dr. Holtz-Eakin.

       STATEMENT OF DR. DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN
      ACTION FORUM, FORMER DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE,
                            WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. Chairman Heinrich, Vice Chairman
    Schweikert and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
    chance to be here today. Let me say just a few things briefly,
    and then I look forward to answering your questions.
        The notion of a green energy/clean energy workforce is
    appealing, but it really lacks any analytic rigor. Granted,
    there will be jobs, a lot of jobs in production, construction,
    generation, transmission of clean energy. But those are really
    just jobs in the economy, and there is nothing special about
    them.
        Sure, they could have some firm-specific or occupation-
    specific skills that you need to have, but that is true all
    through the U.S. economy, and it is a standard problem in
    workforce development to develop and deliver those kinds of
    skills to workers, so that they can be effective in their
    careers.
        So this is something that by and large we have confronted
    before, and by and large there are enough private sector
    incentives for firms to deliver that, to make sure that their
    workers can be effective in their jobs, or other private sector
    actors. As you heard from some already, unions and others
    deliver that training.
        So that, that seems to me to be the real lesson of where we
    are right now, and it suggests several very simple principles
    for policy going forward.
        The first is there is no need to set up a large, new,
    dedicated clean or green energy workforce development effort.
    Instead, that notion should be put aside and existing routes of
    training should be pursued. I would echo what Dr. Beach said
    about the success of federal training programs.
        If you look at things like the Workforce Innovation and
    Opportunity Act and the Adult Displaced Worker Training
    Programs there, in our work when we looked at that, what you
    found is lots of people got trained for jobs that did not exist
    anymore, and there was lots of demand in new jobs and those
    people did not have the skills to fill them.
        This is an area where there is going to be large demand and
    new skills necessary. To rely on programs like that, which have
    a terrible track record of delivering, would be a mistake.
    Instead, all of the efforts should be on private sector
    training, supporting these collaborative efforts that we have
    seen across the country that have been successful for a long,
    long time in meeting the labor force needs of local businesses
    and using registered apprenticeships wherever possible, because
    they have the best record of success there as well.
        So I think this is an important topic and a good hearing,
    and I look forward to answering your questions.
        [The statement of Dr. Holtz-Eakin appears in the
    Submissions for the Record on page 62.]
        Chairman Heinrich. Vice Chairman, we held your opening, so
    the floor is yours.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID SCHWEIKERT, A U.S.
      REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARIZONA, VICE CHAIRMAN, JOINT ECONOMIC
                               COMMITTEE

        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Well you are a glutton for
    punishment, and Mr. Chairman, I will do this real quick so we
    can get to questions, because that would be much more
    interesting.
        We are actually happy to see you choose this as the
    subject, one of the great kindnesses. One of the great
    kindnesses is we have been going back and forth, and once again
    I want to compliment Senator Heinrich's staff for working so
    well with, you know, our staff on this and that, because there
    had been some history, for those of you who had been on the
    Committee before, where sometimes we were cranky towards each
    other.
        But one of the things we tried actually looking at is what
    is the definition of a green job, and this may go to my friend
    with the history in BLS. If we actually as a Committee or even
    for staff, maybe it would be really smart for us to build sort
    of a universal definition.
        The reason for that is you get those of us in the idiot--I
    mean political class who get up all the time and say this bill
    will create this many jobs or this many jobs. Would not it be
    nice to actually have at least a common benchmark, whether it
    be on the right or left, of what the hell we are talking about?
        The second thing is, and we have a couple of things going
    on in the House and I apologize. We are a little distracted but
    I am working on it. But and it may be 20-25 years ago there
    were actually some attempts to do some pretty detailed research
    of the job training programs of the 1990s.
        And the juxtaposition, I remember it was a long study. It
    was an academic one, and it talked about programs that had
    reached out, and I love my community college. I'm from
    Maricopa. I got an AA from my community college, biggest I
    think it may be in the country.
        But the data set that came from that said the government-
    sponsored training that used these educational facilities, what
    primarily was happening is when the graduates came out, they
    had to be retrained at the business level for the business
    mechanisms there, that maybe the fastest way we reach
    productivity and participation in, as you want to call it, the
    green economy, is not a surreptitious route through a
    government-sponsored educational foundation mechanisms
    training, community college, but getting people straight to
    have that relationship with an employer, and have the training
    there for that methodology, technology, types of equipment and
    what their contracts are.
        And that--I hope that is where we are going to head, is an
    understanding. If this is really about workers, how do we help
    them have a productive life? And I will find that study,
    because I know--I am a packrat. It is in one of my binders. But
    I remember even then many years ago the cost per job of the
    training was outlandish, and a fraction of that might have been
    a much healthier incentive.
        But it has to be carefully designed for the relationship
    between that employee and employers, to have sort of a modeled
    apprentice program. You could actually steal some of the
    brilliance some of the industrial unions have created, saying--
    that allow it to be an individual contract with an individual
    employer to learn their skill set, because it turns out if I
    get my electric certificate on how to put up electric
    photovoltaic panels, I may be able to go do other types of
    electrical.
        We need to make sure that this job training has the
    flexibility that our arrogance, which often leads us down a bad
    path, is green energy, every type of job, is going to probably
    look different five years from now. Just like it did five years
    ago, how do we make our education flexible so we are making
    people so they have a productive life instead of we wall them
    off from their future. With that, I yield back.
        Chairman Heinrich. Well we will start with questions and
    alternate back and forth, and I want to start with you, Mr.
    Eichhorst, and I want to make clear. I actually do not call
    these ``green jobs.'' These are just jobs, and the thing I do
    like about them is that they are the kind of jobs in our state
    where you can really build a family around these skilled trades
    jobs.
        How important are these types of programs in preparing
    young people for careers in the trades, the programs that start
    before you get to the graduation in your high school? Because I
    think what--one of the things that we hear that changed over
    the course of the last 30 to 40 years is this idea that if you
    do not get a four year degree, just forget about it.
        And now we are in this position where we really need
    skilled trades, and the demand signals in New Mexico, I mean
    some of this has been mentioned, but 1,800 factory workers
    coming at Maxeon Solar, 250 to 300 at Arcosa Wind Towers.
        You have got thousands of people necessary to build the
    kind of scale of projects like what Pattern and SunZia are
    doing. A thousand more skilled trades people just building the
    fab at Intel right now, and you know, every job we do not fill
    is going to be filled by somebody coming from out of state and
    we want to build long-term capacity.
        So how important is it for us to be working with the high
    schools, to get this stuff, the career technical education back
    in the high schools, to create an on ramp for apprenticeships?
        Mr. Eichhorst. Thank you for that, Chairman Heinrich. I
    appreciate the question. When I went through high school in the
    90's, we did have shop classes. We had welding classes, we had
    automotive. I would not have finished high school if it would
    not have been for welding classes. I was bored to death sitting
    through some of those classes, and because I had the ability to
    go out and weld, go make pig feeders, go make different things,
    I stuck it out.
        And then I went to college just to prove everybody wrong,
    and I was not going to, I think. But right now, a perfect
    example, Los Alamos National Laboratories. They are going to
    demand an additional 1,500 craft workers. That is just the men
    and women that build the facilities by 2026.
        Espanola Valley is a beautiful part of the state. It is one
    of the most beautiful areas in America as far as I am
    concerned. But they have issues with dropout rates, they have
    had issues with drugs, they have had a lot of issues in the
    past. What this does, when we get to go in and talk to these
    students before they graduate high schools, we let them know
    look, you need a high school diploma. You need to keep your
    record clean. You need to do these specific things.
        The minute you are done, we will bring you in. We will
    start you down the right path. You are going to be making
    money. You are going to have insurance like nobody else has.
    You are going to have pension, real retirement plans that
    nobody else has. All you have to do is keep your act together,
    keep your nose clean, graduate high school. We will teach you
    how to weld. We will teach you the electrical, and everything
    that you need.
        The heat pump technology. That is one of the hardest
    things, to find individuals right now that want to do that. But
    what we are finding is we are going out and we are hitting all
    these little itty-bitty communities and these tribal entities.
    Once they realize what heat pump technology is, they say oh my
    gosh, this is awesome. This is like puzzles. This is exciting.
    This is something we need to do.
        So if we can get to them before they drop out or before
    they choose a job, if we can get to them and explain look, you
    will have a career that will change you entire family's
    existence. You will be able to afford a home, you will be able
    to do what you need to do with a spouse and children, and all
    the exciting things that, you know, most of us wanted with the
    American dream.
        As we get to these high school students and we can do these
    apprenticeship readiness programs, we get through the OSHA 10.
    We get through the first ACPR. We get through the basics that
    every high schooler should have.
        I have had apprentices come in at 18, 19, 20 years old,
    they have never swung a hammer. They have never used a shovel.
    They were not lucky like I was to have a dad that forced us to
    do manual labor and actually made us get outside and clean the
    stalls and work on the pens and take care of the animals.
        I was lucky. But a lot of these kids never had that
    opportunity. So if we get to them young enough and we explain
    look, you like working with your hands, you like working on a
    computer, a lot of our jobs are very technologically advanced.
        So we get to them younger, they have a career path, they
    think oh my gosh, I have something to stay in school for. I
    have something to look forward to. Maybe I should not go try
    some drugs. Maybe I should not do something stupid. Maybe I
    should stick with this.
        We get them in these programs and our instructors came from
    the same place. Maybe they had colorful pasts. Maybe they had a
    crazy childhood, and they can explain to these young men and
    women look, you have a heck of an opportunity for a long-term
    career. So thank you for that question. It is a good
    opportunity to get these students in as early as possible, and
    get in front of them and let them know that they have a lot of
    opportunities.
        Chairman Heinrich. Vice Chairman Schweikert.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Is it inappropriate to invite him
    to come hang out with my--if you ever make it to Scottsdale and
    Phoenix, I have a full welding setup. I was not allowed to
    marry my wife until I learned how to weld, because like five of
    her brothers are all master welders.
        Chairman Heinrich. For the record, Mr. Eichhorst knows
    this, but I actually did a DIY on a heat pump over the August
    break.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Really?
        Chairman Heinrich. Just for the fun of it.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Oh God, now I need to put my
    plumbing so you and I can maybe start a video competition. As
    long as we are not both on a desert island, right. Okay, that
    is sort of an internal joke.
        But now to a point of seriousness, and this is actually--I
    need my two Ph.Ds to actually bounce on something. First off
    Dr. Beach, what is my population? Well, sometimes I do not
    think we start at some of the base discussion. What is my
    available labor pool right now that actually exists, that has
    not gone off and done, you know, four year university degrees
    or, you know, has chosen military this and that?
        What is my actual population that is available to become a
    skilled craftsman, a skilled journeyman?
        Dr. Beach. Sure. Every, every year we get about two million
    people who enter the labor force.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Okay.
        Dr. Beach. Some of those are from foreign countries and
    some of those are native born. We have got about five and a
    half million people who have dropped out of the labor force,
    but tell us each month that they would like a job if a job was
    available to them. When we ask them why you do not find that
    job and they say well, it is either training or I have been out
    too long or my skills are.
        So I would say the available labor force at a minimum is
    between seven and ten million people.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Really? Okay. I did not have you
    as high as ten, but we have been reflecting the seven, and
    looking at. So because one of the misalignments is, you know,
    seven, but and then we will hear things saying but there is 20
    million jobs.
        Dr. Beach. Right.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Tell me, from your expertise,
    what is my misalignment right now, of just raw population, you
    know, skilled--but who is not in that labor participation and
    available labor opportunities?
        Dr. Beach. Well first, the biggest one is space. A job may
    be in New York but the person who is looking for a job might be
    in California, and so they cannot travel to the job. So that is
    a big one.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. And Dr. Holtz-Eakin, one of the
    things that is coming back to us, particularly on this type of
    labor skills, is particularly, you know, you have great wind
    assets as New Mexico has one. You build, but then it is over
    and now you are back into a migration requirement.
        It is, it is sort of the urban/suburban issue compared to
    where so much of green, let us call them green jobs for right
    now, for lack of a better definition, are often in rural, you
    know, more difficult areas. The reality of not only having a
    skilled population, but just the convenience of having a family
    and those things in those types of locations. What is my
    misalignment? What am I not understanding?
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. Oh, I think you are understanding the
    geography perfectly, and you have to develop the economics to
    make it in the firm's interest to locate there, the firm's
    interest to hire workers who are willing to work there, and you
    know, money is a powerful solution to a lot of problems. This
    will be how this gets solved.
        We have had state to state labor migration for a long time
    in the United States. That I am not worried about. The more
    difficult part will be the public services, the police, fire,
    schools in places that did not have those populations before,
    getting those up to scale quickly as they are building these
    projects.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. But then you have the second
    half. Then those populations disappear. It sort of like the dam
    economics of there is some great stories like, you know, for
    my-like doesn't like need populations, and then they crash.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. Yeah. It is the recurrent criss-cross.
    They are just doing it in different spots. I am not worried
    about getting people from place to place, but the fixed costs
    you are going to incur those places are real.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. If you were to approach this
    whole subject, what is my most elegant way of building a well-
    skilled population that is available for at least this and
    future technology? What would you do?
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. So number one, it is not about the money.
    First of all, there is not any money. I will just stipulate
    that, and then you know, we have spent about $200 billion since
    2001 on graduate medical education, and they are not nearly
    enough doctors, nurses, physicians assistants. It is not about
    just money.
        The second thing I would say, the lesson is do not try to
    bring something to scale. President Hartzler is doing a great
    job. Do not replicate that all across the country, because it
    is a great job in that location, for that demand for labor,
    with those firms, and we repeat this error all the time.
    Decentralize this as much as possible. Do it at the local level
    through the private-public partnerships and/or private firms.
        That is going to be the most successful way to do it, and
    certainly do not try to create green jobs. Create jobs that
    could be green or blue or yellow. Give people skills that are
    transferable from sector to sector, because we do not know what
    this will look like in five years.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Dr. Holtz-Eakin, thank you. You
    got to my punchline without me having to say it. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Heinrich. Senator Klobuchar.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
    you for holding this very, very important hearing. It could not
    be more timely, with everything happening. I guess I will start
    with you, Mr. Eichhorst. Talk about policies, aside from the
    apprenticeship requirements with recently enacted tax credits,
    what else we can do to ensure apprenticeship programs can grow?
        I am, you know, I am one on the presidential debate stage
    that kept saying we are not going to have a shortage of sports
    marketing degrees. We are going to have a shortage of
    electricians and plumbers, and of course nurses and doctors and
    I pissed off everyone that had a kid with a sports marketing
    degree. But it really worked well for me. But if you could, if
    you could answer the question.
        Mr. Eichhorst. Absolutely, thank you for that. I will
    answer to the best of my ability. Allowing--so allowing
    policies to require registered apprenticeship programs, that is
    one of the things you just talked about. That has been
    fantastic, and that helps increase the amount of apprentices
    needed, right?
        But making it on a local level helps a ton too. If you go
    to an area that has predominantly not done anything that could
    be considered green or energy type, they may not need very many
    apprentices. So if you go to the areas that need them, you can
    train there. You can train for what they need, and those skills
    can be transferred anywhere in the country, and I will give you
    an example.
        What is nice about the unions that I am used to is so the
    UA. We are across the entire United States, from Seattle to
    Florida. If you are training for a med gas certification to
    build hospitals, and I know this is not clean energy, but this
    is an easy example, you are doing the exact same training in
    California as you are in New York. You are doing the same
    training in Seattle as you are in Florida.
        So if we are working on a very specific type of alloy or
    type of welding that we are doing in New Mexico, we built a
    uranium enrichment plant years ago. They had very specific
    alloys on there. They had aluminums and they had some different
    things we were not used to. We developed a training program in
    Albuquerque. We were extremely successful with it. We did a
    great job.
        We had apprentices welding on this facility because they
    went through the UA's, our welding standards are extremely
    stringent. They went through the UA's weld program. They were
    certified. Those same students went up to Malta, New York to
    weld on Global Foundries. Some of them are in Phoenix right now
    welding on Intel.
        Some of them have gone up to Seattle. Some of them have
    gone all over. So as this continues to happen, we will continue
    to keep up with it. So in Albuquerque, one thing we are doing
    is making sure we have a brand new state of the art welding
    training center, to keep up with what is coming, and what is
    nice, they have the ability to travel the country.
        Senator Klobuchar. Yeah.
        Mr. Eichhorst. So these young men and women----
        Senator Klobuchar. Making sure that they are able to use
    those skills other places. Okay, quick Ms. Hartzler. So I have
    worked a lot in this area. Senator Moran and I have a bill on
    increasing the partnerships between colleges and apprenticeship
    programs, and Senator Braun and I have one on expanding this
    certain tax advantage savings accounts to be used for skills
    training, apprenticeships, as well as some degrees in these
    areas. Talk about what you think we could be doing better.
        Ms. Hartzler. I think the policies you are discussing are
    exactly what I would say any learner who is coming to your
    college would want to see enacted. There is no question. I
    would say building on the prior testimony that pre-
    apprenticeships are so critical.
        We do that with our public school districts through dual
    credit classes. We work with 135 high schools. What is
    important about those high schools is that we are training them
    and we are exposing them, many of the students, to certainly
    working opportunities while they are in high school and
    certainly when they come to college, because they are taking
    these dual credit classes.
        We are also helping them earn at the same time. So when you
    talk about savings, how important that is, not only--and I just
    want to say not only for these initial training expenses and
    experiences. We know that this is lifelong training. This is
    not a one and done. It is not one in five years and done.
        So we know that a third of our learners at the college
    already have degrees. They may be marketing degree, but they
    are often nursing degrees and seeking advanced certifications.
    So I can tell that a savings account that allow individuals to
    continue to earn would be very beneficial, and save for future
    training where there might not be other financial aid
    allowances for.
        Senator Klobuchar. Okay, thank you. Both my dad got a two-
    year community college degree as did my sister, and she got her
    GED first. So our family would not be around if it was not for
    a two-year degree. So thank you. Last, Dr. Holtz-Eakin, you
    touched on it a bit, but the importance of immigration reform
    right now.
        I know our nation has expanded as far as I know with the
    shrinking workforce, and I do not think we want to be the first
    to experiment when you look at the numbers. And so just whether
    it is work permits, visas, dreamers, I am not going to go
    through the list, but how important that is right now, because
    in the rural parts of our country, nursing homes, hospitals,
    doctor's offices, that bill, you know, to allow the doctors to
    stay when they come from other countries and get their degrees
    here. I think we have 12 Republicans on it. Talk about that
    quick.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. I could talk about that for two hours, but
    a 30 second version is that there is no more important economic
    policy than immigration reform, period. The native born
    population has some replacement with fertility. Our future will
    be dictated by our immigration decisions. The pace at which the
    labor force grows, the skills that are embedded in it,
    everything is about immigration.
        The current system is broken, and a comprehensive reform
    would be great. But if you cannot get that, anything that will
    provide greater flexibility in the use of skills in the U.S.,
    whether it is spouses, the H1B recipients work, things like
    that.
        Senator Klobuchar. Yes, I would have to wait five years,
    because if they are all going to Canada because they cannot
    work----
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. The list goes on and on. So I would
    encourage you to pursue this in any form you can.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
        Chairman Heinrich. Senator Schmitt.
        Senator Schmitt. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you all
    for being here. I guess what I wanted to do in the limited time
    that I have is just you guys are all dealing with--well
    especially this side, are sort of you guys are looking at the
    numbers.
        But you guys are kind of dealing with a lot of downstream
    effects that are certainly beyond your control, but certainly
    some decisions that have been made. This is my first Congress,
    my first term in the Senate, but certainly a lot of decisions
    that have been made have had an impact.
        I think it is important for us to acknowledge I think some
    of the fearmongering that happens, that drives a lot of the
    dollars that flow out of this place. In March of this year, the
    U.N. warned of humanity's ticking time bomb, and released a
    Report of Reports on the dire status of global climate,
    describing a multi-million dollar plan to implement climate
    change policies across the globe.
        The Secretary General called the report a survival guide
    for humanity. To him, the era of global warming has ended. The
    era of global boiling has arrived. These sort of comments to me
    are totally nuts. They are not new. In the 70's, we were
    hearing about, you know, global cooling and that there would be
    food rationing by 1980. The U.N. issued a report in the 1990's
    essentially saying that environmental catastrophe is
    irreversible as a nuclear holocaust would take effect by the
    year 2000.
        So it is easy for these folks, in my view, to have lost
    complete credibility with a lot of these predictions. The issue
    though is a lot of people bought into this, and the United
    States has spent five trillion with a T, trillion dollars that
    now has downstream impacts that some of you are dealing with,
    whether it is retraining or apprenticeships.
        I do want to ask the question, and I do not know who the
    best person to ask. So Doctor, I'm going to--Holtz-Eakin, I am
    going to pick on you or ask you this question, and I do--we
    have spent this amount of money and I think the number is in
    order to effect temperatures by a third of a degree Fahrenheit,
    the amount of money that the United States would have to spend
    to do this, even if you accepted that premise, is nuts.
        There is a tradeoff. There is opportunity costs, right? We
    are talking about money for training programs, and here we are
    now driving investment in other places, including China where a
    lot of these rare earth materials are mined. Those are--we have
    hollowed out the middle class for a lot of these industrial
    jobs that have gone other places.
        But as it relates specifically to whether it is, you know,
    for wind energy or solar, if you accepted the idea that we are
    controlling the weather, if China and India are not on board
    with this, which they are not, I mean they are building coal-
    fired plants, you know, three a month, what are we doing?
        Is this a tradeoff? Is this money in your expert opinion
    here of how we are spending money, are we--is there a return
    here other than a loss of jobs that we have to retrain people
    for?
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. So I am a long-time participant in the
    debate over climate change and have done this at the CBO in the
    McCain campaign, and more recently, and I believe the current
    strategy is not going to be effective. The idea that you can
    simply subsidize everything and get the U.S. to a clean energy
    portfolio I think is mistaken.
        I am not going to belabor it, but I think that this is not
    going to work. And the lack of international buy-in means that
    it will be futile in the end from a greenhouse gas
    concentration point of view. So it is hard to make the case
    this is a high rate of return investment of federal dollars. It
    really is.
        Senator Schmitt. Well in----
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. It is terribly inefficient the way it is
    designed.
        Senator Schmitt. There is a study from the University of
    Pennsylvania that found that fewer than one percent of all
    workers can transition to a green job, and I think that--and
    you do not--Mr. Eichhorst, you do not have to comment on this
    if you do not want to. This is probably more of a statement.
        I think what we are seeing play out right now in the auto
    industry is sort of the tip of the iceberg. Ford Motor Company
    lost $4.5 billion on their EV vehicle. I have a Wentzville
    plant. I have in Wentzville in Missouri, there is a GM plant.
    $4.5 billion would go a long way, I think, and having the
    parties come together, and my big concern here is that this
    obsession with this agenda is going to continue to bleed jobs
    and we are going to keep having to have conversations about
    what sort of retraining makes the most sense, whereas if we
    were making better decisions here, we would not need to have
    this hearing. So thank you for being here.
        Chairman Heinrich. Mr. Eichhorst, if you want to comment.
        Senator Schmitt. Yeah, feel free. I just did not--I know
    that is not why you are here to testify, but is certainly
    something near and dear, I know, as a union guy.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. Can I add one thing?
        Senator Schmitt. Sure.
        Chairman Heinrich. Absolutely.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. In terms of downstream consequences, I
    think the one that should not be forgotten in this setting is a
    lot of these efforts are making up for failures of the K to 12
    education system, and the most important thing we could do
    would be to take on and improve that system.
        I mean the evidence is overwhelming that it had failed for
    ten straight years, and it got wore in the pandemic. And so
    having to train someone in a two or four year setting because
    they did not learn anything in school is a real problem.
        Chairman Heinrich. Mr. Eichhorst, I am going to ask you to
    answer his question. Are you seeing jobs go away in New Mexico
    because of these policies, or are you seeing demand for jobs?
        Mr. Eichhorst. Thank you. I will answer to the best of my
    ability. We are seeing a higher demand for jobs because of
    this. One of the nice things is everything that we build,
    whether it is green technology or coal-burner, requires
    maintenance. So we have maintenance folks on every facility,
    whether it is solar, wind, coal, natural gas.
        All those plants we have outages. All those facilities we
    have maintenance individuals. So because of the transition, I
    am seeing a spike in the need for more training. It is not
    necessarily green jobs. It is jobs, it is careers. If we do
    this right, these folks can transition from a natural gas power
    plant to a solar facility.
        I mean there is a lot of transition that can happen over
    the next 20 years. Hopefully, I will not be in the labor pool
    in 20 years from now, but I see the transition there. A lot of
    these folks have developed through the years, and when I first
    started in the welding industry, it was nothing compared to
    like it is now.
        So in 20-something years, we have learned new technology.
    We have changed it up, and I see within the next 20 years it
    will be totally different again. So it is a good opportunity to
    learn now.
        Chairman Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Eichhorst. Representative
    Moore.
        Representative Moore. Thank you so much Mr. Chairman, and
    let me just thank all of the witnesses for participating in
    this very, very important topic.
        I was able to peruse some of the testimony that I may have
    missed, given my late departure (sic). But from what I can
    gather, Mr. Holtz-Eakin and welcome back to the Joint Economic
    Committee; you are no, you are not a stranger here.
        You and Dr. Beach are basically saying that a young person
    who graduates high school and maybe somehow gravitates into a
    private business, is no better off or worse off than someone
    who has gone through say, you know, the community college with
    Ms. Hartzler and learned some skills or picked up a
    certificate, or gone through some of the community-based
    programming.
        I just want to be clear. You say all the data and studies
    have really shown, and I was really disturbed to hear that, you
    know, maybe some--that intensive services that you give people
    are great for society, positive benefit to society as a whole,
    but that training had a negative benefit.
        And so that, and then the notion that the private sector is
    so much better prepared to train people for jobs that are
    wanted at that time. I am sort of confused as to how people
    find out about the Gwen Moore Company that wants to, you know,
    repair solar panels. I am trying to understand where the lack
    of value is in any kind of training program. But you did say
    teach them in high school, so I will--I will give you that.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. I would agree that that is a fair
    characterization of my testimony, except for one thing. I think
    the community colleges stand out as the successful actors in
    this field.
        I mean they really have been good at identifying the
    opportunities in the area, the skills needed for those
    employers, taking individuals who may have finished high school
    or may not have, may have left another job and getting them
    into the labor force successfully and getting them employed.
    That is the success story.
        The failure is the, especially the Workforce Innovation and
    Opportunity Act, the one-stop shops and where people just walk
    in and say I need to get a job, I cannot get a job, help me. We
    do not help them, and you should be upset. I mean that is not a
    good thing.
        Representative Moore. I am not getting upset. What about--
    we at the National Association of Building Trades unions and
    stuff like what Mr. Eichhorst is doing, how would you
    characterize? They are spending like--did you say $280 million
    or something a year for training? Is that a waste of money?
    They are in the private sector.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. Well no. Again, those are the ones that
    work, and those should be applauded and supported, and we
    should not expand the other ones.
        Representative Moore. Okay. But so listen, my time is
    waning. So let me ask. I am very curious because I do not know
    who said it, but someone was in here talking about providing
    these kinds of trainings to TANF recipients. Those are the
    poorest of the poor. Is that an example of people who would be
    better off served with, you know, you know, trying to improve
    their self-esteem?
        I have heard all kinds of training programs for people who
    are on TANF. Help them with personal problems that they may
    have like alcoholism and so forth, but that--but these training
    programs which have these benefit cliffs and time limits, this
    is wasted money. Is that an example?
        Dr. Beach. That is not what the--that is not what the
    literature shows, Congresswoman.
        So we have kind of two levels of training programs, and the
    research on these two levels indicates that what we call adult
    education, and this would be for TANF and some of the other
    lower income training programs that the government supports,
    that the basic skills development, reading, writing,
    arithmetic, all that sort of thing, is very good and it has a
    lifetime effect.
        The literature on the jobs training programs that--and what
    we are talking about is scientific studies where they do
    randomized control tests, indicates that the value of those
    government programs that are run by the government in
    government agencies is not positive. Now that does not mean
    that they do not do some people some good for a while. But over
    their lifetime, there is not that much of an improvement.
        However, studies also indicate that the real bang for the
    buck comes when you partner with businesses, you partner with
    labor unions that know what the jobs are--what jobs are needed
    because consumers are giving them signals, and then we partner
    with the educational establishment to deploy that training in a
    cost-effective way.
        That is effective. So if you want an effective program,
    rely on the private sector, rely on that partnership. Get away
    from programs that are directly run by the government, because
    I think all the evidence seems to be pretty much coming in with
    well, it is just not proved out to be as good a thing as we
    thought it would be. Well-intentioned, but just not--we just
    not quite deliver.
        Representative Moore. My time is expired, but I will extend
    to myself some personal privileges here, to be able to say that
    the only kinds of programs I can think of that are really run
    just exclusively by government are these programs for poor
    people like TANF, where they have you, you know, raking up the
    leaves in Central Park and then dump them back on the ground,
    so the next welfare workers can learn how to have dignity and
    scrape them up again. So Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
    indulgence and I yield back.
        Chairman Heinrich. Representative Beyer.
        Representative Beyer. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much,
    and Mr. Ranking Member. I appreciate this, and a really
    important topic and I am fascinated by it. Let me quote our
    President right now, who said that--said many times that the
    middle class built America, and unions built the middle class.
        What we have seen as union membership has gone down over
    the last 50 years, the income gap has grown ever larger between
    the average American and the top, and our middle classes have
    gotten smaller and smaller, and you hear virtually every
    article talks about how many people fulfilled the American
    dream, is it reachable anymore.
        So Mr. Eichhorst, how do we stimulate these new green jobs
    that are going to happen one way or the other, to be union
    jobs?
        Mr. Eichhorst. Thank you Mr. Beyer for that. One way, and
    this may be a little touchy for certain people, but one way
    that grows union jobs well is project labor agreements, to have
    some of these that include registered apprenticeship programs.
    I have seen individual companies come from all over the United
    States, and they will set up shop and they will say we have got
    an apprenticeship program.
        There is no program set in place. There is not standards
    set in place. There is no way that these students are
    advancing, but they call it a registered program. The
    registered apprenticeship programs that are approved by the
    government, that are actually looked at and are audited quite
    often, they do require certain steps.
        You have to pass certain, either it is an ability test or a
    written test. There is always methods to this. Once you can
    pass these, you continue to move on. Having those in place
    helps a ton. That really does require more apprentices. We can
    have a million jobs out there, but if these jobs do not have a
    way to require apprentices, how are we going to train these
    individuals to fill these jobs.
        Our workforce right now in the state of New Mexico and my
    local union, the average plumber or pipefitter is 50 years old.
    Who in the heck should still be working hard in the field at 50
    years old. We have got start training our replacements. That is
    one of my biggest issues. When we require the registered
    apprenticeship programs with these legislations or with these
    bills, that helps train our--shoot, I would say the next 20,
    30, 40 years of workforce.
        That will allow us to get into some of these government
    agencies and say look, you are doing a great job training these
    kids that might have dropped out from school or these men and
    women that may not have a job that supports their family well.
    We jump in there. We help them out. We get them to the basics.
        Once they get through the basics, if they choose to get in
    an apprenticeship program, that is great. The demand will be
    there. They will need more apprentices. So the more legislation
    we can include with registered apprenticeship programs, and
    that is a nice thing. It is both sides.
        Registered apprenticeship programs are all across the
    country. Most of them are great. They follow very stringent
    standards and they work. That is what is going to grow our new
    workforce in the next 20, 30, 40 years.
        Representative Beyer. So let me follow up. There was a lot
    of big news last week about Climeworks building three big
    direct air capture plants in the United States. This is a
    direct result of the 45(q) tax credit that showed up in the
    Inflation Reduction Act.
        How do you as a union leader, how did the unions react to
    the federal investment in new technologies, in terms of what
    you see the jobs are that are coming?
        Mr. Eichhorst. So we, we like any jobs. We love to build,
    whether it is green technology, whether it is old technology.
    If we are taking an old coal burner down or if we are
    remodeling an old coal burner plant in the United States, that
    is still work for us. We love work.
        The building trades and especially the UA, we love all
    construction, and as it turns more green or more
    environmentally friendly, we are keeping up with those
    technologies. We love, we love work. We love more and more. The
    more that happens around the country, the more plants that are
    built, the happier we are and the more men and women we can put
    to work.
        Representative Beyer. Thank you, and I pivot to Dr. Holtz-
    Eakin, who is no stranger here. Doctor, you wrote, you know,
    that the majority of the occupations listed are not specific to
    the solar power industry, and that--and certainly my own
    experience in the retail automobile business is that most of
    our technicians come with, maybe they had some training in the
    military.
        Occasionally, they had tech school. But mostly the
    manufacturers put them through years and years of training. You
    know, every quarter somebody's gone for a week, learning how to
    do automatic transmissions or whatever. What implication does
    this have as we struggle with meaningful trade assistance,
    trade adjustment assistance?
        We know that trade agreements and technology have displaced
    so many workers. We do not seem to have gotten a handle on what
    to do with all those displaced workers.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. I would concur with the finding, that we
    really have not had a successful trade adjustment assistance
    program in the United States, in part because it is centered on
    the establishment, and the establishment being, raising its
    hand and saying we are suffering from trade competition. These
    workers are going to lose their jobs because of it. They are
    not eligible for TAA.
        That is not looking at the person. That is looking at the
    current occupation and the current establishment. And in fact,
    the federal training programs do their worst when they are
    trying to figure out the specific skills for the future that
    people need. So this is--has been backward-looking and largely
    unsuccessful.
        Representative Beyer. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Heinrich. The Senator from Vermont. Welcome.
        Senator Welch. It is good to be here. You know, the
    frustration I have is that we all know we need training
    programs, right, and most of us up here do not have a clue
    about how actually to implement it. You all have real world
    experience or the benefit of years of studying, and I would
    like us to have some way where the folks who have to do it and
    have some skin in the game, which is employers and ambitious
    young people who want to get trained, can get into a program
    that is meaningful.
        It seems to me that it does take--a design has to include
    like labor, because there is a real interest labor has in
    having young people get into the trades. It clearly can involve
    community college, because that is where our young people who
    cannot--who have aspirations, but oftentimes lower incomes, go
    to try to take that next step.
        It obviously has to include the employers, because if
    employers--employers do not want to waste their time. They
    really need workers. So I just want to ask you if there is some
    way where we could accomplish the training that is absolutely
    essential, and do it in a way better than we can prescriptively
    from here.
        And I will go with you, Dr. Beach. By the way, you are in
    the Coolidge Foundation?
        Dr. Beach. I am indeed sir.
        Senator Welch. So you have been to metropolitan Plymouth,
    Vermont?
        Dr. Beach. Indeed. I have visited Plymouth Notch with you.
        Senator Welch. Population 400, Calvin Coolidge. But it is
    great to see you. But go ahead. I will let you start with your
    Vermont credibility.
        Dr. Beach. Well I just wanted to do--yeah, okay. Thank you
    very much for my association now with Vermont. I expect
    citizenship soon. So there are a couple of things that I think
    we ought to do. First off, I sponsored a study through the
    state of Minnesota when I was commissioner, to find out whether
    state data, which is often richer than federal data, it is
    surprising, could be used to study people as they go into
    employment and out of employment and into new jobs, their life
    cycle.
        So we need to build a way to look at a person's whole life
    of employment. I think that is really--and it is called a
    longitudinal study. It is not terribly difficult to do, but you
    have to do it with driver's license records, and we do not have
    access to that.
        And then secondly, the oldest piece of job training
    legislation still have one program left in it, and it is called
    the Wagner-Peyser Act. The employment service provision could
    be more exploited than it is, which is to give information to
    workers about what is happening in the private sector.
        Senator Welch. That could happen like at community
    colleges, right? I mean I know students are really interested
    in getting that. But what about this partnership idea, because
    I--as I mentioned, I just do not see how this happens with--out
    of partnership. Do you want to start, President Hartzler?
        Ms. Hartzler. Sure, if I may. Thank you Mr. Chairman and
    Representative. So I do not think there is any question that
    the work that the federal government and the states do that
    require, and frankly are industry standards, where there are
    licensed professionals, require all of us, whether it is the
    trainer, the employer and other partners, which could be state
    government, could be our unions and certainly our K-12
    partners, come together to identify what are the job needs not
    only today but in the future, because our employers are telling
    us what they need.
        We use BLS data, but frankly that is historic. It is not
    predicting or telling us where we are going. So you have to
    have employers, and frankly employers come to us to do the
    training. So there is always a partnership with employers.
        Our employers and industry groups tell us the skills and
    the competencies are that our learners need at any point in
    their career. That helps us all come together to apply for
    grants and to determine how best to use our resources, which
    could include sharing facilities.
        So we--there is a great deal of oversight from our----
        Senator Welch. How we make it work better? We have got to
    get more folks training, I mean including in the trades. You
    know, there is some money in the Inflation Reduction Act to
    train on energy efficiency. That was something quite important
    to a lot of us, especially to me. But you know, if you want to,
    what they are saying these days, if you want a plumber, you
    have got to marry one, right? So there is an issue here about
    getting people who could have a really good well-paying career,
    that gave them the option of staying where they live. Mr.
    Eichhorst.
        Mr. Eichhorst. Okay. That is probably the thing I focus on
    the most often. In the state of New Mexico, you know, we are
    rural and we have got two million people in a great big state.
    The one thing we have done well is we will partner up with
    Navajo Tech. They have got two sites on the Navajo Nation.
        We get in there, we work with these young people. We bring
    them in. The UA and Navajo Tech started a plumbing program
    there, because a lot of these young men and women have no idea
    what they are going to do once they graduate high school or a
    community college.
        This gives these young people the opportunity. They say you
    know, I do not want to leave home yet. I am helping mom, I am
    helping grandma, you know. Once I get a real job I can help
    them a little further, and if there is some governmental
    assistance to get them through this program, they go through
    the community colleges. They come out with a certificate or a
    degree, which is phenomenal. They get the basic training.
        They come to us with direct entry and advanced placement.
    So instead of starting out as a first year apprentice that does
    not need to know anything, they come in as a second year
    apprentice because they have got their basics. They have got
    their CPR. They have got a bunch of the things needed.
        So that model works really well. If at 18 years old, I had
    no idea what I was going to do with my life. I am 47. I still
    do not know what I am going to do with my life. I still do not
    know what I am going to do when I grow up. But at 18, if some
    of these young individuals, they do not have to be young,
    anybody, can go to a community college and say maybe I am
    interested in electrical. Maybe I am interested in welding.
    Maybe I am interested in plumbing.
        They go in the weld shop and they burn the heck of
    themselves, they are done. They want to become an electrician
    or a plumber. So this gives them an opportunity to not go into
    a program and fail. This allows them to think okay, I do not
    mind getting wet, but I do not like being shocked or burnt.
        So I am going to be a plumber. So this gives some of these
    people a great opportunity to think I had the opportunity to go
    to CNM. Now I want to be a plumber, and then they get direct
    entry into several apprenticeship programs. Thank you.
        Chairman Heinrich. We are going to try to do a real quick
    lightening round of second, just because this has been such a
    great discussion. Dr. Hartzler, Workforce Pell. How would it
    change things if, if you could--if that were in place tomorrow?
        Ms. Hartzler. It would give immediate federal aid to
    individuals seeking training in high-demand industries that
    require industry-certified credentials. The Federal aid would
    allow individuals to access trainings that can be completed in
    eight to twelve weeks and immediately access a good job. They
    will be able to begin a career pathway and continue to upskill
    as they progress in their career.
        Chairman Heinrich. Right. One of the things that struck me
    today is there is a lot of agreement about what works. So raise
    your hand if you agree with this characterization. One of the
    places where we should be trying to open the aperture for more
    training is the partnerships between community colleges and
    employers.
        (Show of hands.)
        Chairman Heinrich. One of the places we could open that
    aperture is the partnerships between the skilled trades and
    employers?
        (Show of hands.)
        Chairman Heinrich. We should be doing more apprenticeship-
    based or work-based learning.
        (Show of hands.)
        Chairman Heinrich. This is, this is super-helpful. I am
    going to turn things over to the Vice Chairman, but thank you
    all for your time today. I will have a closing statement. But I
    think you guys have all been very helpful in this discussion.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. And you took all the fun out of
    it. You basically asked--see, there is slightly a non sequitur,
    but there is a reason for this. Dr. Holtz-Eakin, if you happen
    to come across someone who knew their way around the BLS and
    you could ask them here is my dream. I really need this data
    set for them to do, what would you ask them to produce?
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. Oh, I think we--he already answered the
    question, and he is the guy who knows his way around the BLS.
    So----
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. Oh really. Oh, that makes it so
    much easier.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. We in all aspects of documenting the labor
    force, rely on too many one year snapshots and not enough
    studies of the dynamics of individuals through their careers.
        And there are some academic studies that do this, but if we
    on a more regular basis documented education, entry/exit, job,
    entry/exit, wage growth, wage growth when changing jobs, wage
    growth when staying in jobs, we would understand so much better
    what is already out there in the way of incentives to do things
    and what the gaps really are. That is what is missing.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. So Doctor, in regards to those
    gaps----
        Dr. Beach. Right, so but I also----
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. What could--we have a bunch of
    freaky smart economists on Joint Economic.
        Dr. Beach. You do.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. What can we also research? What I
    mean, what do we do to understand what is really going on? You
    know, and part of my is self-serving. I have a fascination
    right now with demographics, and you know, how many million
    young or prime age males seem to be missing.
        Dr. Beach. Sure.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. What am I--what should I ask for?
        Dr. Beach. We need to do a better job at the state and sub-
    state level looking at the demand that employers have for
    specific occupations. That is an area which is a very practical
    growth area. It is not intellectually hard to do. It is just
    bureaucratically hard to do. So that is the first thing.
        Secondly, when I was Commissioner, I supported 52 Labor
    Market Information systems around the country. They are state
    level organizations that collect data, and then propagate that
    data through the UI system and through state organizations.
        They are dying for a little larger mission statement, and
    many of them I supported through grants to do that larger work,
    to actually look at how they could expand our knowledge of the
    demand for labor, the supply for labor, the training
    requirements, the apprenticeship opportunities.
        So I think better supporting the Labor Market Information
    system, which has existed since the Wagner Act in one form or
    another, is an area of extremely low cost but high return for
    all of our labor questions.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert. We have had sort of a radical
    side discussion of how much of some of this base level data
    could be almost crowd sourced. Not collected in the
    traditional----
        Dr. Beach. A lot.
        Vice Chairman Schweikert [continuing]. Survey method, and
    therefore it would also change the cost of collection models.
    But the fact of the matter is how much of our lives are on
    this, and this could be one of our most powerful understanding
    of in and out labor, where they are geographically, the types
    of projects they are on.
        So, and this is not Democrat or Republican. It is just we
    often lack a lot of the tools to be intellectually credible on
    the things we absolutely know are true, except we have no facts
    to often back them up. And that is as close as I am going to
    come to giving a closing statement, is I love this Committee. I
    want us to do good things, and then you and I will fight
    through the partisan divide later.
        But right now, our battle is knowing what the actual Facts
    are, you know? What is my actual labor shortage, what is my
    actual shortage of available labor, you know, and then we will
    do skills sets. But we have to deal with what Dr. Holtz-Eakin
    said. One of our models is by the end of this decade, we just
    have a shortage of people, and that is going to make some of
    this discussion even seem more absurd.
        Go back to the 1990's until today, what we have seen in our
    fertility rates. I am in one of the highest growth areas in
    America, Phoenix-Scottsdale, and I am seeing my school
    districts start to shrink. The reality is here. Now we have got
    to figure out how to deal with it, and with that I yield to
    you.
        Chairman Heinrich. One of the great things about this
    Committee is the Vice Chairman and I agree that data is a good
    thing. Representative Moore for the lightning round.
        Representative Moore. Lightning round. Let me pick up where
    Representative Schweikert left off, you know, to say that there
    is shrinking population. That is in Arizona. There is a very
    fast-growing population of Hispanics in this country. There are
    African-Americans, there are people, there are labor shortages
    not because we do not have people, but because people do not
    have these skills. Am I wrong about that? There are people, but
    they need the skill set. What role does government have in
    helping get people through the pipeline?
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin has already said, you know, that they need
    to--I still have the little clock my boy made in shop. It is
    kind of raggedy right now, but I still have it. We need to
    invest more in the K through 12 public education system,
    because people graduate from high school. They do not--you
    know, even though you say there is no such thing as a green
    job, you know, they might think it is really cool to work on
    solar if they knew about it. So what role does government have?
        Dr. Beach. Let me just back into the immigration question
    again, because it is such a central part of what you have
    asked. I will give you a fact. We think it is a fact. Last
    year, that would be 2022, the labor force grew by around two
    million, just around there.
        900,000 because of natural people born in the United
    States, 1.1 million because of people coming from other
    countries to the United States. The U.N. projects that the
    United States, if it has a reasonable immigration policy in
    place, we will be one of the fastest-growing countries in the
    world by 2100. Both China and India are actually shrinking. The
    United States is supposed to grow, but almost all of that
    growth is from immigration.
        So if that is the case, then the educational system has to
    radically change, radically change, and we cannot do, you know,
    the old way of teaching, where we have a curriculum which is
    focused on a culture which is not going to be dominant in this
    country.
        So I think the challenges here from job training are really
    much bigger than even this Committee has discussed today, and
    it is not going to be a government program. It is going to be
    all local and it is going to be all through colleges and
    community colleges and our educational system.
        Representative Moore. Well, but that is government too.
    They have got to be funded some kind of way.
        Dr. Beach. Well, I think they do have to be funded in some
    fashion, but you have got to be careful not to direct those
    programs, because we are a big country with lots of pockets of
    cultures, that are very different from one another, and but
    from the standpoint of population, I want to persuade this
    Committee not to think about the population shrinking.
        That is not our problem. That is India's problem, that is
    China's problem. Our population is going to be--our problem is
    it is going to be growing like Kenya's. We are going to be
    among the fastest-growing population in the world by 2100. So
    yeah, we have got some really interesting challenges ahead of
    us on that front.
        Representative Moore. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Heinrich. Senator Welch.
        Senator Welch. Well, I was impressed with the three things
    everybody agreed on. So what are the problems--I did not get a
    chance to ask you, Dr. Holtz-Eakin. What are the problems with
    the existing job training programs? You probably went through
    this, but just very quickly.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. So I think the--my written testimony has
    reference to a 2019 study that I did with a colleague, and what
    really stands out is the mismatch between the skills that are
    being delivered in those training programs and the things that
    are needed by employers. We are training for jobs that do not
    exist anymore, and we are not training for the jobs where,
    where we see the growth.
        And you can be the best teacher in the world. If you are
    teaching them something that the employer does not want, it is
    not going to work.
        Senator Welch. So does that argue for something like what
    Dr. Beach is talking about, with decentralized and local
    administration?
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. It argues to be on that side of the table,
    where they are paying attention to what the employers need,
    seriously.
        Senator Welch. Yeah. Well thank you.
        Dr. Beach. No, that is the future Senator. It is to
    discover a new way for the federal government to work through
    partnerships to train the labor force of the future. We really
    have to be aware also that the labor force is going to
    radically change, you know, rapidly change because of AI. We
    have not talked about that today, but there will just literally
    be many occupations which are now kind of big, that will not be
    big in the future.
        But they will be new ones that we are not even conceiving.
    Those will be discovered by the private sector before the
    public sector even has an idea that they are emerging. So
    building these partnerships, and I mean in a very constructive
    and non-invasive way, is going to be the key role that the
    federal government will play in the future.
        Its profile in job training will shrink, while the profile
    of the local organizations will grow, and that is exactly the
    way it has to be.
        Senator Welch. And you feel comfortable with that, at the
    community college level, at the union level?
        Ms. Hartzler. Yes.
        Dr. Holtz-Eakin. If I could add just one thing? You asked
    him sort of what should be in a program, and I just want to
    emphasize something that was in Dr. Beach's testimony. Every
    program should have built into it program evaluation. The key
    is not starting things. The key is stopping things that are not
    working, and the ones that I reviewed are still there and they
    are still funded and they are not working. That money should be
    going somewhere else.
        Senator Welch. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Heinrich. I want to say thanks to our witnesses.
    This has been a great conversation. I think we got a lot out of
    it. Thanks to our colleagues who came today. Questions for the
    record may be submitted after the hearing. The record will
    remain open for three business days from now, and this hearing
    is now adjourned.
        (Whereupon, at 3:44 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.)

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