[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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