[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
______
PART 2: COMMITTEE FUNDING
FOR THE 119TH CONGRESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 12, 2025
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration
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www.govinfo.gov
www.cha.house.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-844 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin, Chairman
LAUREL LEE, Florida, Vice Chair JOSEPH MORELLE, New York,
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia Ranking Member
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
GREG MURPHY, North Carolina NORMA TORRES, California
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma JULIE JOHNSON, Texas
MARY MILLER, Illinois
MIKE CAREY, Ohio
Mike Platt, Staff Director
Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Opening Statements
Chairman Bryan Steil, Representative from the State of Wisconsin. 1
The Honorable Glenn Thompson, Representative from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 1
Prepared statement of Glenn Thompson......................... 4
The Honorable Angie Craig, Representative from the State of
Minnesota...................................................... 5
Prepared statement of Angie Craig............................ 6
The Honorable Virginia Foxx, Representative from the State of
North Carolina................................................. 10
Prepared statement of Virginia Foxx.......................... 13
The Honorable James P. McGovern, Representative from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 18
Prepared statement of James P. McGovern...................... 20
The Honorable Jodey C. Arrington, Representative from the State
of Texas....................................................... 26
The Honorable Brendan F. Boyle, Representative from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 27
The Honorable James Comer, Representative from the State of
Kentucky....................................................... 32
Prepared statement of James Comer............................ 34
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, Representative from the State
of Virginia.................................................... 35
The Honorable Mike Bost, Representative from the State of
Illinois....................................................... 40
Prepared statement of Mike Bost.............................. 42
The Honorable Mark Takano, Representative from the State of
California..................................................... 45
The Honorable Brett Guthrie, Representative from the State of
Kentucky....................................................... 50
The Honorable Frank Pallone, Jr., Representative from the State
of New Jersey.................................................. 51
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Representative from the State of Ohio.. 57
The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Representative from the State of
Maryland....................................................... 57
The Honorable Mike Rogers, Representative from the State of
Alabama........................................................ 62
The Honorable Adam Smith, Representative from the State of
Washington..................................................... 63
PART 2: COMMITTEE FUNDING
FOR THE 119TH CONGRESS
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February 12, 2025
Committee on House Administration,
House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room 1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Bryan Steil
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Steil, Loudermilk, Griffith, Bice,
Lee, Miller, Morelle, and Torres.
Staff present: Thomas March Bell, Deputy General Counsel;
Annemarie Cake, Professional Staff/Deputy Clerk; Rachel
Collins, Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; Kristen
Monterroso, Director of Operations and Legislative Clerk;
Michael Platt, Staff Director; Janet Schwalb, Deputy Staff
Director for Advice and Guidance; Jordan Wilson, Director of
Member Services; Khalil Abboud, Minority Deputy Staff Director;
Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director; and Owen Reilly, Minority
Professional Staff.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRYAN STEIL, CHAIRMAN OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WISCONSIN
Chairman Steil. The Committee on House Administration will
come to order. I note that a quorum is present.
Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I look forward to hearing from each of our Committees
coming before us today. I would like to thank our colleagues
for their full attention on day two of our 2-day Committee
hearing.
In consultation with the Ranking Member, I am going to go
right into today's business. Today we will hear from the chair
and Ranking Member of the eight Committees we did not hear from
yesterday, beginning with the Committee on Agriculture. For
each panel, we will recognize the chair and Ranking Member for
5 minutes each, and then the majority and minority will have 5
minutes total to ask questions. We will be yielding amongst our
colleagues.
I now welcome our first panel, witnesses Chairman Thompson
and Ranking Member Craig of the Committee on Agriculture. I
will recognize you, Chairman Thompson, for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. GLENN THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Thompson. Well, good morning, Chairman, Ranking Member
Morelle, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting
Ranking Member Craig and me to share the Committee on
Agriculture's bipartisan proposed budget for the 119th
Congress.
Mr. Chairman, I commit to ensuring the Committee maintains
its storied history as an effective and financially responsible
body. We are here today to ask for what we need, not
necessarily what we want, and to me that is important. That is
the guiding factor in agriculture as well.
During the 118th Congress, the Committee on Agriculture
conducted an expansive oversight of farm bill programs through
hearings in Washington, D.C., field listening sessions across
the country, and countless stakeholder and Member engagements.
This work culminated in the introduction and Committee
passage of H.R. 8466, the Farm Food and National Security Act
of 2024. The funding increases authorized by the Committee on
Administration and adopted by the House for the 118th Congress
were vital in supporting the substantial staff, travel, and
administrative needs of the Committee in carrying out this
work.
Where Congress was unable to enact a comprehensive farm
bill reauthorization during the last year, a 1-year extension
was enacted in order for us to complete our work. Our Committee
has planned an equally extensive workload to ensure a 5-year
farm bill, one that meets the needs of our producers and our
Nation's entire agricultural value chain is enacted.
As many of you know, the farm bill has required a
tremendous effort. Ongoing and evolving impacts related to
supply chain, instability abroad, trade, and fluctuations in
commodity prices and import costs further complicate our work.
Highly qualified personnel are imperative to our
preparation and execution of hearings, listening sessions,
roundtables, program audits, and accounting, legislative
drafting, and economic modeling and forecasting.
As we have shown, the reauthorization process also requires
extensive travel on a bipartisan basis, including farm bill
listening sessions across the country, among other activities
outside of the District of Columbia.
Additionally, you know, there are multiple reauthorizations
and legislative priorities outside of the farm bill, including
but not limited to budget reconciliation instructions,
Commodity Futures Trading Commission reauthorization, Grain
Standards Act reauthorization, development of legislation
related to digital assets, and oversight of USDA's delivery of
over $30 billion in economic and disaster assistance.
Each of these responsibilities require talented staff and
extensive travel outside of Washington, D.C., to hear from the
individuals impacted by every decision we make from farm to
nutrition, research to rural development.
As shared in the Committee's questionnaire, we are seeking
a 5-percent increase for staff salaries and related activities.
These additional resources will allow both the majority and the
minority to attract, maintain, and reward staff, something of
extreme importance to both of us. The institutional knowledge
of the Committee and its Members relies heavily on the
expertise, education, and diversity of the staff serving it.
Despite recent increases, Committee budgets have not kept
pace with our outsized inflation. This continues to plague our
ability to attract and retain highly specialized employees.
We certainly have a lofty agenda ahead and will work
tirelessly to enact that agenda with tenacity and fiscal
responsibility.
We appreciate your consideration of this request, and I am
happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Representative Thompson
follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE GLENN THOMPSON
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Chairman Steil. Thank you very much, Chairman Thompson.
Ranking Member Craig, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ANGIE CRAIG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Ms. Craig. Thank you so much, Chairman Steil, Ranking
Member Morelle, and Members of the House Administration
Committee. I am grateful to be here to talk to you about the
House Ag Committee's 119th Congress budget request.
I look forward to working with Chairman Thompson on all of
the work that we have ahead of us here in the Congress. As you
all know and have heard from the Chairman this morning, we need
to work together to pass a farm bill after a couple of
extensions. We also expect work on reconciliation. As Chairman
Thompson has expressed, work remains on the CFTC and
legislation surrounding digital assets.
As we all know, our staffs are key to our success in this
institution. To that end, as we shared with the Committee, we
request a 5-percent budget increase. These resources will allow
us to attract and retain experienced and knowledgeable staff.
I also appreciate the increase that the Committee received
last Congress, but our work has not let up. We still need to
pass a farm bill. We also expect some more farm bill listening
sessions to adequately inform our work, and it is incredibly
important to me that we do those on a bipartisan basis.
I appreciate the longstanding history of the majority
working with the minority on sharing resources for the minority
to accommodate our priorities and hope that relationship
continues in the 119th Congress.
We appreciate your consideration of this request, and I
look forward to any questions.
With that, I yield the remainder of my time.
[The prepared statement of Representative Craig follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE ANGIE CRAIG
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Ms. Lee.
[Presiding.] Thank you, Ranking Member Craig.
At this time, we will go to questions. We will have 5
minutes for the majority and then 5 minutes for the minority in
total.
I will start by recognizing myself. We are asking each
Committee that comes before us the same question as it relates
to cybersecurity.
Mr. Chairman, will you and the Ranking Member commit to
having your systems administrators meet with the House's CIO
team in the first quarter to discuss cybersecurity issues?
Mr. Thompson. Absolutely. My team is ready and willing to
meet with the House's CIO team about cybersecurity.
For the record, our IT team also participate in weekly
meetings with CAO and other Committees to discuss technology
updates and cybersecurity concerns. The IT team responds
promptly to all alerts from House cybersecurity, ensuring
issues are addressed without delay. Our Committee staff
complete annual cybersecurity training to stay informed about
the latest threats and reinforce the best practices in cyber
defense.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
Ranking Member Craig, will you also commit to that meeting
with the CIO to discuss cybersecurity in the first quarter?
Ms. Craig. Absolutely. We would be happy to meet in the
first quarter. Our staff as well take cybersecurity incredibly
important, and we also participate, obviously, in those weekly
meetings today with the CI--CAO.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
At this time I will recognize Representative Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
I want to note the hard work that the Agriculture Committee
does to support such a vital piece of our country's economy and
well-being. Chairman Thompson, I appreciate that you call us
essential America.
In your budget request, you mention that additional funds
are necessary to recruit and retain highly talented staff. This
must be a challenge with the new administration and the FDA
attracting staff. How do you plan on utilizing increased
funding to recruit or retain these qualified and talented
individuals?
Mr. Thompson. Well, Congresswoman, I appreciate the
question, and you are spot on with your observations. You know,
when it comes to the talent of agriculture, I think the staff
within both the majority and the minority are among the best in
the Nation and so--with any administration coming in, highly
recruited.
The increase that we requested will allow us to fund raises
for existing staff and fill our vacant slots. In several areas,
we have senior staff that have already departed for the
administration. This Nation will be well served by them having
the administration but leaves a big vacuum within our Committee
staff.
To fill these slots with similar experience or
institutional knowledge, this may require recruiting from the
private sector at a senior level. This is not a time when we
are losing senior staff, unfortunately.
Given I think the timing and the necessity of getting this
5-year farm bill and digital assets across the line and all of
the things that we have before us, you know, it may require
recruiting, again, a senior level.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
I noticed that you are requesting $438,500 for travel,
which is over twice the amount the Committee spent on travel
last Congress. With travel being a main priority for the
Committee this Congress, what do you hope that you and other
Members of your Committee will gain from these farm bill
listening sessions?
Mr. Thompson. Well, it is significant. Our farm bill is--to
approach things in what I call a tripartisan way, we need to be
working together, and I think our Ranking Member and myself and
our teams collectively do a really good job at that.
We also need to bring the voices or rural America, quite
frankly, every American because of the nutrition perspective of
the Agriculture Committee to the table. We need those
perspectives in order to determine what American agriculture,
what Americans, maybe not what they want but what they need.
Our work, the farm bills in particular, are created from
the voices of stakeholders outside the Beltway. Often we need
to travel to places to see crop and livestock diversity, issues
facing forest health and wildfire, visit research facilities
and land grant institutions.
We have 13 Members on our Committee collectively who are
new to Congress and many others who may not be aware of
regional differences and farm and resource production. It is
important for them to ditch their dress shoes and put on their
work boots and see firsthand the challenges in rural America,
or, as you know, I like to call it essential America.
We need continued engagement with rural America during all
phases of the farm bill process: drafting, markup, floor
consideration, and conference. Just as important, we need to
engage stakeholders directly during implementation of the new
farm bill. Lots of work ahead of us.
Additionally, Members and staff will need continued
engagement at conferences and meetings across the country. As
noted, this goes well beyond the farm bill, as we have many
other policy priorities, including digital assets legislation.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Chairman.
I yield back.
Ms. Lee. The gentlelady yields back.
At this time, I recognize Ranking Member Morelle for 5
minutes.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Chairman, you cannot always get what you want, but if
you try sometimes, well, you might find you get what you need.
You have come to the right place. Welcome.
To the Ranking Member, my good friend, Ms. Craig, thank you
for being here.
I want to start the tradition in the House has been the
dividing of dollars two-thirds/one-third. Mr. Chair, will you
continue to commit to making sure that Ms. Craig has access,
independent access to the one-third budget that she is entitled
to?
Mr. Thompson. Yes, absolutely. Our Committee follows the
two-third and one-third split for payroll budget, and the
majority controls the operating budget, and we have never had
an issue with obtaining supplies or equipment for either side.
Mr. Morelle. Ms. Craig, are you comfortable with that?
Ms. Craig. I am comfortable with it and can confirm that GT
and I are off to a great staff, and the staffs work very well
together, and we feel well supported.
Mr. Morelle. Great. Thank you.
I would say I know it is a surprise sometimes to people. I
am not sure why this is the case, but New York State, the No. 1
industry is still agriculture, and if you come from upstate New
York, as I do, it is a very, very significant part of what we
do.
I appreciate you mentioning also the nutrition programs,
which may not be on the top of minds as it relates to
agriculture, but it is certainly a big part of what you do, as
well as regulating the commodities markets and the financial
aspects of those instruments that bear on your responsibility.
You know, given--and I spoke to this yesterday, and I will
not go into a long thing here, but, you know, it is really
critically important for us to assert article I
responsibilities here, oversight. We are the policymakers under
the Supreme Court's rulings on the Chevron deference, which
really puts greater responsibilities on the Congress to be much
more detailed in policies as we pass them and not to--and give
deference to the various agencies.
Tell me how your requested budget provides you with the
ability to make sure you are doing both policymaking in a
detailed way in line with the Chevron decision, as well as
article I responsibilities for oversight.
Mr. Thompson. Well, Mr. Ranking Member, to me, when it
comes to performing our duties and responsibilities under
article I, I really do not care who is in the White House. I am
very proud to be a part of Congress. Under article I, the
checks and balances the great Nation has, you know, oversight
is an incredibly important role, and we plan to maintain the
robust oversight activities of the 118th Congress.
As Chairman, I have given all of our Subcommittees the
responsibility of overseeing the areas of their respective
jurisdictions. To me, what better place to place oversight.
These individuals, when they are placed on this Committee, as
they prepare to perform their duties, they become the experts
in these different areas of jurisdiction. I think they are in
the best position to really have a meaningful oversight
performance of their duties because of that.
Instead of siloing oversight into one corner of the
Committee, the responsibility is spread out to the issue area
experts. Certainly, with the Chevron deference, you know, that
is a part, as we go forward, to see what now becomes--any
necessary changes or anything that has changed as a result of
that Supreme Court ruling would be caught up in that oversight.
With the additional funding to hire more staff, I will be
adding to the oversight capacity of the Committee.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you.
Ms. Craig, any thoughts that you have on this subject?
Ms. Craig. Simply that I think we have to accomplish our
goal of oversight of USDA, and that includes ensuring that
congressionally appropriated funding is distributed by USDA,
which, of course, there are some challenges right now with.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you.
Just in closing, Mr. Chair, particularly in regards to Ms.
Miller's question about field hearings and moving out around
the country, as you have done it so far, have you been
comfortable with the coordination with the United States
Capitol Police and Sergeant at Arms? Because we are, obviously,
both sides of the aisle, very concerned about the threat levels
against Members and staff.
Mr. Thompson. Absolutely. Our Members are not going to be
able to perform their constitutional duties if they do not feel
safe. Our Committee staff works with Capitol Police on all
local security issues to ensure our meeting space is secure,
properly prepared, you know, no blocked exits, all the
considerations that, quite frankly, the Capitol Police and our
Sergeant at Arms can guide us in and really to secure our
meeting space, ensure our meeting space is secure and that we
follow all suggested security protocols.
We also work with them and the Sergeant at Arms' Office to
ensure our Members and staff are safe at field hearings,
listening sessions. They have done a great job coordinating
with local law enforcement and pre-assessing our security
circumstances but assessing also any security threats for our
Members.
Mr. Morelle. Well, before I yield, I am sure the chair and
I would both like to be apprised if there are any challenges
that you have in that regard. It is something we obviously have
spent a lot of time talking about and thinking about here.
Thanks so much.
I yield back.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Chairman Steil.
[Presiding.] Thank you both for being here. In particular,
I would just like to thank you for the coordinated work between
the Agriculture Committee and the Financial Services Committee,
in particular, in the digital asset space. Subcommittee
Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member Davis have both been
engaged in that and appreciate the cross-committee work.
We appreciate you and your testimony today.
We will pause while the witness panel exits and the new
arrives.
Mr. Thompson. All right. Thank you very much.
Chairman Steil. We now welcome our next panel of witnesses,
Chairwoman Foxx and Ranking Member McGovern from the Committee
on Rules.
We are giving 5 minutes to the chair and to the Ranking
Member. Then we will do 5 minutes of questions total for the
majority and minority, yielding amongst our colleagues.
We will dive right in and recognize you, Chairwoman Foxx,
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. VIRGINIA FOXX, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Morelle, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting
us to testify on Committee funding for the Rules Committee for
the 119th Congress.
I thank Ranking Member McGovern for the welcoming kind
words afforded to me since our organizing. Even more, I thank
him and the staff for the constructive, professional, and
business-first approach that they have maintained during the
transition.
I am humbled and honored to serve as chairwoman of the
Committee on Rules. I thank Speaker Johnson for placing his
trust and faith in me to lead this esteemed Committee.
As I said at the time of my appointment, the American
people gave President Trump and congressional Republicans a
mandate in November to turn our Republic around and move toward
a brighter and more prosperous future. Our Republican majority
in the people's House will achieve that end and will deliver
upon Speaker Johnson's and President Trump's agenda with
diligence and expediency, and we welcome our Democrat
colleagues to join us.
The Rules Committee on both sides has a long documented
history of respect for the House and its traditions. We respect
each other's Committee Members despite what one might see in
the middle of a hearing. The foundation for this posture can be
found in the very dynamics that we talk about in this hearing.
In short, the Ranking Member and I together request a 2.5-
percent increase in funding for the Rules Committee this
Congress. This comes on the heels of a flat funding request
last Congress. To be crystal clear, this translates to an
annual increase of just over $100,000.
A couple of media outlets insinuated that we are seeking an
$8 million increase. That figure is actually the total budget
figure for the 119th Congress. It is simply a case of sloppy
reporting.
As you all know, the Committee on Rules retains one of the
smallest budgets in the House of Representatives. This is the
case despite the fact that, without the Rules Committee, the
House of Representatives would be rendered inoperable; the
business we conduct would be at a standstill.
Indeed, everything from the creation of the Rules of the
House to the creation of select committees to the week's
legislative agenda to the granular decisions of minutes of
debate on an amendment is all predicated on a fully functioning
Rules Committee.
While we may have a small scale in terms of budget
manpower, our workflow is immense, and the timelines prove to
be intense.
As you all know, the agenda for the week can turn on a
dime. A national emergency or an environmental catastrophe or a
matter of national security may bring emergent measures to the
floor with little notice. However, we cannot retain the
flexibility or nimbleness required without capacity. Meaning
capacity to keep staff and resources on hand for eventualities.
Payroll continues to serve as the Committee's main factor
reflected in our budgeting. In addition, to tackle the unique
workflow, the Committee invested in a custom, automated system.
Without the system, our ability to process the thousands of
amendments we receive over the course of a Congress would grind
to a halt.
Much of this maintenance is billed hourly, and we are
limited in our ability to predict maintenance cost for this
workflow. To give you a picture of the needs of this workflow,
this Committee processed over 1,390 amendments in the last
Congress, the 118th. This is well over the nearly 8,700
processed in the 117th Congress, a historic 62-percent
increase.
While the increase we are seeking might be modest, it is
necessary. Our ability to deliver the House's business as well
as the Republican Conference's commitment to maximum
inclusiveness in the legislative process is fully at stake.
Please understand that, as a notoriously frugal Member of
Congress, this budget request came with the requisite diligence
and thoughtfulness that you might expect from a Foxx
Chairwomanship.
Thank you for your time and consideration, and I am pleased
to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Representative Foxx follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE VIRGINIA FOXX
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Chairman Steil. You are notoriously frugal, but that is a
good attribute, Chairwoman Foxx.
Ranking Member McGovern, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES P. MCGOVERN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Mr. McGovern. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Morelle, and Members of the Committee on House Administration.
I am pleased to be joining Chairwoman Foxx today in presenting
our request for funding for the Committee on Rules for the
119th Congress. I cannot believe I am about to say this, but I
agree with her.
Our Committee is unique. Our primary mission is not to
write laws nor conduct direct oversight but, rather, to
facilitate the work of all other Committees and of the House
itself. We take the responsibility of keeping this institution
functioning very seriously, and I believe that we have
succeeded in being a resource for all Members and staff serving
here.
A big part of that success has been our ability to hire and
to retain our extraordinary staff on both sides of the aisle.
We have also succeeded by keeping our disagreements where they
belong, on matters of substance.
When it comes to the logistics of running the Committee and
working within the budget allocated to us, I look forward to
continuing our long tradition of being good partners across the
aisle. I am also grateful that Chairwoman Foxx is continuing
our Committee's long tradition of providing the minority full
control over one-third of our overall budget.
I strongly support the request of this Committee from the
Chairwoman that we be allocated 2.5 percent more funding for
each of the next 2 years as we were provided in each of the
last 3 years. These fundings are vital to allow us to continue
supporting this institution, from its leadership to its
Committees to the staffs of every single Member.
While that may sound like a sizable increase, it really is
not because of how small our budget is to start with. Our
budget is less than half of the average Committee budget, and
the Committee with the highest budget has a budget nearly four
times ours.
We requested and received flat funding for each of the past
2 years because we crunched the numbers and did not actually
need more to do our work, but now we do. Since we last received
an increase, other Committees have had their budgets increased
by an average of $925,000 each. We are now asking for about a
tenth of the increase that other Committees have already
received over the past 3 years.
As Ranking Member Morelle and Congresswoman Torres know
from personal experience, and as Representative Griffith will
now get to see up close, our work does not run on a schedule
limited by business hours. We know long days and late nights
better than anyone else in these halls.
Further, our workload has grown significantly in recent
years and looks to continue growing. The Chairwoman mentioned
that, in just one Congress, we saw a 62-percent increase in
amendment submissions. What is even more striking to me is
that, prior to that increase, the rate of submissions had
already doubled since I first became Ranking Member.
Our Committee has made major modernization and efficiency
improvements over the past few years to be able to handle the
incredible amendment volume on a clerical level, but we still
need adequate professional staff to be able to actually review
all of these ideas or make quality recommendations to our
Members about how each should be treated.
Last Congress, we used every dollar of our minority
allotment. If we are flat funded, our inflation-adjusted budget
will be 7 percent less than it was 3 years ago. We simply
cannot recruit and retain the staff we need to support the
legislative functions of the entire House at that level.
With the vital functions we perform for the House and every
other Committee depending on our fast and accurate work, this
is a very modest and reasonable request and a necessary one.
I thank each of you for your time and attention, and I am
happy to answer any questions that you may have and defer any
hard ones to the Chairwoman.
[The prepared statement of Representative McGovern
follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MCGOVERN
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Chairman Steil. We thank you both for your testimony.
I yield to myself for 5 minutes for questions. One question
we have asked every chair and Ranking Member is, will you
commit to having your systems administrator meet with the
House's CIO team in the first quarter to discuss cybersecurity?
Ms. Foxx. Absolutely, yes.
Mr. McGovern. Yes.
Chairman Steil. Thank you.
I will yield to Mr. Griffith, also a Member of the Rules
Committee, for questions.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much.
Madam Chair, you covered this in your statement, but I do
think it is worth underlining. The Rules Committee's request
for a 2.5-percent budget increase, can you tell us how much
that is in real U.S. dollars?
Ms. Foxx. It is just over $100,000. As I said, somehow or
another the press has not reported accurately what our request
is, and I would like to make sure that it is out there
correctly.
Mr. Griffith. All right.
Now, the Rules' electronic database is crucial for
submitting and processing amendments for consideration on the
House floor, and you noted in your budget request that it could
use some improvements. What potential updates to the electronic
database could additional funds address?
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Griffith, and we are glad to have
you on the Committee, and I think you will see this, as Mr.
McGovern said.
The Committee utilizes a very specific and unique database
to assist in managing our workflow. The system is called
Committee on Rules Electronic Database, or the CORE database.
We refer to it simply as CORE. While CORE has proved very
effective and extremely valuable, there is ample opportunity to
improve it.
The most acute change that the staff is exploring is
allowing for multiple editors to work congruently and in real
time. CORE lacks that functionality now, but gaining it would
increase efficiency considerably.
Additionally, the Committee will continue to look at ways
to integrate CORE with the pipeline of technology products,
like xPub, and seek to refine our database management
capabilities to ensure the Committee can handle the massive
increase in amendments we have experienced. Of course, that
costs a little bit of money to do the upgrade. I think
everybody understands that.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Can you tell us, as you were putting the budget submission
together, the process and what the main consideration was when
you were preparing this request?
Ms. Foxx. Well, again, we need to be able to process the
amendments that are coming in. As Mr. McGovern says, we meet at
many different times of the day and night, and the main thing
is to serve the other Members as efficiently as we possibly
can. Nobody likes having to be working late at night, and if we
can use technology to make it better for everybody, that is
what we are interested in doing.
Mr. Griffith. Yes, ma'am. Of course, you want to keep the
good staff that you have.
Ms. Foxx. Absolutely.
Mr. Griffith. I have to tell you, Mr. Chairman, I have been
very impressed with minority staff. I make comments on the
weekend, and they have got it ready for Rules meeting to, you
know, push back.
I just have to say I enjoy debating. It is not personal,
but the Committee has some really good intellectual debates,
and I appreciate that.
With that, I will yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for 5 minutes of
questions.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Chairwoman Foxx and Ranking Member
McGovern, for being here. I am only sorry that Mr. Griffith and
I did not get a chance to serve on the Rules Committee
together. I hold out the 4 years I served on the Rules
Committee as a joyous time to be in Congress. I enjoyed every
minute under the leadership of then Chair McGovern and Ranking
Member Cole.
I mean this sincerely: It is an amazing opportunity, to
your point, Mr. Griffith, just the give and take and not being
limited to 5 minutes in the discussion. I think it is really an
opportunity to learn a great deal about legislation before the
House.
I will say something--I do not have much in the way of
questions because Mr. McGovern has already referenced one of
the questions I asked, which is whether the minority will be
given the independence to spend their third of the budget as
they see fit. In many ways, the article I responsibilities of
oversight and authorization does not really apply to Rules
because you have a unique role in the House.
I would say this, and I am probably unique, I think the
Rules Committee probably needs a bigger budget. Now, maybe next
year you will come with a bigger one. I think, given the number
of amendments now being submitted--and I do not know; I would
love to ask, and I do not know, Ms. Foxx, if you have the
historical data. I think, even just my 4 years, the growth in
the number of amendments submitted to the Rules Committee was
growing I think exponentially.
I do not know if you have--even as I recall, I think it was
the NDAA in particular, if anybody has the number of amendments
submitted, for instance, on the NDAA in the last several years,
I would be just curious for the record if you know that, or if
you just know it in total how many amendments have been
submitted.
Mr. McGovern. Well, I will just say, a few years ago, as I
mentioned in my statement, the number of submissions doubled,
and it has gone up like 67 percent since then. We can get you
the exact numbers.
20 years ago, it was about 100 amendments on average on the
NDAA. Now it is over 1,000. Look, part of I think what we are
both saying here is that we are blessed with incredible staff.
Mr. Griffith acknowledged that on both the majority and the
minority side. These people work unbelievably hard and long,
long hours. We want to retain them.
I mean, it is important to have people who have an
institutional knowledge of the way this place works, and, you
know, again, we want to keep them here. It is a value to all of
us. You know, again, I would echo what the Chairwoman said. I
mean, what we are asking for is very modest, but it is
necessary.
Ms. Foxx. I would like to express my agreement with Mr.
McGovern today. You are getting us to agree again on the staff.
We will get you, Mr. Morelle, the exact numbers, but I agree
with what Mr. McGovern said. It has gone from a very small
number, like around 100, to over 1,000, and we will get you the
exact number of amendments.
Mr. Morelle. Yes. I use it primarily just to make a point
here, which is, you know, at a time when we are I think as
Americans--and it does not matter which side of this debate you
are on--but it is clear that the role of Congress vis-a-vis the
executive--not just because of the current occupant of the
White House but the Supreme Court in the Loper Bright decision,
among other decisions last year, knocked out the Chevron
deference, which means Congress is going to have to do more
work. It is not only going to be able to send up--and I have to
say--I am sorry. I am taking more time than I usually do, Mr.
Chair, but I will just make a point because this is such an
important Committee in my view.
When I came from the State legislature to Congress, I was,
frankly, surprised at how much detail we had worked on when I
was at the State level in legislation. It was very specific,
often giving powers to the commissioners, which is like the
Secretaries here, but much more detailed.
I was frankly surprised when I came to Congress how much
latitude was given to agencies on rulemaking. I do not think
that is one side or the other. That is just--and Chevron
deference, the lack of it now means that burden will fall more
to Congress than it ever has before.
In order to do that, as Members who engage in the process
need to make amendments on legislation, needs to be considered
by you and, I agree, it is an amazing staff that I have high
regard for, but institutionally--and I have no power to do
this, so I am just using my 5 minutes to make a paid political
advertisement--I do think, for our responsibilities as an
institution, we need to equip people with more resources to be
able to do their job adequately to protect the interest of the
American people.
Whichever side of it we are on, I just think this is really
important. Hopefully, next year, we will be looking at--or 2
years from now----
Mr. McGovern. If I can just give you the numbers, in Fiscal
Year 2020, on the NDAA, 683 amendments were submitted; in
Fiscal Year 2024, it was 1,558.
Mr. Morelle. It is astonishing in some way.
Mr. McGovern. I want to echo what you just said. If you
want to give us more, you can.
Mr. Morelle. It is beyond my powers, my mere powers as a
mortal, but I just think--it gave me a chance to make a speech,
too, so I always appreciate that.
With that, thank you both for being here.
I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
We appreciate both of your testimony today. It helps guide
us through the budget allocation process.
The Committee will pause while the witness panel exits.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really want to
memorialize what Mr. Morelle said about the role of Congress
and oversight of the executive branch. I think that has been--
we have had difficulty with that, and it is so wonderful, Mr.
Morelle, to hear you express those comments.
Mr. McGovern. I love all of this agreement.
Chairman Steil. You are welcomed back to the Committee on
House Administration any time.
All right. We reconvene as we welcome our next panel of
witnesses. Chairman Arrington, Ranking Member Boyle, we
appreciate both of you being here today. I know it is a
uniquely busy day on the Committee on Budget. Obviously, today
we are talking about the allocation of funds to fund the
Committee to do their work. Budget but in a different context.
We are giving each of you 5 minutes for an opening
statement. The minority and majority will then have 5 minutes
in total to ask questions, yielding between our colleagues.
We will get moving right away, and I will recognize
Chairman Arrington for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JODEY C. ARRINGTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. Arrington. I thank the Chairman and the Members of this
Committee. I will keep this short and sweet, except for the
fiscal State of affairs for our Nation and the people's
Government is not sweet. It is bitter. It is extremely bitter
by the way.
We are robbing the private sector of $2 trillion now
annually. That is the deficit. That is a massive drag on our
growth potential, jobs, wages all affected by that. It is also
massively upward pressure on inflation, which absolutely is the
most regressive tax on working families.
It also keeps interest rates high, long-term interest rates
specifically. People are going to--that American dream of
owning a home becomes more and more elusive. It is evaporating
before our eyes because of the degeneration of our fiscal
strength, which affects the economy.
Then, last, let me be clear: If we do not change the
current fiscal trajectory we are on, with wartime level
deficits, pandemic levels of deficits at 7 percent GDP,
surpassing World War II levels of indebtedness at over 120
percent gross debt to GDP, and interest payments on the debt at
almost a trillion dollars, which is more than we are paying out
both to fund the Defense Department of the greatest military in
the world and more than we are paying out for Medicare benefits
to our blessed fellow Americans who happen to be seniors, we
cannot sustain it. If we do not intervene now, then really bad
things will happen. The biggest thing that I am concerned about
is a sovereign debt crisis, where those who lend us that $2
trillion annually that is now $36 trillion in debt, they will
not lend us that money anymore to pay for all these programs
and promises that we have made to the American people.
Quite frankly, it affects the things that I care the most
about, like we have to defend our country's interests. We have
to provide for the common defense. Even my Democrat colleague
has interesting programs that are in jeopardy because of our
fragile fiscal situation. The time is now for us to begin
turning the ship. We cannot dig out of a $36 trillion debt hole
overnight.
The biggest issue is not the dollars and cents that I am
throwing at you right now. It is the moral question that our
first President and father of this country commented on
emphatically in his farewell address: Do not put on another
generation of Americans a debt you are not willing to pay for.
It is an issue, Mr. Chairman, of morality, and so,
therefore, we have to lead by example. I think, the last few
years, at least the last Congress, we have asked to keep our
budgets flat, even though the activities have gone way up.
We have passed more bills collectively with my friend and
Ranking Member to fix the broken budget process than any Budget
Committee since the 1974 Budget Act that created this
Committee. We are doing good work together.
We have certainly disagreements and some strong
disagreements, but we are doing the people's work to make this
process work so that the outcomes are more responsible, so that
we are all more accountable to what we are doing to our
children and what we are doing to our fellow Americans' country
and their future.
I request we keep this flat. We will keep the ratio that we
have agreed to in the tradition of working together. That is my
request, Mr. Chairman.
Not so short of a testimony, but thank you for lending me
your ear.
Chairman Steil. Mr. Arrington yields back.
Mr. Boyle is recognized.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRENDAN F. BOYLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Boyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member. I
have to leave in literally 1 minute. By the way, that is a
practice I would recommend to all of you for your future
witnesses if you want to keep them short. Make sure they are
scheduled when they have to be somewhere else in approximately
a minute.
I will just say this, because we are going to have--there
is a lot that my good friend, Jodey, our Chairman, who I know
is working very hard right now and is a passionate believer in
those things in which he believes, there is a lot of what he
said that I would like to respond to. I will not take that
opportunity here because I think we are going to have plenty of
time together, spend some quality time together tomorrow.
I will say I am very proud of the friendship and the
relationship that we have built. We came into the Committee
with a preexisting friendship but have really gotten to know
each other seemingly very well over the last 2 years, and we
have vigorous disagreements. I think you will see that on
display tomorrow.
At the same time, even with that, I agree with the
Chairman. We have more pieces of legislation passed in our
Committee last term than I think in the history of the Budget
Committee, which dates back exactly a half century. It is a
credit to his leadership as chair, and I hope can take part of
some of that credit as Ranking Member.
I hope and believe and other Members have said that we have
set a tone of seriousness and civility even while we both have
passionately held views.
I accept that, again, we will have a flatlined budget year
over year. I am confident that we will be able to exercise our
responsibilities as a Committee, a Committee that really has
increased in terms of its activity relative to where it was at
any time that I have been here.
Finally, let me say this: I really want to thank my staff
director, Greg Waring; the majority staff director, Gary
Andres; Paige, Erica, and the entire Republican and Democratic
staffs. They work very hard. I know they are working very hard
right now and will be over the course of the next couple days.
It is a pleasure to work with them.
I think we have built a great camaraderie on this
Committee, and I am very proud of the work that we have done.
With that, I will yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
I will recognize myself for 5 minutes for asking questions.
I know the Ranking Member needs to step out.
I have asked every chair and Ranking Member one question
out of the gate, which is a simple yes-or-no question. Quick
yes or no question for you and the Ranking Member. We will
submit it to the Ranking Member. Whether or not you are willing
to commit to having your systems administrator meet with the
House's CIO team in the first quarter to discuss cybersecurity
issues?
Mr. Arrington. Absolutely and of course.
Chairman Steil. In your budget, as noted, you are putting
your money where your mouth is, zero-percent increase. The
Ranking Member and I have had conversations about the
importance of Chevron deference, about making sure that the
House is doing its job.
Uniquely in this Congress, where not only will you have the
work of the traditional work of the Budget Committee but with a
heightened attention with reconciliation coming forward, do you
believe that you will then have the resources knowing the
extensive expertise required amongst your staff without a
budget increase?
Mr. Arrington. I believe we have the resources from our
Committee and our Committee operation. What I am not sure is if
we have the political will yet, but I will report that out I
think in another venue.
Chairman Steil. Maybe to build on that, there is a handful
of vacancies currently at the Committee. Do you anticipate
filling those out?
Mr. Arrington. Mr. Chairman, by the way, when I say
``political,'' that is not from the staff. That is from the
Members.
Chairman Steil. Absolutely.
I will follow up on the question. There is a handful of
vacancies on the staff slots. There are two aspects of that,
right? There is the staff slots and then actually whether or
not those are filled, which, obviously, impacts the budget. Do
you anticipate that those staff slots will be filled throughout
this Congress? Are you facing any challenges?
We see this with the administration picking people up,
private sector. Often we find it difficult for Committees----
Mr. Arrington. Yes, it is hard to keep good talent with
what we pay versus the private sector. We have to have the
resources like any operation, any organization to make sure
that we are buttoned up, that the numbers are accurate, that we
are executing, and that goes for the Ranking Member and myself.
Look, when you commit to holding things flat for the last
few years here--it would be 2 years and then going forward for
another 4--by the way, if we held discretionary spending flat
for 4 years, we would save $1.2 trillion over the next 10
years. We hold the people's budget flat for 2 years, and it is
half of that, over a half a trillion dollars.
We want to lead by example, and if that means we have to
make some difficult choices on staffing, we will do that, but
you have got to have the teamwork to make the dream work,
right, and you have to have the right talent.
We will look at that among other ways to save money, but we
will not do it at the expense of being able to execute on the
activities that we have been entrusted with.
Chairman Steil. Absolutely.
I look to my colleagues, if either would like to ask a
question. I will yield to Mr. Griffith.
Mr. Griffith. I am going to go historical on you. You
referenced Washington's comments. Do you think that he made
those comments because the greatest crisis we ever had with our
finances occurred under the Articles of Confederation when the
Continental became worthless, and we had a hard time paying our
debts? We did eventually get them paid.
Washington would have witnessed all of that. Do you think
that is part of why he made the comment you just referenced?
Mr. Arrington. I am certain of it. In fact, he referenced
that, when you are in times of war, you have to take on some
debt to fight for your freedom and for the preservation of the
Republic. He foresaw that that might happen again in the
future, but he said, when that time has come and gone, you must
quickly shed that debt, lest you put on the next generation a
debt burden you are not willing to bear yourselves.
I see $36 trillion in debt. I see $21 trillion added to
that. That is the projections from CBO over the next 10 years.
We are doing exactly what George Washington warned us against.
The level of deficit to GDP is wartime, but we are in relative
peace and prosperity.
What if we have a shock to the system, another pandemic, a
conflict, a major power conflict? I am very concerned.
Now is the time to get us in a position of strength, not
just for us and the generations today but those who are
counting on us to pass this down better than we found it.
Mr. Griffith. I thank the gentleman. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. Mr. Griffith yields back.
I yield back.
I recognize the Ranking Member for 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being here. I am
sorry Mr. Boyle had to leave. My first question was going to be
I wonder how long it would take to wipe the smile off his face
after the Eagles win, but I guess he is not here to answer
that. We all just have to suffer.
Mr. Arrington. I can only hope that that win will have good
will carried over to our budget resolution markup.
Mr. Morelle. Let us hope. Let us hope.
I appreciate you being here. I had the great privilege of
serving on the Budget Committee for my first 4 years here in
Congress under Chairman Smith, and certainly wish you continued
good luck and good fortune as we work through this.
I did want to, just because it is brought up, and I
appreciate your reference to general and then President
Washington at a time when the world was very different. I think
we would all acknowledge that. At the time, the U.S. dollar was
clearly not international currency and the reserve currency
that it now is. Some degree of issuing bonds to help finance
world activities is critical.
I share your real concerns about growing debt, the amount
that we pay on debt annually, which, as you rightly point out,
exceeds our defense budget. You know, the notion that we could
spend a trillion dollars on other things instead of the debt or
even a significant portion of that, hundreds of billions we
could do to uplift people in this country. I share with you
your concern.
You know, for those who are not concerned about it, I think
it is important to know, when interest rates rise, as we have
seen. That means we pay more on that debt. War and natural
disasters are harder to fund when you have already stretched
your ability to do it. I think there are real concerns.
I will say this: As you are dealing with this, since you
are here, you know, I think any reasonable person would
recognize that, if the U.S. Government is spending $5, $6, $7
trillion a year, pick a number, and it is roughly $6 trillion,
I think, outlays last year, that, even as a rounding error,
there are things that we could do which saves significant
amount of dollars in the course of doing that.
I will just editorialize. I think the slash and burn that
is going on right now by Mr. Musk and some of his cohorts is
not the way to do this, but I think there is clearly a place
where we can all agree that there would be savings.
I also think that a reasonable person would conclude in a
time of enormous debt and real pressures that, even as we are
reducing the increase in expenditures or even get to flat
funding potentially, if we could weed out things that, perhaps,
are not essential, that cutting the rate of revenues at the
same time could lead to disaster as well.
I think in my mind--and I am not in charge of anything
here, so I will just make an observation--that a coming
together of both sides in a real way to look at the long-term
interests of this country, which include a real discussion
about both revenues and expenditures, so that we get to a point
where, as measured against GDP, which is really the best way to
measure, and you have raised that--we are now at roughly 122
percent I think of GDP--that you need to look at both elements
of it. What is in the interest of the American public, and how
do we move forward?
Just thank you for your comments. I am wildly off topic
because that is not my job here today, but since you are here
and since you raised it.
I do want to ask whether or not, given the role--and I
think the Chairman referenced it, and we have been talking
about Chevron deference and the fact that it is gone now, and
in light of that decision, it really requires more of Congress
rather than less, and we are going to have to do more.
Do you feel you have adequate resources as it relates to
your role in making sure that we are able to fulfill those
obligations in light of the Loper Bright decision to remove
Chevron deference?
Mr. Arrington. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.
We have the resources. The issue, like many in Washington,
I think you might agree with this, is not do we have the
resources or do we have the solutions, the policy reforms, but
do we have the political will to restore article I by leading
and being responsible for our oversight, for the powers of the
purse, and acting responsibly.
I cannot write that in the legislation. The American people
have to hold us accountable to that. In terms of financial
resources, I agree.
Let me, if I may, just to respond to your comment earlier.
The long-term unfunded liabilities--think about this--the long-
term, 30-year unfunded liabilities on top of the highest level
of indebtedness today, $36 trillion, is $125 trillion. We will
never make that if we do not intervene.
Most of the big things that we have to do to resolve these
matters and to return to a sustainable level of debt to GDP we
are going to need to do together with Republicans and
Democrats, kind of like Ronald Reagan did with Tip O'Neill.
That was the last big deal that was done to put us on that
sustainable path.
Know this, we cannot have 1.8 percent growth rates and get
there either. To take the pressure off the reduction in
spending, we have got to get back to 2.5, 3 percent growth
rates. One percent of growth over 10 years from where we are at
1.8 is $3 trillion in additional revenue or savings toward the
deficit. We also need to work together on that.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. Arrington. Thank you, Ranking Member.
Mr. Morelle. Yes. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
Chairman Arrington, we appreciate you being here on what is
an incredibly busy day and busy week for you.
The Committee will pause while the witness panel exits.
Thank you.
Mr. Arrington. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Steil. I now welcome our next panel of witnesses,
Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Connolly from the Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform.
We are using this Committee to have a conversation about
every Committee's budget as we go through the allocation
process. We have had a lot of conversations about the ending of
Chevron deference, about how we make sure our Committees are
robustly staffed to make sure that we are providing proper
oversight. No Committee more important on the oversight side
than this Committee.
We will recognize each of you for 5 minutes for opening
statements. We will have 5 minutes for questions total on the
minority and the majority side yielding amongst our colleagues.
We will dive right in. I will recognize you, Chairman
Comer, for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES COMER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY
Mr. Comer. Well, thank you, Chairman Steil and Ranking
Member Morelle, for holding this Committee funding hearing
today.
Ranking Member Connolly and I are pleased to submit the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's budget
request for the 119th Congress.
Our budget request seeks an appropriate amount to
facilitate the Oversight Committee's important mission of
rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal Government
programs. The Committee also has key legislative jurisdiction
over items such as the Federal civil service.
If accepted, our request is only for a modest increase of
less than 10 percent, not adjusting for inflation, compared to
the budget of the 118th Congress.
This budget will operate the full Committee and its seven
Subcommittees, including the recently formed Subcommittee on
Delivering on Government Efficiency. Ranking Member Connolly
and the minority will receive 33 percent of the budget and
staff positions to use at his discretion.
As I mentioned earlier, our Committee's purpose is to
protect taxpayer dollars from fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement, and to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and
accountability of the Federal Government. This budget request
is an investment in oversight. It is an investment in skilled
staff and a commitment to travel as needed to conduct oversight
and follow investigative leads.
To conduct fulsome oversight and meaningful, credible
investigations, the Committee needs skilled and experienced
staff. The Committee has recruited and continues to recruit
staff with oversight expertise and diverse skill sets.
Our proposed budget will allow the Committee to not only
recruit but retain experienced legal and investigative staff to
do our important oversight work.
Our budget request anticipates 133 total staff positions
for the Committee, both majority and minority, which maintains
the total staff slots from 118th Congress.
In addition to a robust hearing schedule, working with
whistleblowers and conducting investigations out of our
congressional offices here in D.C., the Committee plans to hold
field hearings, perform site visits, and conduct investigative
work in our States.
To understand Americans' needs, priorities, and concerns,
we must hear directly from them. Oversight travel is a
necessary expense and will allow us to conduct robust oversight
on behalf of the American people.
In closing, Ranking Member Connolly and I appreciate your
consideration of our budget request. We also appreciate your
commitment to our Committee's oversight mission. We are looking
forward to fulfilling this important mission during the 119th
Congress.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Representative Comer follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE COMER
GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Chairman Steil. Thank you, Chairman Comer.
Ranking Member Connolly, you are now recognized for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. GERALD E. CONNOLLY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Morelle. Great to be with you today. I want to thank the
Chairman, Chairman Comer, for the collaborative approach with
which he and his staff have approached this budget.
Our request for a combined budget of $32,864,613 to operate
our Committee is a modest increase from the previous funding
allocation and recognition that our Committee will take on what
I hope will be robust oversight in the 119th Congress.
Importantly, our bipartisan request maintains the allocated
Committee staff slots from the 118th Congress, as Chairman
Comer has indicated, which is 133 staff slots.
As the principal investigative body of the House of
Representatives, our Committee holds a unique and consequential
role. It has authority to investigate the subjects within our
Committee's legislative jurisdiction as well as any matter--any
matter--within the jurisdiction of the other standing House
Committees.
Our legislative jurisdiction includes many timely issues,
such as the Federal workforce, District of Columbia, the United
States Postal Service, the National Archives, Government
procurement, Federal IT, just to name a few.
To meet the demands of this expansive oversight mandate,
our Committee currently has seven Subcommittees, up from five
in the previous Congress.
To faithfully carry out our mission for the American
people, we must rely on smart, talented, and experienced staff
who work long hours and make personal sacrifices in order to
service our Nation and this institution, the U.S. Congress.
They bring technical and investigative experience that our
Members and the American people rely on and benefit from.
Moreover, the nature of our work often extends beyond the
Halls of Congress. It takes us into communities impacted by
crisis and policy decisions. From the devastation we have
witnessed in places like North Carolina and Los Angeles, we
have seen firsthand the necessity of field hearings, site
visits, and fact-finding missions.
These efforts bring Government closer to the people,
ensuring that those most affected by Federal policies have a
voice in the oversight of the process.
Our constituents and the American people need a Government
to work for them. This Committee is tasked with delivering
that. I believe that the budget request allows us to try to
fulfill that mission in its completion.
I thank my colleague, Mr. Comer, for his bipartisanship,
and I thank you all for your attention today.
I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
I appreciate both of you being here today, in particular
Chairman Comer, where our Committees overlap as it relates to
election integrity, in particular as it relates to your
oversight of the Nation's Capital here in Washington, D.C.,
which has had some pretty poor practices as relates to election
integrity.
Let me jump in. A question I have asked both chair and
Ranking Member of every Committee is: Will you commit to having
your system administrator meet with the House's CIO as it
relates to cybersecurity in the first quarter of this year?
Yes?
Mr. Comer. Absolutely. We try to make sure that our systems
are secure, but we will continue to meet regularly, yes.
Chairman Steil. Thank you.
Mr. Connolly. Absolutely.
Chairman Steil. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Chairman Comer, you created a new Subcommittee this year. A
real focus in the first quarter of this year after President
Trump was elected I think in a really positive way is oversight
over Government efficiency across the board. It is obviously
front and center for the Trump administration. It is front and
center for Congress. You created the DOGE Subcommittee on
Oversight.
Could you provide us a little color on that, and then the
funding request that is associated with it?
Mr. Comer. Absolutely. Of course, this is dominating the
airwaves. You see it is probably--DOGE is probably mentioned
more by both parties in the House of Representatives than
anything right now.
We have created a Subcommittee to focus exclusively on the
mission of DOGE, and that is to identify waste, fraud, abuse,
and mismanagement in the Federal Government.
The Chairwoman, Ms. Green, is in communication with Musk,
regular communication, and his people. We are having a
Committee hearing now. I just left that Committee hearing. Lots
of interest from the American people. I believe it was covered
live on CNN and Fox.
What we are trying to do is be transparent with what DOGE
is doing. We are working hand in hand. A lot of the stuff they
identify and their objectives we are having hearings to not
only amplify but also to figure out solutions.
When you identify the waste, it is one thing, but you have
got to make sure that the problem gets solved. I think that has
been a problem with oversight in the past. We have done a good
job identifying waste, just no one is ever held accountable,
and the wasteful spending does not stop.
DOGE is going to work very closely with the Musk team to
ensure that the goals are met from a legislative standpoint.
Chairman Steil. Terrific.
I look to my colleagues if they would like me to yield, but
otherwise I have another question I can go to.
Let me build on what you were just speaking about. Your
Committee uniquely requires a wide array of expertise because
the oversight jurisdiction that you have is very broad.
Mr. Comer. Right.
Chairman Steil. As you look at the competition you are
feeling at the private sector against, in particular, this
administration probably looking for some of the talent that you
developed over the past handful of years, do you feel you have
the resources you need to be able to compete, or is there
anything that this Committee should be looking at?
Mr. Comer. I think with our request we will be able to do
that. We need lawyers, accountants. We need the most skilled of
all Government employees because there is a lot of auditing.
There are a lot of specific scenarios where we are meeting with
whistleblowers and we are trying to comply with whistleblower
protection laws and things like that.
It is not just Washington, D.C., the Federal Government
waste. We took some trips to the border to meet with Border
Patrol. We actually deposed some Border Patrol members at the
border to make it easier for them.
We do a lot of depositions. That obviously requires legal
expertise. Now we are really looking at improper payments.
There is a need for auditing expertise on the Committee as
well.
Chairman Steil. You do a series of investigative trips. You
referenced the border. Is that both staff and Members that you
are often taking there? That is actually an efficiency to do
that----
Mr. Comer. Yes.
Chairman Steil [continuing]. because you can bring the team
down there and depose the people.
Mr. Comer. It is cheaper to go down there than fly them up
here and put them in a hotel room. It is easier because people
always come up with excuses, ``Well, I cannot this day, I
cannot that day.''
When we need information, we will go to them. We have a lot
of people that have concerns that we have to meet with. You
could call them whistleblowers. I call a whistleblower a
Federal employee that actually takes the whistleblower
designation. We have lots of people that call with concerns.
Some of these concerns pan out. Some of them do not. It
just takes a lot of staff time, a lot of staff expertise to be
able to navigate all the complaints and expressions of concern
that we receive from the American people.
Chairman Steil. Well, I appreciate you being here. You have
got a lot of very important work ahead of you this Congress.
I will yield back. I will now recognize the Ranking Member
for 5 minutes for the purpose of asking questions.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being here.
Ranking Member Connolly, thank you for being here as well.
I apologize if you have said this or if the chair asked
this question while I stepped out of the room. The traditional
two-third/one-third split in funding for the Committee, I just
want to make sure, Mr. Chair, that you will continue to respect
the minority's one-third----
Mr. Comer. Absolutely.
Mr. Morelle [continuing]. and allow them the independence
to spend the money as they see fit.
Mr. Comer. Absolutely. We are excited that Mr. Connolly is
the Ranking Member, and my staff has enjoyed working with his
staff thus far.
Mr. Morelle. Great. Thank you.
I think this was touched on, and I think the chair
referenced the Loper Bright decision last year by the Supreme
Court which eliminated Chevron deference.
One of the challenges for Congress moving forward, I think,
no matter where you are, on which side of the aisle, the role
that Congress will play in policymaking is going to become much
more detailed.
The requirements are going to put much greater pressure on
congressional committees in the House and Senate to be far more
specific than we have been, which is going to put a greater
burden on your Committee because it will also mean more
oversight of the things that Congress has authorized.
Given that, I would like to hear from both of you as to
whether or not you feel you have the resources to carry out
those article I responsibilities, particularly in light of the
removal of Chevron deference.
Mr. Comer. You want you or me?
Mr. Connolly. Well, the question is: Do we have the
resources? Obviously, on our side of the aisle, we would prefer
the resources Mr. Comer has. I think we have approached the
budget in a professional way and a bipartisan way.
On the Democratic side of the aisle, we do feel there has
been a fair distribution of resources and we can meet the task
with the resources we have.
Mr. Comer. I agree with Mr. Connolly. The staff spent a lot
of time preparing the budget, and I think we can live with
that, and we commit to working with the minority on what their
percentage is supposed to be.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you both for that.
I will just reiterate something I have said to a number of
different Committees that have come in front of us.
Given what is happening now with the new administration,
again, without regard to how you feel about the actions in
terms of substantively, the process is chaotic.
The need to do executive order instead of legislation when
you control both Houses of Congress seems to me is wildly
wrong, misdirected. Most of these things, including empowering
DOGE and doing the other things that the administration
apparently wants to do, should be done legislatively instead of
in a regulatory way or by fiat or executive order.
I hope--and this is just my personal view--I just hope that
you will use the dollars that are being appropriated to you in
a way that allows you to continue to carry that mission out,
because much of this is precedent setting, and setting
precedent means that not only is Congress' role vis-a-vis this
administration but Congress' role vis-a-vis any administration
in the future.
Many of us will likely continue to serve in Congress beyond
this administration. We would do well to be mindful of those
responsibilities and the fact that the Founders set out
legislative responsibilities and the power of the purse with
the Congress.
We talked about President Washington in the earlier panel,
but we still hold true that that is the way that the Founders
and the public should want this to be done. I know you have
grave responsibility in that regard, and I just mention that as
we are looking at budgets.
The final thing I just want to say, as you are doing
hearings, particularly field hearings, one of the things that
the chair and I deeply are concerned about is the welfare of
Members and staff as we travel from a security perspective.
If you have any comments on how this has been dealt with in
the past, I would love to hear them. If not, simply an
invitation for you and your staff to make sure that we are
coordinating the U.S. Capitol Police, with the Sergeant at
Arms, with local law enforcement wherever you go. We want to
make sure that Members and staff remain safe particularly in an
increased threat environment.
Mr. Comer. Absolutely. I think you would see with the
makeup of the Committee, the Committee roster on both sides, we
have a lot of Members on both sides that are high profile, that
receive a lot of death threats. We take security very seriously
when we do the field hearings.
Mr. Morelle. OK. Thank you.
With that, I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
We appreciate the chair and Ranking Member's testimony here
today. It is very helpful to us as we go through the Committee
allocation process.
The Committee will pause while the witness panel exits and
the new panel arrives.
Thank you very much, Chairman Comer.
Mr. Comer. Thank you all. Thank you.
Chairman Steil. We welcome our next panel, the Committee on
Agriculture, Chairman Bost, Ranking Member Takano.
Great to have you both with us here today.
We have been having a robust conversation about the
Committee funding allocation process. Your testimony will be
helpful in that. We will give each of you 5 minutes for the
purpose of offering an opening statement. We will take 5
minutes on each side between the majority and minority to ask
questions, yielding between our colleagues.
Did I not say the Committee on Veterans' Affairs?
Mr. Bost. You said the Committee on Agriculture, but that
is OK.
Chairman Steil. As I look at you and I see you from
Illinois, Mr. Bost, I jump immediately to the cornfields south
of the State of Wisconsin. I apologize. As I came zipping in
the room, I should have taken a moment to pause and reflect.
Important work on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. I
will yield to you, Mr. Bost, for 5 minutes to share your
proposal.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MIKE BOST, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Mr. Bost. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member Morelle,
for the opportunity to discuss the Committee on Veterans'
Affairs' budget request for the 119th Congress. I am pleased to
have Ranking Member Mark Takano join me.
We have submitted our funding request forms for the 119th
Congress per your Committee's guidance. As you know, the
Committee has oversight over the entire VA and the Department
of Veterans Affairs, various programs serving veterans at the
Departments of Labor and Defense, Arlington National Cemetery,
our overseas cemeteries, as well as other veterans-related
matters--all to ensure that VA is meeting their mission for the
over 9 million veterans and their families and their survivors
they serve every single day.
Now, VA is the second-largest Federal agency and the
largest Federal integrated healthcare system in the country and
in the world, now employing over 377,000 people with a budget
approaching $400 billion.
Since 2015, VA has seen budgetary growth of over 140
percent. Ensuring proper oversight of taxpayer dollars is
essential for the delivery of care and services to our
veterans--and a waste of those dollars is unacceptable.
We owe it to our veterans and taxpayers to ensure VA is
making marked progress regarding veterans' access to
healthcare, wait times in hospitals and clinics, proper use of
the MISSION Act, the backlog of disability claims, the
implementation of the electronic health record, and more
recently, the implementation of the Dole Act, as well as the
PACT Act that is also out there we are trying to implement.
Before I speak about our request for the 119th Congress, I
want to say a thank you to the Members of the Committee. With
your support and the bipartisan work of the Members of the
Committee in the 118th Congress, we were able to conduct over
90 oversight hearings with over 100 VA officials, connecting
with over 10,000 veterans and their families nationwide through
in-person and telephone town halls, and sent 160 oversight
letters to the VA.
We conducted this work while our funding request was
relatively flat, with only a modest increase of 4 percent in
the 118th Congress compared to the 117th Congress.
To continue our work, though, to accomplish the mission,
the Committee needs essential, talented staff expertise.
Accordingly, we have requested a 12-percent increase in the
Committee's annual budget for the 119th Congress.
As Chairman, I believe that this additional funding will
continue to conduct oversight across the country on behalf of
every veteran, and the new funds would also allow us to hire
three additional employees. Two of these employees on the
majority staff side would be health investigators who will go
out into the field to conduct oversight for VA's vast
healthcare system.
Now, my goal would be to hire clinicians or very
experienced healthcare professionals for this role. I believe
they would be an asset to the work Congress does every day. In
this case, we would need additional funds to competitively hire
these individuals.
We all know that inflation has impacted the economy, and
our request takes this into account. We are asking for funding
to prevent our experienced and highly technical staff, on both
sides of the aisle, from leaving the Committee.
Mr. Chairman, unlike many other Committees, we have a deep
bench. The staff understand the complexity of the VA and they
do not simply grow on trees.
Despite being one of the smallest Committees in the House,
we punch way above our weight level. To put it into
perspective, for every one of our Committee staff, there are
over 8,000 VA employees that we have to give oversight to.
Let me say this again: Mr. Takano and I have just 43 staff
to oversee an agency that has 377,000 employees. This is why it
is critical that we have the funds to attract the best and the
brightest and equip them with the tools they need to provide
oversight over the VA.
Mr. Chairman, you have my assurance that we will continue
to account for and stretch every dollar afforded us as we meet
and exceed the expectations placed upon us.
My humble request for you, the Ranking Member, and the
Members of this Committee is that we build on the oversight
success that we have made over the last Congress and fully fund
this request.
In closing, I want to thank the Chairman and Members of the
staff of the Committee on House Administration. The work we
continue to do to modernize the House and make things easier
for Members and staff to serve the American people has been
extraordinary.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to be before you
today, and I would be glad to answer any questions.
I now yield back.
[The prepared statement of Representative Bost follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MIKE BOST
GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Chairman Steil. Thank you very much, Chairman Bost.
The Ranking Member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
Mr. Takano, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MARK TAKANO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Takano. Thanks, Chairman Steil, Ranking Member Morelle,
and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
join Chairman Bost in presenting the budget request for the
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs in the 119th Congress.
Our Committee remains one of the most active in Congress,
playing a crucial role in shaping policies that directly impact
millions of veterans and their families.
Throughout the 118th Congress, we maintained a bipartisan
commitment to ensuring that those who have served receive the
care, benefits, and opportunities that they have earned. We
advanced significant legislation, conducted rigorous oversight,
and worked collaboratively to address key challenges facing
veterans today.
We continue to oversee the implementation of the PACT Act,
ensuring that toxic-exposed veterans receive long-overdue
benefits and healthcare.
Additionally, we have made critical progress in addressing
veteran suicide, homelessness, and economic well-being, while
working to improve access to benefits for historically
underserved veteran populations.
Despite these successes, there is still much work to be
done. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the second-largest
Federal agency, and it has experienced extraordinary growth,
with its budget increasing over 140 percent in the past decade
and its workforce surpassing 377,000 employees. Meanwhile, the
staffing and resources for our Committee have largely remained
stagnant, the same.
Without proper resources, our ability to conduct oversight
and ensure veterans receive the care and benefits they deserve
is compromised. We must have the necessary funding to keep pace
with the increasing complexity and size of VA.
That is why we are requesting a 12-percent increase in our
budget for the 119th Congress. This increase is essential for
several reasons, and I will outline three of them.
First, staff retention and competitive compensation.
As the Chairman mentioned, the Committee's work requires
highly skilled professionals with expertise in VA healthcare,
benefits, and administration. These staff members are often
recruited by private sector organizations that can offer
significantly higher salaries.
We must ensure that our budget allows us to attract,
retain, and fairly compensate the experts we need to provide
effective oversight of VA, which administers the Nation's
largest integrated healthcare system.
With the increasing cost of living, inflation, and
maintaining a robust and knowledgeable team, it is critical to
our ability to oversee the Nation's largest integrated
healthcare system and the expansive benefits programs VA
administers.
The minority will use its added funds for annual salary
step increases, filling an unfunded slot from the last
Congress, and hiring an additional staffer if the Speaker's
Office approves the extra billets requested by the Chairman.
Second, we need to have robust oversight of VA.
During the 118th Congress, the Committee held over 90
oversight hearings with more than 100 VA officials, connected
with over 10,000 veterans and their families through town
halls, and sent 160 oversight letters to VA.
With an increased budget, we can strengthen our ability to
hold VA accountable, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent
effectively and veterans receive the care that they deserve.
Third, field oversight travel.
The VA operates over 12,000 sites of care across the United
States, its territories, and the Philippines. To conduct proper
oversight, our staff and Members must travel to VA facilities
to assess operations firsthand.
This funding request will allow us to support travel
necessary to examine VA healthcare delivery, benefits
processing, and infrastructure investments.
As in previous Congresses, the Committee's funding will be
allocated two-thirds to the majority and one-third to the
minority. The remaining funds are shared for travel, equipment,
and other necessary expenses.
Historically, our Committee has operated with a spirit of
mutual respect in budgeting decisions, ensuring that both
majority and minority staff have the resources needed to
fulfill their responsibilities. We do anticipate maintaining
that approach and attitude in the 119th Congress.
Congress' funding decisions should reflect our values, and
adequately funding our Committee is a direct investment in
those who have served our country.
Our mandate is clear: to conduct rigorous oversight of the
VA and ensure that veterans receive the benefits and services
they have earned. To meet this responsibility, we must have the
resources to recruit and retain expert staff, conduct thorough
oversight, and engage directly with the veteran community.
I do appreciate your consideration of our funding request
and look forward to your support in ensuring that we have the
resources necessary to fulfill our mission. I welcome any
questions you may have.
Chairman Steil. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Takano.
I will recognize myself for 5 minutes to ask questions.
Your Committee has a great history of a lot of nonpartisan
work, making sure our veterans receive the benefits they earned
while serving our country in uniform.
You referenced, Chairman Bost, the scale and size of the
VA--377,000 people, a $400 billion budget. It is all about
making sure our veterans are receiving the benefits. It is not
only the input, what we spend. It is the output, what are they
getting. That is where your oversight role is absolutely
essential.
When we look at your increase in staff, two healthcare
investigators, maybe two on the majority, one on the minority,
it sounds like, could you put a little color on that? Is that
sufficient in understanding the scale of the VA and the
importance of making sure that----
Mr. Bost. Well, if we could figure out a way to do it in
this climate where we are trying to spend money as wisely as we
can, but we could use about four times that many staff. I am
going to tell you that what we have done over the last 2 years
and even before that of oversight has been appropriate.
We shift the budget where need be as far as travel and
everything like that to make sure that we go to those sites
where we get word from whistleblowers that something is not
going right or in our investigation team as far as the auditor
generals and everything like that. Then we can respond.
This is the level of staff that we think is sensible to ask
for. We will continue to bat way above our weight, like I said,
because by having that quality staff and being able to make
that investment, yes, I think we can do it with what we are
asking for.
Chairman Steil. I am looking at my colleagues, if they
would like me to yield. Otherwise, I will jump to my next
question.
One question I have asked every chair and Ranking Member
out of the gates--I will make it my second question for you,
though--is will you commit to having your systems administrator
meet with the House's chief information officer in the first
quarter of this year to discuss cybersecurity? Yes?
Mr. Bost. You bet you, yes.
Mr. Takano. Absolutely.
Chairman Steil. I appreciate that.
Let me dive in a little bit on the travel side of the
budget.
Mr. Bost. OK.
Chairman Steil. You noticed that the additional staff slots
would be for people that would be in the field. Could you just
walk through the impact on your budget of making sure that your
investigators are in the field at VA locations around the
country?
Mr. Bost. Well, last year we did not ask for an increase in
it, and we went over a little last year, but we were able to do
that with the staffing funds that we had and were able to shift
that. The same thing as that. That is why we have not asked for
that.
We cannot predict, but we would love to be able to say
that, ``Hey, we know that L.A. is going to have a problem and
we are going to have to be there this many days,'' or something
as big as the fact, ``Hey, Guam has a problem.'' Now you are
talking a lot of travel.
I would like to be able to predict that. We believe, based
on our past history, things that have come up that we are
holding with our travel budget, and if it gets to the point
like it did last year, we can shift that over.
Chairman Steil. By definition you have to be reactive----
Mr. Bost. We have to.
Chairman Steil [continuing]. because if you knew a problem
was coming you would prevent----
Mr. Bost. Yes. Oversight. Many of our Committees that come
before you, their main job is to pass laws dealing with that.
We have that. Our oversight is some of the most important
things we do through the Committee. If you believe there is not
a problem somewhere in VA, as big as it is, wait 5 minutes, you
will find one.
Chairman Steil. Any entity that is $400 billion, 377,000
people, despite the overwhelming majority of them doing great
work for the right reasons to serve our veterans, does not mean
that there is not someone making a mistake, making an error,
and doing the wrong thing.
Mr. Bost. That is correct. One thing that we do have, and
not that the previous administration did not work with us to
make sure we went into the issues, let me tell you that because
of the friendship I have with the new Secretary, he and I
served--well, so did many of you serve with Doug Collins--we
are going to be working to make sure that those dollars are
going to what they are supposed to do, providing for the
healthcare and veterans' benefits that they are supposed to do,
not to a heavy level of bureaucracy; or if any fraud or abuse
is occurring, we will look into that very closely, and we have
to have the oversight staff to do that.
Chairman Steil. Thank you both for being here, Chairman
Bost, Ranking Member Takano.
I will yield back.
I will recognize Ranking Member Morelle for 5 minutes for
asking questions.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chairman Bost----
Mr. Bost. Thank you, Mr. Morelle.
Mr. Morelle [continuing]. and Ranking Member Takano, for
being here. Thanks for all you do.
I want to just begin just a quick check. Tradition has it
in the House that the minority has one-third of the staff
budget.
I want to just get from you, Mr. Chair, your commitment
that the one-third budget will be at the direction of Mr.
Takano and he will----
Mr. Bost. Right. What we have is one-third and two-thirds
on the staffing level. The other is shared. We have never had a
problem with that. Matter of fact, the staffer who is behind me
that has handled the budget over the last 24 years actually
worked for Republican and Democrat alike.
That has been our policy, and it has always been. There has
never been a question if there is an ask--I mean, we still do
the oversight of saying, ``OK, is this travel necessary?''
Whether it is minority or majority, we know what our job is,
and we work together to make sure that happens.
Mr. Morelle. Mr. Takano, you are confident in your
relationship that that has been the case and will continue?
Mr. Takano. We have a good working relationship with each
other, and we respect each other's turf, and we respect the
precedents of the Committee, yes.
Mr. Morelle. Very good.
I will just make this observation, which I have made to
other chairs and other Ranking Members who have come before us.
We have made considerable mention in the last 2 days around
the Loper Bright decision which eliminated Chevron deference,
which puts a great deal more pressure, it seems to me, on
Congress, both houses, to make sure there is some real
specificity in the bills that we pass, not simply giving the
right to, in this case, the Administrator or the VA or other
parts of your significant responsibility.
Do you feel you have the resources necessary to make sure
as you are doing authorizing legislation that you give that
specificity and that you have the resources to be able to do
that effectively?
Mr. Bost. Let me tell you, I believe we do, and we believe
it is our job.
From my standpoint, I came from 20 years in a State
legislature where we actually directed the agencies. I think
that we should do a little bit more of that, and maybe that
court case will give us that authority to where we take back
our power as Members of Congress to do exactly that.
Mr. Morelle. I appreciate that. I served a similar period
of time in the New York State Legislature. I think I have said
this earlier today, was somewhat surprised when I came to
Congress at, frankly, the lack of detail or specificity.
To your point, at the State legislature we would be much
more involved. I had some rules relative to giving too much
power to commissioners just generally when I drafted
legislation as a Committee Chair.
I have been surprised, and perhaps this is a way to--
without regard to how you feel about the decision, and I am
sure people have wildly different opinions, but the net result
is it requires us now to have a level of specificity which we
have lacked for some time.
Mr. Takano, do you have a comment on that?
Mr. Takano. Well, Mr. Ranking Member, this came up in an
oversight--there was much discussion about it in a Committee
hearing. I do believe that the decision does imply that
Congress does need to staff up further, and we need to consider
that.
I have always been worried about the level of scientific
expertise available to all Members of Congress. We are all
limited to, like, maybe three or four LAs. For us to keep up
with crypto, to keep up with AI, AI certainly has applications
to VA and how we administer medicine or health, health policy.
I would also say the Chairman and I have shared, I think,
we have shared an interest in oversight over the implementation
of the electronic medical records, which is a year's long,
billions of dollars being spent. That requires very, very
strong expertise, and that expertise does not come cheaply, and
I do not think we have enough. This is going to be helpful, but
to keep a handle on $15 billion reaching $30 billion of trying
to get this records system up is going to be difficult.
Mr. Morelle. Yes. One of my responsibilities is to--just to
make an additional comment, and then I am happy to yield. I
served in the State legislature as Chairman of the Insurance
Committee. You have a large essentially healthcare system to
run, and it does take expertise, and it is a real job that you
have.
I will just make my completely unsolicited advice that I
think long term our Committee, all of us collectively, are
going to need to invest a great deal more in Congress, in
resources for Congress, to be able to do the job that we have
been asked to do effectively.
Thanks for all of your time.
Mr. Takano. I appreciate that. Thank you, Ranking Member.
Mr. Morelle. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
Chairman Bost, Ranking Member Takano, we appreciate both of
you coming before us. It is very helpful as we work to finalize
the Committee budgets.
The Committee will pause while the witness panels exit.
Appreciate you being here.
Mr. Bost. Thank you.
Chairman Steil. We now welcome our next panel of witnesses.
Chairman Guthrie, congratulations on your Chairmanship,
Ranking Member Pallone, thank you both for joining us today.
We have been engaged in a long series of panels of Chairmen
and Ranking Members that have come before us. It is a real
opportunity to make sure that you have the resources you need,
that we are being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
There has been a lot of conversation about the end of
Chevron deference. When we think about Energy and Commerce,
that has a big impact on the work that you do.
We will give each of you 5 minutes for an opening
statement. Then we will take 5 minutes in total each for the
majority and minority for questions, yielding amongst the
Members.
I will now recognize you, Chairman Guthrie, for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRETT GUTHRIE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Steil, thank
you, Ranking Member Morelle, for holding this Committee funding
hearing.
Ranking Member Pallone and I are pleased to submit to the
House the Committee on Energy and Commerce's budget request for
the 119th Congress.
The Committee on Energy and Commerce has expansive
jurisdiction which vests us with the opportunity and
responsibility to address issues affecting Americans every day.
The Committee has already started tackling many of our
priorities for the 119th Congress. For example, we have held
hearings examining ways to unleash American energy; consider
reforms to the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st
Century Act, your former colleague from New Jersey; explore
America's spectrum management; and consider legislation to keep
fentanyl out of our communities. Today we are holding a hearing
on manufacturing the next generation of American technology.
The American people are counting on us to focus on these
issues and many more to deliver results that improve their
lives.
To further the Committee's ambitious legislative agenda,
our budget request seeks $32.3 million. Ranking Member Pallone
and the minority will receive 37 percent of the budget.
The Energy and Commerce Committee has 54 Members, two more
than last Congress, to help carry out our agenda. Therefore, a
significant part of our budget would go to attracting, hiring,
and retaining staff with experience and expertise to help these
Members in their work to pass significant legislation.
Our budget request includes keeping 130 staff positions for
the Committee, consistent with last Congress. The minority will
receive an additional slot, with 85 slots for the majority and
45 for the minority.
The budget request also factors in Committee field work. To
better inform the Committee's oversight and legislative work,
Energy and Commerce Committee Members will need to travel for
field hearings and site visits to hear directly from the
American people, small businesses, and industries, especially
those who are unable to travel to Washington, D.C.
For example, the Committee is planning field hearings and
site visits in North Dakota, Texas, Iowa, Michigan, and
California to look at energy healthcare supply chains and
artificial intelligence issues. Collecting testimony, data, and
firsthand experiences will help us craft quality and responsive
legislation.
Ranking Member Pallone and I appreciate your consideration
for our budget request. We also appreciate your commitment to
our Committee's mission.
From healthcare and energy to telecommunications and
consumer protection policy, the Committee on Energy and
Commerce has a lot to accomplish. We are looking forward to
fulfilling this important mission during the 119th Congress.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
Ranking Member Pallone, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Steil, Ranking Member
Morelle, and the Members of the Committee, and thank you for
the opportunity to testify on the proposed budget for the
Energy and Commerce Committee for the 119th Congress. I am
pleased to join Committee Chair Guthrie here today and thank
him for seeking me and my staff's input on the preparation of
the proposed budget request.
As you know, I am not going to repeat the Committee's
jurisdiction, but it has the broadest jurisdiction of any
authorizing Committee in the House. Over the last several
Congresses, our Committee has been extremely productive in
legislating. Even with the challenges of the 118th Congress, we
were able to advance a lot of bipartisan bills out of the
Committee.
Some of those bills made it into the end-of-the-year
bipartisan, bicameral agreement that was, unfortunately,
stripped from the Committee resolution at the very last minute.
That package banned, just as an example, abusive pricing
practices by pharmacy benefit managers, increased funding for
community health centers, and cracked down on junk fees.
It also reauthorized both the SUPPORT Act to build upon our
efforts to combat the drug overdose epidemic and the Pandemic
and All-Hazards Preparedness Act to fund pandemic response.
I just use that as an example of the types of things that
we deal with. While we were not able to get these bipartisan
provisions signed into law last Congress, I know we are all
committed to getting them done this Congress.
Our proposed budget, which requests a 17.8-percent increase
in funding for the Committee above the 118th Congress levels,
will greatly assist us in fulfilling our legislative oversight
and the investigative duties over the expansive areas within
our jurisdiction.
The Energy and Commerce Committee has a long and proud
history of bipartisan collaboration in the spirit of serving
all Americans. To see directly how the laws we pass here in
Washington impact the communities we serve, we plan to travel
to Committee Members' districts to listen to firsthand
experiences from people in these districts.
In order to advance the Committee's goal, it is also
critical that we retain a strong and experienced staff. Over
the last several Congresses, the institution has taken
tremendous steps to increase staff pay across the board,
instituting minimum annual pay, and recently boosting the
maximum pay for senior staffers to $225,100. I commend Speaker
Johnson and this Committee for making those staff salary
increases a reality.
These pay increases are essential to attract and retain a
diverse workforce that remains on Capitol Hill, but in order to
continue to boost staff salaries, we need larger overall
Committee budgets. Right now I have nine open full-time
employee slots that I cannot fill because we do not have the
overall budget for the salaries for those potential candidates.
I also do not have the resources in the minority to give any
current staff raises.
We have to continue to boost staff salaries to be
competitive with Federal agencies and the private sector.
Otherwise, the legislative branch is at a distinct
disadvantage, and we simply cannot allow that to happen, in my
opinion.
Longtime Committee staff who intricately know and
understand the legislative history of the laws that previous
Congresses have passed are critical to ensuring that the
legislative intent of those laws is known over time. Staffers
with investigative experience are also critical to our
oversight of the administration and our investigative efforts
of industries within our jurisdiction.
We also have to ensure that the Committee staff have the
tools they need to do their job, and this includes access to
essential technical support and subscriptions to informational
sources, current affairs, policy. This budget increase takes
into account the chief administrative officer's directive that
Committee and congressional offices regularly update
information technology infrastructure.
The Committee will also be modernizing our Subcommittee
room in Rayburn which will force the Democratic senior staff to
move from an office space that includes offices to one that
must be updated with another modular furniture in offices, and
we have been told that the Committee will have to pay for these
necessary updates.
Chair Guthrie and I will also continue to work together to
control and reduce our costs wherever possible--I pledge that--
and as proactively as we can while also promoting a Committee
culture of accountability and respect for the American
taxpayer, Mr. Chairman.
The Committee has a lot of work to do over the next 2
years, and I firmly believe this request will provide us the
resources we need to get the job done. I join Chair Guthrie in
voicing my strong support for this budget request.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Steil. Thank you, Ranking Member Pallone, thank
you, Chairman Guthrie, both for your testimony.
I recognize myself for 5 minutes for the purpose of asking
questions.
I will ask one question I have asked every chair and
Ranking Member, and then I will yield to my colleagues with
more expertise on Energy and Commerce.
Will you both commit to having your systems administrator
meet with the House's chief information officer to discuss
cybersecurity in the first quarter of this year?
Mr. Guthrie. I will.
Mr. Pallone. I will as well.
Chairman Steil. Terrific.
I will yield to Representative Lee.
Ms. Lee. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Pallone, for being with us here today.
I am proud to serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee,
which as we have heard today has one of the broadest
jurisdictions of any authorizing Committee and covers issues
that have a profound impact on the daily lives of Americans,
including energy, technology, telecommunications, and
healthcare.
We know that in the 118th Congress alone more than 4,000
bills were referred to the Committee, and it also has a leading
role in the reconciliation process.
For the 119th Congress, E&C is requesting a 17.8-percent
increase in their budget.
Chairman Guthrie, would you please describe the process for
putting your budget submission together? What were the big
factors that you took into consideration in developing your
budget request?
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much for that.
When we were working together, we were looking at the
Committee now has two more Members. They were awarded two more
Members after the last Steering Committee process. What we want
to do is increase involvement with shared staff, so each
Subcommittee Chairman will have somebody from their personal
office that is also shared staff with the Committee.
That links--that was a few years back--and we think that
actually connects the personal office with the Committee and
gives more ability to maneuver for the Chairman.
We purchased party line software that lets us keep up with
Members' commitments and their achievements and
accomplishments. We are building a press studio so we can
better communicate. It will be used for both sides.
I think the most important thing that I have learned from
other Committees as I was looking at what to do is the
Committee travel. You are new to the Committee, and I know my
friend from Virginia would say we did not do a lot of field
hearings and those types of issues I think that are vitally
important. In even one particular area, when we had fire in one
area and it was in our jurisdiction to go investigate, and we
did not have--we did not do that. I think that is very, very
important.
We are going to do a heavy legislative lift this Congress,
and we think it is important to do that. That was all factored
in.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentlewoman yields back.
Mr. Griffith is recognized.
Mr. Griffith. Yes, let me amplify on that and ask about
that.
We are going to use some of this money to go out and see
things. It was disappointing as formerly the Chair of Oversight
and Investigations for Energy and Commerce that we did the
groundbreaking work. I thought we had a great hearing. It was
bipartisan. We were fact-finding on the Maui fire. The
Subcommittee and I had worked together to try to figure out how
we could get out there because there were issues that not only
related to the--the electricity was the No. 1 issue, the
electric department.
Then there were also some collateral issues with invasive
plants and some other things that burned hotter than the
regular plants.
You cannot learn that kind of thing, you cannot really get
a good feel for it unless you go and see it.
Because it was a nicer location and I did not want folks to
think we were doing some kind of a junket, I said schedule us
something so that we are not there except for the time to do
our field hearing and that 1 day. We had that all lined up, but
for whatever reasons we never got around to doing it.
Then I have looked at the Committee this year, Mr. Chairman
and Ranking Member, I would ask you all as well, we have
probably--and you all have both served longer than I--but an
unprecedented number of new Members.
Whether you are for or against using Yucca Mountain, most
of our Members have never been to Yucca. They have never been
to Hanford. They have never been to the CDC headquarters. I
mean, we have not done that since I have been on the
Committee--it is 14 years--been down to the CDC headquarters in
Atlanta who we oversee.
Even a simple field trip visitation to learn stuff at NIH.
I have been there on my own. I have learned a lot of what they
do. We have not done those things in the past.
I have to tell you, I am glad that you all put that into
your budget to take a look at it. Every one of them, not every
Member goes to these field hearings, but in the few we have had
and that I have been to, I have learned a tremendous amount.
Any comments that you all want to add because I talked most
of my time away?
Mr. Guthrie. Thanks.
Well, I agree with you. We are looking at the automotive
industry in Detroit, tech industry in San Francisco, Silicon
Valley, the biotech industry that is going on in Boston. Those
things we all need to see.
Also on the other side, I think you are planning meetings,
if not hearings but field sites, in every Ranking Member's
district, so like Tampa for Kathy Castor, for example. I can go
through the list.
Mr. Griffith. Well, with TSCA being up for renewal and
Brownfields, et cetera, I mean, I think we ought to go see what
we are talking about when we are talking about that. I think
that is important for all the Committee Members, both majority
and minority.
I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back. I yield back.
The Ranking Member is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you both very much for being here.
Congratulations to you, Mr. Chairman, on your new
responsibilities which have been described, I think, very well
by my colleagues in terms of the breadth of what your Committee
does. Always great to see the Ranking Member.
I want to just start first, relative to the split in
dollars, Mr. Chair, whether you will continue to commit to
allowing independence to the Ranking Member for the dollars
that have been appropriated for use by the Democrats.
Mr. Guthrie. Yes. That has been a tradition of the
Committee, and I plan to do as well.
Mr. Morelle. Great.
Mr. Pallone, you are comfortable, Mr. Pallone?
Mr. Pallone. Yes. I mean, I am lucky in that the Committee
over the past 4 years has moved away from the two-thirds/one-
third split. It started when I was the chair in 2021. The
minority budget has been somewhere between 37 and 40 percent
over the past few years, and I am hopeful that Chair Guthrie
will continue that tradition.
In fact, I think you are seeing a lot of Committees move in
that direction. No party has a supermajority anymore, and the
ratios of the Committees are much tighter than two-thirds/ one-
third, obviously.
I think it is only fair to give more resources to the
minority, especially when we know how easily the House can
continue to flip in the years to come.
Mr. Guthrie. We are committed to that 37, and we even
discussed, we are new to this, so we are learning how we
operate our budgets. If there is more flexibility, we are going
to do more.
Mr. Morelle. Great. Thank you.
I want to just measure, particularly given the breadth of
this Committee's authorization responsibilities, we have talked
a lot here with previous chairs and Ranking Members about the
Supreme Court decision last year in Loper Bright relative to
removing the Chevron deference, the importance of our article I
responsibilities, both as authorizers and as providing
oversight.
Frankly, without regard to how you view the current
situation, given the need for Congress to be more specific as
it writes laws and gives authorization to the various agencies
and the need to assert our role under the Constitution, do you
feel you have adequate resources to carry out all those article
I responsibilities with this budget?
I will start with you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Guthrie. We do think this request, if it is met, meets
our resources. If you remember, as we are looking, all of us
are trying to get the staff in place. On our side of the aisle,
you are competing with the Senate, and you are also competing
with the administration. We are trying to attract very talented
people and keep talented people. It is important for us so we
can do the deference and write the laws that we need to write.
Mr. Morelle. I do not know, Mr. Pallone, if you had any
comment?
Mr. Pallone. Well, I am never going to say that we have
enough money to do oversight. You know, I have been here a long
time, and I remember when John Dingell was the chair. Most of
the time when he was the chair, you had Democratic Presidents,
right. He just did an incredible amount of oversight. The staff
traveled all over the country, you know, visiting the
communities and agencies and industries.
You are never going to have enough. We cannot get back to
those days, I do not think, but I think that with the budget
that we have put together on a bipartisan basis definitely will
increase our ability to do the oversight that is required.
Mr. Morelle. I think it is essential, just as an
institution and not just as it relates to this administration
but future administrations, and it is the role that we have
been asked to play. The public may not always appreciate or
understand it, but that is what the Founders described and
articulated in the Constitution, and it is still our
responsibility.
As it relates to hearings, I will just use my last minute,
I agree that going around holding field hearings, et cetera, is
critical. You get a much different sense from talking to people
around the country than you might if you do all of your
hearings here in Washington.
The chair and I have placed a particular emphasis on Member
security and staff security, seeing threat assessments go up a
great deal in the last few years. I know you are new in this
role, Mr. Chair, so you may not have an opinion on it right
now, but I would invite you, as you are preparing, to make sure
that you do everything you can to coordinate with the Capitol
Police, the Sergeant at Arms, and local law enforcement.
To the degree that the chair and I and the Members here can
be helpful in our responsibilities as it relates to oversight
of the Capitol Police and our ongoing communication, we just
want to make sure everyone is safe, that everyone is protected,
both Members and staff. I would just offer that invitation to
you.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you.
Mr. Morelle. With that, I will yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
We appreciate both of your testimony today. It is helpful
as we go through the Committee funding allocation process. You
have really important work ahead of you over the next few
years. Thank you.
The Committee will pause while the panel exits.
We now welcome our next panel, Chairman Jordan, Ranking
Member Raskin, to the Committee. We appreciate you being here.
We have been going through a robust panel of witnesses over
the past 2 days analyzing budget funding. A lot of conversation
about the end of Chevron deference and the need to make sure
that all Committees have the resources they need, about
oversight. Your testimony will help guide us as we formulate
Committee budgets.
We will recognize each of you for 5 minutes for an opening
statement. We will then have 5 minutes each in total between
the majority and minority. We will yield amongst our colleagues
for questions.
We will dive right in. I recognize you, Chairman Jordan,
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JIM JORDAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member, and to
Members of the Committee. I just have a brief statement.
We thank you for the invitation to testify today about the
Judiciary Committee's budget request for the 119th Congress.
The fundamental mission of the Judiciary Committee is to
protect the freedoms and liberties of the American people. In
fact, we are the one Committee uniquely tasked with protecting
the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the liberties that we
enjoy in the greatest country ever.
We greatly appreciate your support in the 118th Congress to
ensure that we had the resources and tools to carry out our
mission. Last Congress, with your support, we exposed and
stopped the Biden administration's censorship of Americans
online. In fact, we just came from a hearing where that was the
subject, the censorship industrial complex.
We tackled the Biden administration's weaponization of the
Federal law enforcement against American citizens, and we
highlighted the problems in past legislation to address the
Biden border crisis.
Our work remains unfinished. This Congress we intend to
continue our aggressive legislative and oversight agenda. We
also assume additional responsibilities with the new select
Subcommittee established by the Speaker.
To carry out our mission, we respectfully ask for the
$15.857 million for each session of the 119th Congress. This
funding level matches the level at which the House authorized
the Judiciary Committee last year following your generous
allocation from the reserve fund.
We also respectfully request that our staff slot allocation
remain at 110 for the 119th Congress. I am pleased that Ranking
Member Raskin and I have had discussions, and this request has
bipartisan support.
Thank you again for your consideration and for the good
work that you and this Committee does for the Congress.
Chairman Steil. Thank you very much, Chairman Jordan.
Ranking Member Raskin, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMIE RASKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Morelle, what a pleasure
it is to be back here with you and with Members of this great
Committee. I feel great fondness and nostalgia about my time
served on this Committee.
The Judiciary Committee, as our good Chairman has just
said, has broad jurisdiction over the matters that are
fundamental to justice in America. The Constitution, the Bill
of Rights, civil rights, civil liberties of the people.
Our legislative jurisdiction is wide-ranging, addressing
criminal and civil penalties, as well as Government
surveillance, antitrust, bankruptcy, immigration and
naturalization, copyright and trademark, terrorism, espionage,
interstate compacts, and more. We have a charge to ensure that
the courts of the country, our administrative bodies, our law
enforcement agencies are working efficiently for the people.
In order to fulfill the mission, we need to recruit and to
retain experienced staff with a diverse set of skills and
expertise. Accordingly, we are seeking a combined $31,714,000
for the Judiciary Committee in the 119th Congress. The budget
we propose and our agreed upon allocation of funding between
the majority and the minority will enable us to conduct the
essential work in the 119th.
I want to thank Chairman Jordan for including us in this
process, and thank you for your time and consideration.
I am ready to answer any questions you might have for me.
Thanks.
Chairman Steil. Thank you both.
I will recognize myself for 5 minutes to ask questions. I
will ask one question that I have asked every chair and Ranking
Member, which is will you commit to having your systems
administrator meet with the House's Chief Information Officer
to discuss cybersecurity in the first quarter?
Mr. Jordan. Yes, sir.
Chairman Steil. Thank you very much.
I am now going to yield to a Member of the Judiciary
Committee, Laura Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Raskin,
for being here with us today and for your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to start with you. In my
experience on the Committee, firsthand experience outside of
the Beltway to help us better understand issues is essential to
the functioning of the Committee.
I see that you requested a slight increase in your travel
budget for the 119th Congress, including funding for some field
hearings and roundtables. Would you please shine some light on
the goals of the Committee in conducting these field hearings
and roundtables and why you find them important?
Mr. Jordan. Well, the Ranking Member mentioned this and I
think I did in my opening statement, too. We have this broad
jurisdiction relative to immigration law. Some of that is going
to be border related. That is what we did last Congress. We had
field hearings in Yuma, and we were in Texas down on the border
to deal with that crisis situation that was there in the
previous administration.
Then we went to some of the big cities. We were in New York
City. I know the gentlelady was at these hearings as well. The
hearing in New York, unbelievable about these district
attorneys who were not prosecuting the really bad guys. We
heard from victims, family members. We think that is important
for our mission, and so we appreciate that, and that is why we
are doing it.
We are also concerned about what is happening in Europe
with the attack on free speech. That is one of the subjects we
are discussing in the hearing that is going on right now. We
appreciate the consideration for that part of the budget as
well for travel.
Ms. Lee. You also mentioned in your questionnaire that the
Judiciary Committee relied heavily on the E-Discovery Program
that was implemented last Congress through the modernization
Subcommittee here. How did being able to utilize this program
assist the Committee in conducting its essential and important
work?
Mr. Jordan. Well, I mean, I talked to our staff about this,
and they were like--they were just all thumbs up about it.
Because, you know, as you all know, we do lots of
investigations, probably more investigations out of our
Committee last Congress than maybe the rest of the Committees
combined. I do not know. We did a lot. I think we did 107
different subpoenas, 154 investigations.
Keeping all the documents that come in and everything else,
it was critical. I think they gave me a number. We have
received 4.8 million pages of documents.
The system is so helpful to our staff. I do not understand
the system but that is why we have smart staff that do. They
tell me that we should thank all of you. I know I talked to the
gentlelady from Oklahoma about this the other day. It has been
very, very helpful, and we appreciate that.
Ms. Lee. Well, and speaking of that smart staff, we
appreciate all of the excellent work of the Judiciary Committee
conducting oversight hearings and investigations, and we
understand that this must require highly experienced and
skilled staff.
You have requested the Committee maintain its 2024 level of
staff and funding. Could you provide some details on how the
funding and staff slots will allow you to pursue your
legislative and investigative agenda?
Mr. Jordan. Yes. Thank you for that, too.
As the gentlelady knows, we have an experienced staff, and
we have some young, good, young, sharp lawyers who have come in
and done great work for us as well. I mean, our general counsel
has been here like 20-something years. Mr. Hixon has been
around forever as well, Mr. Brewer. Just great Members or,
excuse me, great staff members who do good work, and we want to
keep them.
We want to keep that great staff who put together the
numerous--did the numerous investigations, numerous reports we
did.
I appreciate the Ranking Member with the budget, with the
staff, and saying let us stick with--we are not asking for
more. We just want to stick with where we are at because we
think it is a good team, and we would like to keep all of them
together.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentlewoman yields back.
I yield back.
I recognize the Ranking Member for 5 minutes.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chairman Jordan and Ranking Member Raskin, for
being here and for all the work that you are doing.
Let me just begin with a question I have asked a number of
the chairs and rankers, whether or not you are in conformity
about the degree to which the minority will be able to use
their allocation to make independent decisions with the amount
that they have got appropriated to them.
Mr. Chair?
Mr. Jordan. I believe so. I know we did not--unlike some
Committees, our organizational hearing was 30 minutes versus
some of the 3-hour ones, and we have kept the rules the same. I
believe we are--I think we are fine on all that.
Mr. Morelle. OK. You are committed to allowing them
independence?
Mr. Jordan. Oh, yes.
Mr. Morelle. Mr. Raskin, are you comfortable with the
arrangement as it is playing out?
Mr. Raskin. Yes. It has been working out fine. In reality,
you know, I was Ranking Member of the Oversight Committee where
we had two-thirds/one-third split on the whole budget. I think,
on Judiciary, we do a two-third/one-third split on the payroll,
and then we do go to ask them for their indulgence for
particular expenditures.
So far, they have been very paternalistic and respectful of
our needs. I think it is all right. I mean, you know, if I were
starting it from scratch, I would probably say just do it the
oversight way, but it seems to be working fine.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you.
Just a comment. We have talked a lot, and I think the chair
made reference to the decision by the Supreme Court last year
to do away with Chevron deference and the requirement that we
will have to do much more in terms of specificity when we are
doing authorizing language, that we will not be able to give
the Secretaries greater flexibility than the law allows, which
will require more of us.
I think, particularly for me, one of the areas that is
under your jurisdiction is artificial intelligence and
generative AI. I am very concerned about the fact that we have
no civil nor criminal sanctions against deepfake pornography,
particularly, when it is used almost exclusively against women,
and whether or not you feel you have the resources in this
budget to adequately look at some of those issues and make sure
that we are protecting the American public.
I would ask each of you to just comment on that if you
might.
Mr. Jordan. Yes, we do, and we have a number of our Members
who--I mean, we all share that concern, but we have some of our
Members who brought forward legislation to address people who
have been abused. Ms. Lee has carried some legislation that
became law through the Committee last Congress on areas related
to protecting kids, protecting women, protecting others.
Yes, we certainly have the resources to dig into those
areas.
Mr. Morelle. Mr. Raskin?
Mr. Raskin. Yes. My sense is that we have got the resources
to deal with at least this generation of issues, the things
like deepfakes and revenge porn. I have begun to dabble
somewhat in the artificial intelligence literature, and there
is a whole new generation of problems and issues coming. That
would be without prejudice to perhaps our asking for budget
adjustments in the future to deal with all these things.
Mr. Morelle. Because certainly AI technology is miraculous
in what it can do to advance many things, but it has a dark
potential if misused, and obviously a lot of that will fall to
your Committee.
One thing I did want to ask and have asked other Members,
or at least as much of an invitation as much as asking you for
your opinion, but an invitation that, as you conduct field
hearings, one of the things that we are very concerned about,
the chair and I and the Members, is the threat against Members
and the increased threats over the last several years we have
seen.
We want to make sure that, as you are conducting field
hearings, you are coordinating with Capitol Police, local law
enforcement, Sergeant at Arms. I do not know what your
experience has been or whether you want to comment on it, but
certainly an invitation to make sure we are doing everything we
can to assist you to make sure Members and staff are safe as
you are traveling around the country.
Mr. Jordan. We take that very seriously. I mean, you all
maybe have had to do the same thing we have. We have had to
put--I do not normally talk about it, but we have had to put
all kinds of security at our home back in Ohio. We just take
that very, very seriously with our Members and when we are
traveling and our staff.
We have had protests. We had protests in New York and
different things, but Capitol Police do a great job, and we
work very closely with them.
I will pledge to definitely work with the Ranking Member.
We want everyone to be safe.
Mr. Raskin. I would echo the Chairman on that. We greatly
appreciate the hard work, the devotion, the valor of Capitol
Police and the people in the Sergeant at Arms office. We know
that the threat level has gone up. I have had to get peace
orders in court, which is a tremendous investment of time,
unfortunately, to go and do that.
You know, I am glad that we have got this bipartisan
consensus that the security of our Members is essential, and it
is a huge distraction from people's work to have to deal with
this. We appreciate the investments that you are making in the
Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms to take care of all of
us.
Mr. Morelle. Well, dissent is protected by the First
Amendment. Violence is not. I appreciate that, and please
continue to inform us of your needs there.
With that, I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
We appreciate both of your testimony. Very helpful as we
compile the Committee budgets.
The Committee will stand in pause while the witness panel
exits.
Thank you both.
We welcome our next and for us last panel of a 2-day
hearing as we examine Committee budgets. We have had a robust
conversation of Chevron doctrine oversight.
We are excited to have HASC before us to today. We will
give each of you 5 minutes, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member
Smith, 5 minutes for an opening statement. Then we will have 5
minutes total in the majority and in the minority for
questions, yielding amongst ourselves.
We will jump right in and recognize you, Chairman Rogers,
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Chairman Steil and Ranking Member
Morelle, for the opportunity to present the HASC funding
request for the 119th Congress.
I want to start by thanking you for all your tremendous
support that we have had during the 118th Congress. The
resources you provided enabled us to enact two NDAAs and expand
our oversight of the Department of Defense at a very
challenging time for our national security.
I am here today with my friend, the Ranking Member, and my
partner in leading the Armed Services Committee to respectfully
request a modest increase in our budget for the 119th Congress.
The budget we are requesting will enable us to accomplish three
important goals for this Congress.
First, it will allow us to hire new and retain existing
staff. We are lucky to have a very experienced and talented
staff. Most are former servicemembers with firsthand knowledge
of the programs and platforms we authorize. Others are
dedicated lawyers and staff with decades of experience in the
House. This caliber of staff is critical to our ability to
conduct rigorous oversight of the largest and most complex
department of the Federal Government.
Keeping and recruiting staff with talent is getting more
and more difficult. We often lose good staff to the private
sector. Being able to pay staff what they are worth is
important to us. Your support of our budget request will enable
us to do just that.
Second, our request will enable us to expand the number of
field hearings we can conduct. Thanks to your support last
Congress, we were able to hold our very first field hearing in
more than a decade. It was a huge success that enabled us to
hear unique perspectives that we do not get here in D.C. We are
looking to build on that success in the 119th Congress.
Finally, our request will enable us to enhance the
technology we rely on for our Committee operations and Member
outreach. Each year we receive over 1,300 requests from Members
for the provisions in the NDAA. At markup, we process over a
thousand amendments. When we get to conference, we resolve
differences on hundreds of legislative provisions and thousands
of budget items.
We rely on specialized software to track these Member
priorities, process them, and turn them into an NDAA. We
appreciate your support as we continue to update and maintain
the system. We take the expenditure of taxpayer dollars
seriously. We will always ensure the budget allocated to our
Committee will be spent judiciously and prudently.
Thank you for the consideration of our budget request.
I yield back my time.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
Ranking Member Smith is recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mr. Smith of Washington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I
will be brief.
I agree completely with everything that Chairman Rogers
just said, and I just want to emphasize the first point he made
and say thank you. This Committee was very generous to us last
session. It made a huge difference because the staff needs that
Chairman Rogers outlined are incredibly important to the
oversight. It is enormously important to the largest
bureaucracy in the world.
We are working toward getting a full audit for the
Pentagon, making sure that they are efficient and effective.
The need is enormous right now given the challenges that we
face in the world, the most complex threat environment that we
have faced probably since the end of World War II.
Your support for our Committee's ability to do its
oversight is going to be crucial to our national security. I
appreciate that support. The Chairman laid out what it goes to,
and I just echo his remarks and ask you to support the modest
increase that we are requesting.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
I recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Thanks for the work that you do. I think you are accurate
in describing the threat, the dangerous world that we live in.
Uniquely now, your oversight role in the Department of Defense
is essential.
Before I get into my full questions, one question that I
have just asked every chair and Ranking Member is, will you
commit to having your systems administrator meet with the
House's Chief Information Officer to discuss cybersecurity in
the first quarter?
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
Mr. Smith of Washington. Absolutely.
Chairman Steil. Thank you very much for that.
In your report, you noted that you had a couple vacancies
that were not filled due to an office space constraint. We have
opened up space in Cannon. I want to make sure that you do not
have constraints from us preventing you from hiring staff and
particularly at a period of time when oversight of the
Department of Defense is going to be absolutely essential.
Has that been resolved, or is that an outstanding issue?
Mr. Rogers. It is revolving itself very soon. We did have
those constraints spacewise last Congress. We will not have
them this Congress. We hope to be able to get up to our full
authorization of staff.
Chairman Steil. OK.
As you look to fill out staff positions, obviously unique
expertise is required in your staff. You are competing not only
against the private sector but also from the majority side in
particular with the administration making hires.
Do you have any unique concerns in being able to fill those
positions?
Mr. Rogers. No. No, we will be able to get after it if we
have the funding to pay them well. I mean, we are completing
with a private sector that is robust.
Chairman Steil. All right. I will yield to Mrs. Bice.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith, for
being with us this afternoon.
You mentioned in your budget request that you will need an
increase to update the technology used to build the NDAA and to
cover the increases in the cost to support services. Could you
elaborate a little bit on how essential this technology is to
your Committee to manage the very large number of amendments
that are submitted by Members?
Mr. Rogers. Fortunately, our staff has been able to take a
state-of-the-art software system and use it to process this
huge volume, and they are leading the effort for authorizing
Committees in the Congress on that. The problem is it is very
expensive, and it has to be upgraded, and we are going to have
to have the money to do that if we want to stay ahead of this
volume.
The good news is, is that we take care of our Members
because we have the capability with the software. If we do not
keep up with it, it is going to be hard to take Members'
requests and turn them into law.
Mr. Smith of Washington. I mean, you know the process of
the Committee. By the time you add them all up, it is a couple
thousand different requests just on the Committee, on the
amendment process, you know, because there is the original
idea, and then the idea will frequently splinter out into five
different versions of the amendment. Members of the Committee
do that.
Then, of course, when we go to the floor, it opens up to
everybody and the Rules Committee has to deal with that, but we
have to deal with it as well to work with them. It is an
incredibly high volume. Being able to process that quickly with
the best technology helps us serve the Members of the House.
Mrs. Bice. I want to say thank you both for your commitment
to making sure that we are doing everything that we can to
promote and support our military branches and our servicemen
and women across the world. I miss being on HASC but now, an
appropriator, can do my part to support you as well.
Thank you for being with us this afternoon.
Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Chairman Steil. The gentlelady yields back.
I would just echo the comments. We appreciate the work that
you do. There is robust oversight needed at the Department of
Defense, and you have the opportunity to provide that for us.
I will yield back.
I recognize the Ranking Member for 5 minutes.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you both very much for being here. I had
the great privilege, like Mrs. Bice, of serving on House Armed
Services for, unfortunately, only for a couple of years but now
get to serve on the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
I appreciate very much your work and your work in a
bipartisan fashion on behalf of the American public. I have no
reason to doubt that that will continue, but I am very, very
grateful for it, particularly in an environment that seems far
too partisan I think to many of us.
I just want to get some confirmation. My understanding is
that the Ranking Member has the independence in terms of his
part of the budget. I want to make sure that continues. I
assume that has always been the case. I would hope it would
continue.
Mr. Rogers. Absolutely.
Mr. Smith of Washington. Now, we do have a substantial
portion of our budget that is joint, which I think we are the
only Committee that does that, and that I would say is
essential to our work. As the majorities have bounced back and
forth, we have the consistency of the staff. Many of the
Members who worked for me when I was the Chairman, you know,
worked for Mike, and that institutional knowledge is crucial.
Then we do have portions of our budget, and as the member
of the minority now going on my third year with Mr. Rogers as
Chairman, it has been a great working relationship. I have no
complaints.
Mr. Morelle. I frankly always appreciated that the NDAA has
largely been bipartisan. I hope that certainly continues.
We talked a lot here about our oversight responsibilities
and asked the chairs of the various authorizing Committees and
Ranking Members about whether their resources that they are
requesting are adequate to fulfill article I responsibilities,
particularly given both the threats that we face around the
world and, frankly, given some of the changes in the
administration's posture on how America engages around the
world.
Are you confident you have what you need in terms of your
request to fulfill those article I oversight responsibilities?
Mr. Rogers. Well, with regard to our oversight
responsibilities, with this 5-percent increase, we do feel
confident we will be able to do that. Although, you will hear
us throughout this Congress talking about the need for
dramatically increased defense spending in the Department of
Defense.
The 5 percent we are asking for here today will be
sufficient.
Mr. Morelle. Are you comfortable as well, to the Ranking
Member?
Mr. Smith of Washington. Yes, absolutely, in terms of the
Committee. I mean, the Chairman is sensitive to that sort of
question because there is a lot of focus on what the actual
size the defense budget should be. As you know, the debate
through the reconciliation process, we are still trying to get
Fiscal Year 2025 done. I think the variables between where it
could be are about as wide as I have ever seen here.
The Chairman wants to make that point, to not lose track of
the overarching needs, but that is not your direct problem.
That is working on the Committee side.
Mr. Morelle. Last thing I would ask, I do not know how much
you are doing in terms of field hearings or hearings outside
Washington, but just curious if you feel you are receiving the
necessary security support from the Capitol Police, Sergeant at
Arms, and in coordination with local law enforcement when you
venture outside of the Washington?
Mr. Rogers. Absolutely.
Mr. Morelle. Well, I would invite you--before I yield, the
chair and I remain very, very concerned about the threat
environment against Members and staff. Just invite you to make
sure that you keep us informed of any challenges you have or
any concerns that you have in that regard. We want to make
sure, whether we are at Washington or we are elsewhere, that we
have all the resources necessary to protect people and staff
when they travel about.
I invite you to share your concerns with us over time.
With that, I thank you again both for your leadership and
all your service.
Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
We thank the chair and Ranking Member for your testimony
today. Very helpful as we work to fulfill our commitment to
finalize the budget for the Committees of the House.
This is the last hearing. I thank our Members as well for
their participation over 2 days.
Without objection, each Member, including our witnesses,
will have 5 legislative days to insert additional materials
into the record or to revise and extend their remarks.
If there is no further business, I thank the Members for
their participation.
Without objection, the Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:37 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]