    [House Hearing, 119 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                   COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED
                    AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2026
    _______________________________________________________________________

                                     HEARINGS

                                     BEFORE A

                               SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                             HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                  FIRST SESSION
                                  ______________

               SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND
                                RELATED AGENCIES

                          HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chair

      DALE W. STRONG, Alabama,	GRACE MENG, New York,
        Vice Chair			 Ranking Member
      JOHN R. CARTER, Texas		GLENN IVEY, Maryland
      BEN CLINE, Virginia		JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
      TONY GONZALES, Texas		MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
      ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia	FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
      MARK ALFORD, Missouri
      RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia

      NOTE: Under committee rules, Mr. Cole, as chairman of the full
    committee, and Ms. DeLauro, as ranking minority member of the full
    committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.

                    Robert Yavor, Chris Esparza, Alley Adcock,
                    Elizabeth Barczak and Christopher Eckhardt
                                Subcommittee Staff

                                 ___________________

                                      PART 2

                                                                    Page

      Department of Commerce.........................................  1
      Department of Justice.......................................... 95
      Public Testimony Submitted for the Record.................... . 146

      [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABL IN TIFF FORMAT]
                              ________________________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    62-425                     WASHINGTON : 2026
    _______________________________________________________________________

                       HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                                    ----------
                          TOM COLE, Oklahoma, Chairman

      HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky,
        Chairman Emeritus
      ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
      MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
      JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
      KEN CALVERT, California
      MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
      STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
      CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
        Tennessee
      DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
      ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
      MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
      DAVID G. VALADAO, California
      DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
      JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
      JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
      BEN CLINE, Virginia
      GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
      ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
      TONY GONZALES, Texas
      JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
      MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
      MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi
      RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
      ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia
      STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
      SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
      JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
      JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona
      CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina
      MARK ALFORD, Missouri
      NICK LaLOTA, New York
      DALE W. STRONG, Alabama
      CELESTE MALOY, Utah
      RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia

      ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut,
        Ranking Member
      STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
      MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
      JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
      SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
      BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
      DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
      HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
      CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
      MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
      GRACE MENG, New York
      MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
      PETE AGUILAR, California
      LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
      BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
      NORMA J. TORRES, California
      ED CASE, Hawaii
      ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
      JOSH HARDER, California
      LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
      SUSIE LEE, Nevada
      JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
      MIKE LEVIN, California
      MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
      VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
      FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
      MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ,
        Washington
      GLENN IVEY, Maryland

                    Susan Ross, Chief Clerk and Staff Director

                                       (II)

                        COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND
                        RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS.
                                    FOR 2026

                                  ----------

                                                Thursday, June 5, 2025.

                             DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

                                    WITNESS

    HON. HOWARD LUTNICK, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
        Mr. Rogers. Good morning. The subcommittee will be in
    order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
    recess at any time.
        Let me welcome everyone to this morning's hearing. Thank
    you to our subcommittee members, and to Secretary for being
    with us today for a good while.
        The fiscal year 2026 budget request comes at a time of
    continued fiscal pressure. We must ensure every American
    taxpayer dollar is used efficiently and continue to work to
    reduce duplication across agencies and throughout the
    government.
        The Department of Commerce's budget request totals $8.4
    billion, a $1.8 billion, or 17 percent decrease from the
    current level. The budget request includes funding for targeted
    investments in tools to address unfair trade practices and
    emphasizes important initiatives, such as American
    manufacturing and trade enforcement.
        Specifically, it includes a 50 percent increase for the
    bureau of industry and security to counter threats from China
    and protect America's technological competitiveness.
        The budget request also includes a 20 percent increase for
    the Census Bureau to continue providing reliable statistics.
        Overall, the Department of Commerce is charged with
    protecting supply chain security, economic growth and job
    creation, weather research and response, and economic data
    analysis, all keystones imperative to American prosperity.
        On the international front, the department plays an
    important role in protecting our industries from one-sided
    trade practices, and strengthens supply chains that are key to
    ensuring our economic security and global leadership.
        I have always been a big supporter of the Department of
    Commerce. The department's core initiatives are vital to small
    town economies across the country, including my district in
    eastern Kentucky. One of the most critical components of
    revitalizing rural America is expanding access to high-speed
    reliable broadband. In far too many places a lack of broadband
    access is not just an inconvenience, it is a barrier to
    education, job creation, entrepreneurship, and even basic
    healthcare.
        From EDA's emphasis on job creation and expanding economic
    opportunity, to NOAA's local weather forecast offices that work
    around the clock to send out alerts during times of severe
    weather, the department's wide ranging responsibility requires
    clear prioritization and accountability.
        We look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Secretary, how
    this budget request furthers our shared goals of reducing
    wasteful spending, ensuring global competitiveness, expanding
    broadband, and driving economic development.
        Let me now recognize my ranking member of the subcommittee,
    Ms. Meng.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much,
    Mr. Secretary, for testifying today. And as a fellow New
    Yorker, congratulations.
        We meet today to discuss the Commerce Department's fiscal
    year 2026 budget request. At the same time I must express my
    strong disappointment that we are still awaiting the complete
    details of the budget request. We are also awaiting the full
    legally required details of the Commerce Department's fiscal
    year 2025 operating plan, despite the fact that such details
    were legally required to be sent to our Appropriations
    Committee more than a month ago.
        These delays are unacceptable. They are also disturbingly a
    pattern that we have seen over the last four and a half months,
    a pattern of significant and often illegal actions by Federal
    agencies, including the Commerce Department.
        In most cases we have learned of these actions not from the
    department itself, but from news media reporting, and from
    grants and contract recipients whose critical grant funding and
    contract extensions have been delayed or frozen often in direct
    violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
        We have also heard from numerous Federal workers who have
    been fired without any good justification.
        The National Weather Service has taken a huge hit under
    this administration. Hundreds of meteorologists and other
    Weather Service employees were fired or felt pressured to sign
    up for Elon Musk's deferred resignation program. As a result,
    the National Weather Service has been scrambling to keep a
    minimum staff at weather forecast offices around the country.
        This staffing shortage has also forced the Weather Service
    to reduce its deployments of weather balloons, which have long
    provided critical information for accurate weather forecasting
    in local areas. This is all happening, by the way, right when
    both hurricane season and wildfire seasons are just beginning.
        The Weather Service announced earlier this week that it is
    moving its limited resources around, which will only change the
    locations that are experiencing staffing shortages.
        It has also announced that it has received permission to
    hire 126 new employees, but this is obviously far short of the
    number of working employees the Weather Service has lost since
    February.
        It is unclear when these new employees will be on-boarded,
    let alone when they will be fully trained to the level of
    performance of the recently departed weather service employees.
        Five former directors of the National Weather Service who
    served under both Republican and Democratic administrations
    wrote an open letter last month expressing their strong
    concerns. They wrote that National Weather Service staff,
    quote, ``will have an impossible task to continue its current
    level of services. Not only are there fewer forecasters, but
    there are also fewer electronic technicians responsible for
    maintaining the critical NEXRAD radars. Our worst nightmare is
    that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that
    there will be needless loss of life.'' Unquote.
        The administration is also holding back various emergency
    designated fiscal year 2025 Commerce Department funds. This is
    funding that Congress appropriated to support weather
    forecasting, create and preserve American private sector jobs,
    and protect our national security. Holding this funding back is
    unacceptable, and the administration should issue the required
    emergency designations immediately.
        The administration and the Commerce Department have
    released some initial details regarding their fiscal year 2026
    budget requests, most of which I find greatly concerning. For
    example, the administration is proposing to end funding for the
    Economic Development Administration, or EDA, contrary to your
    testimony at your Senate confirmation hearing in which you
    answered that you would maintain the programs at EDA.
        As you know, the EDA helps create jobs and economic
    opportunities in distressed communities across the country, and
    historically two-thirds of its budget has helped create jobs in
    rural areas.
        The administration is also proposing to end funding for the
    Minority Business Development Agency, or MBDA, again, contrary
    to your testimony in which you answered that you did not
    support dismantling MBDA.
        In addition, contrary to the Trump administration's stated
    goal of bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, the Trump
    administration is proposing to eliminate funding for the
    Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, a successful
    bipartisan program that helps small and medium sized U.S.
    manufacturers in every State grow and improve their operations,
    and create jobs.
        Furthermore, the budget request further effectively cuts
    the operating budget of the National Weather Service in 2026.
    It creates a real risk of a future gap in critical weather
    satellite data. This needlessly risks lives, property and
    public infrastructure across the country, especially during
    periods of hurricanes, wildfires and other extreme weather
    events.
        The administration proposes to slash funding for other
    vital efforts, including grant funding to protect coastal and
    Great Lakes communities, as well as funding to better study and
    prepare for the consequences of climate change.
        I very much hope that the appropriations bill that our
    subcommittee considers next month will reject these extreme
    cuts.
        I look forward to further discussing these and other
    concerns at today's hearing, and, again, thank you very much,
    Mr. Secretary, for your testimony today.
        Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Ms. Meng. I would now like to
    recognize our witness, Secretary Lutnick. Am I pronouncing that
    correctly, Lutnick?
        Secretary Lutnick. You are.
        Mr. Rogers. For an opening statement.
        Secretary Lutnick. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers. Without objection, your written statement will
    be entered into the record, and we hope you can summarize in 5
    minutes.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD LUTNICK

        Secretary Lutnick. I will do my best. Thank you, Chairman
    Rogers, Ranking Member Meng, and the members of the
    subcommittee. It is an honor for me to join you today.
        America is once again the most attractive destination for
    investment in the world. Under President Trump's leadership,
    the Department of Commerce is strengthening American industry
    from the most popular to those industries that have been long
    ignored.
        We are focused on building an America and driving our
    economic growth, which will narrow the deficit and we will
    deliver a new era of American innovation.
        Businesses are no longer looking overseas. They are
    choosing to invest in America first. Through the President's
    executive order establishing the investment accelerator in the
    Department of Commerce, we have already secured trillions of
    dollars of new commitments from world class companies and
    sovereign wealth funds eager to build and invest in the United
    States.
        This surge in investment, paired with renewed commitment to
    fair and reciprocal trade is reigniting American's
    manufacturing base. We are bringing car manufacturing back to
    Michigan and Ohio. We are reopening steel mills in
    Pennsylvania. And just last month Arizona welcomed the largest
    semiconductor investment in the United States of America,
    thanks to an investment of TSMC.
        The first chips deals that we are improving have now have
    commitments more than doubling the $300 billion of investment
    in America, and that is without spending any more taxpayer
    dollars than those chips funds that you have already approved.
        So our Commerce Department is driving substantial
    investments across America and benefiting the American
    taxpayer.
        Critically, the President's America's first agenda goes
    beyond just economic growth and investment. The President is
    taking concrete actions to protect American workers, and our
    national security.
        Under section 232, the Commerce Department is conducting
    numerous investigations to protect, to reshore, and to revive
    manufacturing capacity across our critical industries here in
    America.
        The Trump administration is imposing tariffs and ending
    loopholes. In April we ended the de minimus loophole which
    allowed foreign companies to avoid paying tariffs on small
    shipments which basically undercut American small business. New
    export controls are protecting cutting edge technologies, and
    finally protecting our critical industries, and protecting
    American innovation.
        In fact, the Bureau of Industry and Security, working with
    our partners in the Department of Justice, we have secured 22
    criminal convictions, 32 arrests, 38 indictments, 231
    detentions, and seized more than $185.5 million, and then we
    did other types of seizures for another $40 million.
        Under this administration, the U.S. Patent and Trademark
    Office is tackling a mountain of unexamined patent applications
    left by the Biden administration, almost 800,000 unreviewed
    patent applications, successfully reducing the inventory
    backlog for the first time in 4 years. In the past 4 months
    alone we have removed 50,000 fraudulent goods and services from
    the trademark register that blocked the use of legitimate
    products by American businesses.
        Many of these purported trademarks came from what they call
    ``specimen farms'' that are fake websites displaying products
    that don't really exist.
        At NOAA we are transforming how we track storm and forecast
    weather with cutting-edge technology. To improve the
    understanding and prediction of how hurricanes intensify, this
    season NOAA's research centers will deploy new small aircraft
    drone systems and additional underwater gliders.
        This year the National Weather Service will be running an
    experimental AI based forecast system, and all data we will
    make publicly available.
        Today this commitment to innovation means earlier warnings
    and increased accuracy for Americans no matter where they live.
        For far too long Americans have been unfairly treated by
    foreign nations because we allowed them to take advantage of
    our markets to the detriment of our own industry and Americans.
        Thanks to President Trump, and this administration's
    efforts, we are reversing this trend by reshoring critical
    manufacturing, eliminating unfair trade barriers and practices,
    and investing in our American workforce.
        With your help, we will deliver growth and prosperity
    across our great Nation. I deeply appreciate you inviting me
    here today, and I look forward to answering your questions and
    talking together.
        [The information follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Secretary, for those words. We have
    a full compliment of members of the subcommittee with us this
    morning, and for that reason we will do our questioning under
    the 5-minute rule.
        So, Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. I yield myself
    5 minutes.
        You touched on this somewhat already, but I wanted to ask
    you about the Chinese Communist Party and their effect in this
    country, and our bipartisan concern. From economic warfare, to
    technological threats, China is seeking to obtain advantage of
    our Nation, our people and our companies at all possible
    opportunities.
        Again, summarize what we are doing to strengthen our
    ability to counter China's unfair trade practices, protect
    American intellectual property, and secure critical supply
    chains and emerging technologies.
        Secretary Lutnick. The Chinese Communist Party seeks to
    become the dominant culture of the world, and it uses our
    knowledge, our innovation, and our entrepreneurial spirit
    against us. It sends 100s of 1,000s of students to train and
    learn here in order to build up their capacity to grow. They
    copy our innovations.
        For example, if you see their airplanes, gosh, they look
    just like the F-22 because they have copied our models and our
    systems. They are trying to copy our technology. And in the
    race for AI supremacy, they are behind us, but they are working
    with a central government out to get us. Right. To beat us so
    that they will have intellectual superiority over us.
        There are an AI race, and BIS, our bureau, is at the heart
    of protecting America. And that is why we have sought an
    increase in the budget, even though we are decreasing our
    overall budget, we need to arm the Bureau of Industry and
    Security to protect us and to help us keep key industries away
    from the Chinese so that they can't just copy us all the time.
        Mr. Rogers. The budget request for BIS does not specify any
    specific initiatives related to increasing oversight of
    entities posing a threat to U.S. national security. Why is that
    so?
        Secretary Lutnick. I would be happy to detail it either
    here or in writing, but the idea is to add enforcement agents,
    agents who carry weapons, agents who go and examine warehouses,
    examine those people who are exporting, examine the imports,
    find the particular items, and make sure we have export
    controls are rigorously enforced. So that is the specific use
    of the funds, is more people to protect and defend our export
    controls. The policies the government make need to be
    rigorously enforced, and we are trying to increase the
    enforcement capacity because we just don't have enough
    enforcement agents to do a great job.
        Mr. Rogers. Let me switch gears and ask you about the
    National Weather Service. Kentucky has been the target of
    floods and tornadoes and everything else. In fact, we lost 20
    people 2 weeks ago in my hometown and adjoining area. I am
    concerned about the implications of local weather forecast
    offices operating at reduced staffing levels.
        Take, for example, the Jackson Kentucky office, which is
    currently operating with multiple vacancies and no permanent
    meteorologist. What can we do about that? What steps are being
    taken to ensure NOAA's local weather forecast offices have the
    resources, the technology and staffing to issue timely accurate
    warnings and protect lives in high-risk communities?
        Secretary Lutnick. All weather collection technology is in
    full force and effect, our satellites, our balloons, all
    sources are in full force and effect. The National Weather
    Service employs 2,100 meteorologists. Less than 130 took early
    retirement. It is fake news and inappropriate to suggest a
    single meteorologist or hydrologist was fired. That is
    preposterous and silly.
        Less than 5 percent chose to retire. And we, using these
    responsible--Commerce Department sought and were granted the
    ability to hire those people, the same number, so we will have
    no reduction in force. Our National Hurricane Center has full
    staff.
        And I want you to understand just the last portion what you
    said, we have numerous regional offices which are generally
    small, and, you know, they usually have three or four
    meteorologists, and these exist because the data is locally
    hardwired into old computers with hard drives and green
    screens. If I showed it to you you would be embarrassed.
        The idea is to automate that, to put it on the cloud so
    that the 2,100 meteorologists we have, and the 100s of
    hydrologists that we have can forecast the weather from central
    locations and back up each other and be more appropriate.
        So I think the technological advancements we will make over
    the next year or two years will totally change these things.
    But I want to be crystal clear, every single person, the
    National Weather Service, we are at full staff, we have full
    capacity, and we will have the best forecasting capacity that
    we possibly can to protect Americans. And I will not sleep if
    that were not true. That is required of you, of me, and of the
    America, that we deliver that for American people, and I
    promise you we are.
        Mr. Rogers. Ms. Meng.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am glad to hear the
    status update of the regional local weather offices. It is
    very--your testimony and the numbers are really different from
    what has been reported in the press. We just want to make sure,
    you know, whether it is New York, my home State, or States like
    Kentucky which have gone through such horrible circumstances,
    and our condolences to your constituents and their families,
    Mr. Chair, we want to make sure that our local communities can
    be prepared.
        I know that you are saying it is inconsistent from the
    reporting. Would you or your team be able to provide statistics
    and just more accounting of what has happened, where there are
    retired or layoffs, just so we can all be on the same page if
    you do think it is inconsistent with the press reporting?
        Secretary Lutnick. Sure. There were no layoffs. As I said
    there, were less than 5 percent retirements, and we have the
    authority to replace them. But that turnover is historically
    lower than it has normally been. As you can imagine, people are
    entitled to retire who have worked at the department. But I
    would be glad to give you very specific details. Be my
    pleasure.
        Ms. Meng. Okay. Thank you so much. I wanted to switch gears
    and ask about the Census Bureau. In April, NPR reported that
    the hiring freeze and recent Census Bureau staff departures,
    including those of five division or office chiefs, are raising
    concerns about whether the Census Bureau can continue producing
    reliable statistics for this country.
        Acting Director Ron Jarmin also recently noted that the
    Bureau lost more than 1,000 employees in recent months. We have
    heard warnings that the reports of Elon Musk and the DOGE team
    accessing sensitive personal data of Americans at other Federal
    agencies could also undermine public trust in the Census
    Bureau.
        Mr. Secretary, what are you doing to address these
    concerns?
        Secretary Lutnick. Again, my capacity to communicate
    throughout this administration has made the Department of
    Commerce well situated. We are not losing staff in ways that we
    don't want to under any circumstances. We are able to fulfill
    all of our mission at the Census Bureau.
        The Census Bureau is one of the great statistical places in
    our government, our capacity to analyze and statistically think
    things through. If you couple that in its full--the Bureau of
    Economic Analysis. Right. Where we live and we do GDP. That is
    a great center of statistical capacity. And I think--so we have
    sought to add to the Commerce Department the Bureau of Labor
    Statistics so that CPI--I mean, shouldn't we have all of the
    great statisticians in the government working together. Again,
    these are the same concepts, which is use technology, use
    automation. I mean, the idea that the Bureau of Labor
    Statistics has enumerators calling around and asking for data
    when technology makes that amazingly capable, and we could do
    so much better, so we are seeking to use technology.
        But I can promise you, the census is both well staffed,
    and, more importantly, brilliantly covered by statisticians who
    are great at doing their job. And I am really excited for the
    structure of how the census will work going forward. But you
    won't hear anything about weakness. And accuracy, I am not
    saying the fake news doesn't like to just say these things, but
    it is just not true. And I will happily send you those
    statistics as well because you will be very comfortable with
    the Department of Commerce.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you. And just to follow up with that,
    recently you terminated the three advisory committees. There
    are also scheduled only two major field tests in 2026. Can you
    provide us an update on the field tests, when are they
    scheduled, and what are the changes to the questions about race
    and ethnicity, and also talk about the advisory committees.
        Secretary Lutnick. The advisory committees were set up--
    again, many of these things were set up long ago and they have
    sort of run their course. And we didn't really understand what
    type of advisory committee we need to understand how to do a
    census. It didn't seem logical.
        With respect to the questionnaire, we have not considered
    that as of yet, so I don't--we just have not spent the time
    thinking about those topics. The decennial census is quite far
    away, and we have plenty of time to think about that going
    forward.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you. I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Judge Carter.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome, Mr.
    Secretary. My district in central Texas has become a leader in
    semiconductor production thanks to strong partnerships between
    the State, their local political organizations, the industry,
    the universities, and the workforce training centers, including
    programs tailored for veterans and military families.
        How is the department supporting these types of locally
    driven efforts, and what more can be done to accelerate the
    pipeline of skilled American workers entering the semiconductor
    industry?
        Secretary Lutnick. Workforce training will be a centerpiece
    of the Trump administration, and I have been tasked to be part
    of the team to build that. So if the trillions of dollars that
    the Trump administration is bringing in to invest in America to
    build and to operate those gigantic production facilities, to
    reshore manufacturing, we need to train great Americans to be,
    you know, we say HVAC technicians. You realize these factories
    have these really high-tech closed loop cooling systems.
    Amazing. But training our workforce to do this is really a key
    part of the administration.
        I think we will train 5 million Americans for these great
    jobs that are coming, just like that semiconductor plant in
    Arizona, I mean, 3,000 jobs for each plant and they are
    building 10 of them. So these are just great jobs coming. And
    Texas I know is going to have a great participation in that,
    and both you--use the schools, and I think it will be an
    extraordinary outcome for Americans.
        Mr. Carter. Well, Samsung is being a good neighbor in my
    district, and I am real proud of what they are doing.
        As a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I
    have remained deeply concerned about the national security risk
    tied to our reliance on foreign-made semiconductor components.
    What step is the department taking to reduce our dependence on
    overseas manufacturing, particularly for chips that support
    critical defense systems.
        Secretary Lutnick. Taiwan produces 90 percent of the
    world's wafers, which then chip apart, and that becomes chips.
    So the United States has a demand for 10 million sort of high-
    end wafers, and we, with the increase of $100 billion
    investment that the Trump administration was able to bring in
    from TSMC, we will get to about 12 percent production. Woefully
    inefficient.
        And I think what you are going to see is the Trump
    administration is going to be very very focused on bringing
    chip production to America, and the full supply chain to
    America, that is going to bring in probably between $500
    billion and a trillion dollar investment, and you are going to
    see that across the United States of America.
        And the Trump administration is very very focused on trying
    to get up to 5 million wafers during this administration, which
    will be a record breaking speed, but I think it is very
    important for exactly the topic you raised.
        Mr. Carter. Well, that is fantastic. I am encouraged, we
    are encouraged by the launch of the United States investment
    accelerator and appreciate your continued focus on revitalizing
    American manufacturing.
        Can you share more about how the rollout of this new office
    will take shape, and are there other--any early projects we can
    expect, particularly those that support the development of
    critical defense related semiconductor technology?
        Secretary Lutnick. It has been too slow, the process to
    build a great factory and a great advanced manufacturing
    facility in America. Generally it has taken 3 plus years from
    start to finish. And so the idea of the investment accelerator
    is exactly that, to assign, if you are willing to invest more
    than $10 billion, assign your direct contact that will help you
    with permitting, regulation, and be a one government response
    to help you take that from 3 years, let's try to get it to 18
    months so we can double our building capacity, focused on
    semiconductors, of course, but across all industry, and that is
    how we have been able to recruit over, just the department
    itself, over $5 trillion of investment commitment and that we
    are taking care of how quickly they can build in America.
        Mr. Carter. Fantastic. I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Ivey.
        Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr.
    Secretary. I wanted to join quickly with the comments from the
    chair and the ranking member regarding NOAA. And I hear your
    point about fake news and numbers, but I will say this, I mean,
    I have two NOAA installations in my district, and headquarters
    is, I don't know, just a couple of miles across the line, and I
    heard a very different story than what you are saying about
    people being forced out of there. But I look forward to getting
    the answers that you provide here.
        I also saw your comments with respect to Senator Van Hollen
    yesterday. I look forward to seeing your responses to his
    questions, too.
        I wanted to ask you about MBDA, which the ranking member
    raised as well. During your confirmation hearing on January
    29th before the Senate Commerce Committee, Senator Blunt
    Rochester asked, yes or no, do you support dismantling the
    MBDA, and you said, I do not.
        Now, I got the skinny budget numbers here and its got EDA
    and MBDA combined with a cut for $624 million. And then the
    narrative connected with that, it says, that MBDA, the agency
    is fully eliminated.
        So I wanted to ask you what changed, and what is the status
    of MBDA at this point?
        Secretary Lutnick. MBDA is not being fully eliminated. That
    is inaccurate. We are reducing it to its statutory minimum
    size, as is appropriate. The problem I see with MBDA----
        Mr. Ivey. Could I ask before you move on, what that does
    mean, statutory minimum size?
        Secretary Lutnick. It means that it is required by law to
    be a certain size, and we will have it be a certain size.
        Mr. Ivey. What size is that?
        Secretary Lutnick. It was 65 people. I think it is at less
    than 10 people.
        Mr. Ivey. Okay. And why are you doing that?
        Secretary Lutnick. These are both small size--the problem
    is the GAO gives me a report that says there are 80 other
    programs and 80 institutions that are so much larger, 10 times
    larger that achieve the same outcomes and we are just too small
    and too inefficient to do it correctly. So I think we are
    better served with other programs----
        Mr. Ivey. I apologize. I have a couple other areas to hit.
    I would love to see that GAO report. I want to know what those
    80 other entities are because I am not aware of them. Maybe SBA
    has an overlap with the MBDA mission, but the other--I don't
    know what those other ones could be. But I look forward to
    hearing back from you on that because I think it is an
    important agency, it is statutory, so it needs to be
    maintained, certainly at some level, and there is a lot of
    benefit from it.
        I would also mention the Congressional Black Caucus sent
    you a letter on this issue and asked for a response by April
    18th. I don't think we have received it yet, so I would ask
    that you provide that response as well.
        Let me move quickly to Quantum Technology. This is kind of
    a quicker point for me, but Quantum Computing, this chart shows
    basically funding by governments. China, as you can see, far
    outpaces the United States. We have got a couple of other----
        Secretary Lutnick. I couldn't see it, but I was guessing
    the top bar--I didn't need to see the words. I got the point.
        Mr. Ivey. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, here is the
    question, because this is concerning, obviously, and you
    touched on this a bit in your opening testimony, although you
    only talked about the enforcement side of competition with
    China, and clearly they are stealing a lot of our data, but
    they are also committing a lot of engineers, scientists and
    resources to outpacing us on the legitimate size of this, too,
    from the competitive side. I don't see that being reflected in
    not, just the Commerce Department, but the overall U.S. budget.
        IonQ is a company in my district. It is a spinoff from the
    University of Maryland's incubator. We have a lot of those
    across the country.
        Quick point, man, I am out of time already, the cuts that
    are being made, and there is an article I will submit for the
    record here, World Scientists Look Elsewhere as U.S. Labs
    Stagger Under Trump Cuts. New York Times, Cuts in Research, and
    a Scientist is Brain Drain. As we push these people out, I
    mean, you can shake your head if you want, but I went to a
    visit IonQ, and one of the things that came up was, I was like,
    how many of these people are from the United States, and he
    said not many. And I said why is that, and he said, well, in
    part because the pipeline isn't supplying these here in the
    United States, so we go overseas to get many of them.
        And one last quick point on this, a venture capital firm I
    had a chance to meet with said that they invest, I think there
    are about 30 of these they invest in, they started setting up
    shop in Canada because they can get their engineers and
    scientists from overseas quicker over there. They don't have to
    go through the immigration piece. So we are losing money on
    that front.
        So I look forward to hearing from you on that. Mr.
    Chairman, I apologize for the overrun, and I appreciate your
    generosity.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Cline.
        Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I
    appreciate you being here. As you have highlighted concerns
    about the potential for unfair treatment of American tech
    companies in the EU, which could potentially force them to make
    costly operational changes, can you share with us some of the
    steps the U.S. government is taking to promote a level playing
    field and prevent discriminatory practices like excess fines,
    enforced business model changes under regulations like their
    Digital Markets Act?
        Secretary Lutnick. This is a key topic for us in our trade
    negotiations with the European Union. We have a huge trade
    deficit in goods with the European Union, $235 billion, so they
    are just getting great advantage of us. And so part of our
    reciprocity is--they also attack our great technology companies
    because they don't have them, so they write these bills, but
    basically they could just write America in the bill because
    they are only attacking great American companies. And it is the
    Trump administration's view that that is unacceptable. That if
    you want to have a trade deal with us, you are going to take
    your foot off of the necks of the great American companies and
    treat them with respect, especially if you are taking this much
    advantage from us. So we are looking at that as a one combined
    way of thinking, and that is why we get calls from American
    companies that say thank God someone is finally looking out for
    us.
        Mr. Cline. Can you elaborate on what steps the U.S. would
    take if the EU tries to regulate American AI through DMA or
    other regulatory means?
        Secretary Lutnick. The President has made it clear that
    EU's trade, and that they have a $235 billion trade surplus
    with us, and he will say, well, if you are going to treat us
    poorly, we are going to treat you poorly. And if you want to
    treat us well, we will treat you well. Let's be reciprocal in
    how we treat each other. You are taking advantage of us--and I
    think the President will make sure, since we are the inventor
    of all of the leading AI chips of the world, we, America, are
    the inventors. We create it all. We make them in Taiwan, that
    is another topic, but we invent it all. We need to protect our
    intellectual property, and we need to make sure our compute
    power is here in America.
        Mr. Cline. Mr. Secretary, in your testimony you mentioned
    the removal of more than 50,000 fraudulent goods and services
    from the trademark register. Can you expound upon your efforts
    to counter trademark fraudsters, especially those that are
    foreign entities?
        Secretary Lutnick. What is common is that a great American
    company puts a trademark out, or even a young American company,
    and these other companies, and generally China is the leader in
    it, but they are not exclusively, they then file 1,000s of
    trademarks modifying it slightly all around it and sort of
    circle you and circle you and use our laws against us. And so
    the idea is for us to bring technology to the patent office,
    find them all and get rid of them so that we can protect our
    American companies' trademarks and make it proper instead of
    being sort of surrounded by these AI created trademarks. And
    that is the technology we are bringing to the patent office.
        The Commerce Department is going to be so much more
    technologically capable when we are done with this
    administration you won't be able to recognize it as compared to
    what was there before.
        Mr. Cline. Let me ask you about the BEAD program. Yesterday
    you told our Senate colleagues that States must choose the
    cheapest option under the BEAD program. Under the previous
    administration, we know mismanagement and misguided attempts at
    policy outcomes like rate regulation significantly slowed the
    implementation of that program. Can you comment as to what
    steps you are taking to deliver on what the previous President
    was unable to do, and can you clarify how you define cheapest
    option?
        Secretary Lutnick. Sure. The Congress authorized broadband
    access to--across America, and I want to make sure we get the
    benefit of the bargain, which means there are three ways you
    can do it. You can do it by fiber, you can do it by what is
    called fixed wireless, like WiFi we all understand, and, of
    course, there is satellite. Whichever is the most efficient
    option to get somebody broadband, that should be the only rule.
    Let's have the outcome be the determiner. And if it is a tie,
    then, of course, we don't care at all which one you pick. But
    don't run fiber--they had proposals where they were running
    $100,000 fiber to a house that was appraised at $100,000, and
    that is silly. So whichever is reasonable. So what we have
    asked all the States to do is rebid just with reasonable
    technology, and then we will get the money out of the door.
        In the calendar year 2025, the Biden administration had 30
    months and they got zero out the door. So that is the
    difference between the Trump administration and the Biden
    administration. We will get the money out the door.
        Mr. Cline. Thank you for keeping the taxpayers in mind. I
    appreciate it. I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Morelle.
        Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling us
    together. And thank you, Mr. Secretary. Also, as a fellow New
    Yorker I congratulate you on your appointment.
        You mentioned earlier the mission of the U.S. Commerce
    Department. You said nothing will take away from our mission.
    How would you in a sentence describe the mission of the
    Commerce Department?
        Secretary Lutnick. To protect, to defend and to enhance
    business in the United States of America.
        Mr. Morelle. The mission, according to the Commerce
    Department, is to create the conditions for economic growth and
    opportunities for all communities, you agree with that
    definition as well?
        Secretary Lutnick. Sounds excellent.
        Mr. Morelle. Okay. Great. And I apologize, you know, 5
    minutes is so little time, we could have a much longer
    conversation, and I hope we will have the opportunity to do
    that, I want to also just reiterate what people said. This is
    not your choice, but I would pass along to the President that
    doing budget hearings when we don't have a budget is really
    hard to do. It is hard to drill down on numbers that we don't
    have, priorities that you have.
        I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you defending the
    administration's approach. But it is really hard to do, so I
    just--you don't need to respond to that.
        But I would love if you would provide, to whatever detail
    you can, the trillions of dollars investment that have been
    made during the last couple of months and how we were able to
    achieve the commitments of those trillions.
        I will note, because this subcommittee had a fair amount to
    do with the CHIPS and Science Act, that I suspect much of the
    chip investment being made, whether it is in Texas, or whether
    it is in Arizona, or made in upstate New York in Syracuse, is
    partly by the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. I hope you will
    continue to--continue those efforts.
        I have to say that in talking to folks, both in my region
    in upstate New York, but throughout the State and other folks
    in the business world, what I hear about most is the need for
    predictability. And I have to say that most of the commentary
    that I hear from CEOs is the lack of predictability caused
    largely by the tariff situation has made it nearly impossible,
    whether you are a business large or small, to make judgments
    about where you will deploy capital and where you will deploy
    workforce.
        As decisions are made to advance tariffs, sometimes
    reciprocal, sometimes--and then retrench, and then put them
    back in place, retrench again, that what I am hearing, and this
    different clearly than what you are hearing because I feel like
    we live in maybe an alternative reality, that many people are
    not making decisions at all on investment because they don't
    know whether the President intends to follow through, even the
    most recent announcements that there is another 90-day pause,
    during the 90-day period people are saying I don't know what
    this means, should I move ahead, should I not move ahead, are
    we going to pull back, are we going to advance, what should I
    be telling them about predictability, which is so important. I
    mean, you are a former CEO, you know this in your business
    world, predictability and what you can expect both from your
    government and from the markets is so critical in making
    decisions about investment policy.
        Secretary Lutnick. We had a bad deal in America that
    produced a $1.2 trillion trade deficit. So fixing that will
    take some time. It will not take a lot of time, but it will
    take time.
        I view letting the greatest dealmaker that the United
    States has who is in the oval office, let him make the deals.
    He is making the deals. I am working on them all the time. The
    deal for America will be opening access to markets that have
    been closed for hundreds of billions of dollars, and then
    charging and protecting industries which have been attacked by
    foreigners, like steel and aluminum, where the foreign
    governments, they give--imagine a steel blast furnace, you
    think how that melts, they give free or very cheap energy and
    they make it unfair.
        So we are just going to get to a better deal for America,
    and it won't take that long, but it is a better deal for
    America.
        Mr. Morelle. Well, look, I appreciate it. I think many
    people would not agree with your assessment that the occupant
    of the White House is the greatest dealmaker ever. I am
    certainly not the greatest dealmaker ever, and I have never
    gone bankrupt in businesses that I have been involved in. So I
    am not sure I rely on it. But I also don't want to rely on a
    single individual.
        But to my point, the advancing of tariffs and then bringing
    them back and causing--that goes to the predictability issue. I
    don't know how people can rely on what the tariff situation is
    going to be even when the courts in the United States have said
    emergency powers expressed by the President are well beyond
    what was envisioned by the Congress.
        So on predictability, I will just say because I think we
    will probably agree to disagree, I would just leave you with
    what I am hearing from people is not making investments, not
    being willing to make decisions because they don't know what to
    rely on.
        And, frankly, I don't want to get into name calling, I know
    what people have said about the President and the whole thing,
    that is not important to me. What is important to me is
    advancing American interests. And, look, that is what we were
    trying to do in the past for all the criticisms of the previous
    administration, both Congress and the administration were
    interested in investing in core industries that were so vital
    to our national and economic security.
        I would love to talk to you further whether in settings
    like this or offline because I really do think we all want to
    advance American interests. So thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield
    back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Gonzales.
        Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you, Mr.
    Secretary. It is a breath of fresh air to have a nonbureaucrat
    come up here and not give bureaucratic answers on very complex
    situations. So thank you for that.
        You have a great team. Harry is doing a great job for you
    all. You have built a wonderful organization.
        I applaud the administration, in a very short period of
    time President Trump is making America great again, and he is
    doing it through executive orders. I look forward to working
    with my colleagues here to make sure we codify those long term.
        I will start off with a softball on trade. You know, I
    represent nearly, nearly half of the overall southern border. I
    appreciate the work the administration is doing to ensure our
    foreign partners are aligned in the same direction when it
    comes to strengthening our economic and national security
    alliances.
        In particular, communities in my district, which spans over
    800 miles, are dependent on strong reliable partnerships with
    Mexico and our Latin American countries to strengthen national
    security, public safety, and promote economic prosperity.
        How can we leverage the relationship between U.S. and
    Mexico to strengthen our North American footprint to compete
    against our foreign adversaries like China?
        Secretary Lutnick. Mexico is a huge trading partner of
    America. What has happened is NAFTA allowed, you know,
    corporate chieftains to take their factories out of Michigan
    and out of Ohio and move it where there is cheaper labor. So
    they attacked American workers for the benefit of corporate
    profits.
        Now, Mexico has amazing assets. They have got great energy.
    They have got great people. So the idea is let's figure out
    together with Mexico the businesses that they should be in.
    They should be in the mining business. They should be in the
    refining business. There are enormous businesses that would
    really sit well in Mexico. And so what we need to do is sort of
    rethink the relationship so that we harness their assets.
        But they don't--we don't do it by stealing ours. It is
    illogical that we are making cars in Mexico for Americans. That
    is just illogical, and the President calls it out. But there
    are enormous things that we can leverage and lean on on our
    great partner just to our south in Mexico to enhance their
    business, and, of course, then enhance the ability for us to
    import and to do business together.
        I think the relationship will be great. It just needs to be
    reimagined in a way that takes care of American workers and
    doesn't just, you know, give them a hard time.
        Mr. Gonzales. Yeah. Part of my conversations with Mexican
    leadership is we are always going to be neighbors. Always.
    Right. And I want us to be partners, and I want us to be
    working together on some of these same issues and find--you
    know, when Mexico is strong, we are strong. When we are strong,
    Mexico is strong, and vice versa.
        When things are rough--I don't want to have security issues
    along the border that spill over because they are in a tough
    economic situation.
        I look forward to talking--you know, working together and
    finding, you know, how we can find these industries that really
    can--they can lean on.
        My next question is on autonomous vehicles. The United
    States pioneered the development of autonomous vehicle
    technology. We are home to Tesla whose leadership in driver
    assistance system position leads us to lead the world in full
    autonomy. As the Chinese Communist Party aggressively ramps up
    its own EV development, we can't afford to fall behind.
        I understand that on January 16th, 2025, the Department of
    Commerce, BIS, which you spoke about earlier, issued a final
    rule to safeguard our national security by restricting certain
    ICTS transactions involving foreign adversaries, including
    those related to connected vehicle systems and automated
    driving software.
        What other actions is the Department of Commerce taking to
    ensure the United States maintains the global leadership in
    autonomous vehicle technology?
        Secretary Lutnick. I would just point out that January 16th
    is a running out the door policy by the Biden administration.
        So the Department of Commerce is deeply considering working
    closely with industry to make sure we are enhancing both our EV
    industry, and, importantly, that you spoke about the connection
    between AI and really manufacturing, bringing those two
    together, that includes both advanced manufacturing, and, of
    course, like autonomous vehicles, which is another example of
    that.
        So I think we are very focused on that, and you are going
    to see new rules coming out of the Trump administration that
    would be more along the lines of what you would hope, which is
    industry and government working closely together to make sure
    we are the winner.
        Mr. Gonzales. Good. Because this is the future. This is--we
    are not--we are not reading it in a book. We are living in it,
    and we need to lead on that. I certainly look forward to
    continuing to working with you. Thank you again for your
    testimony. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Ms. Dean.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you, Chairman Rogers. Thank you, Ranking
    Member Meng. Thank you, Ranking Member DeLauro. And thank you
    to you, Secretary Lutnick. Thanks for being here today.
        I want to pick up on what Mr. Morelle was talking about,
    and I will use the word stability. And I think you know this
    from your many years in business, and that is what I thought
    about as I was preparing for today, the importance of
    stability, or as he said, predictability. Stability is the
    foundation of economic growth. I think you have lived it.
    Businesses need clear and predictable rules to plan and to
    invest for the future.
        Given this administration's claim of being probusiness and
    progrowth, I am so baffled by the discussions around trade
    deficits, and the President's belief around trade deficits, and
    the President's beliefs around tariffs and the chaotic tariff
    policy. They are on. They are off. Many of the tariffs are
    punishing, creating a level of instability and uncertainty in
    our economy that we haven't seen since COVID.
        I hear the same thing over and over from constituents, from
    small businesses, from bankers in my area, they can't figure
    out how to plan, how to lend. Businesses can't figure out how
    to expand, how to grow, whether to hire, whether to not hire.
        And I heard just literally this morning from a very large
    American retailer, first word out of the woman's mouth was
    uncertainty, and the last thing she said to me was uncertainty,
    all surrounding tariffs, the lack of predicability.
        I also serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee, was recently
    in U.K. and Denmark, met with the American Chamber in both
    countries, confused, uncertain, they can't figure it out, what
    in God's name is going on. We cannot plan to grow businesses.
    We cannot plan to grow growth and jobs. So I am baffled,
    absolutely baffled by this administration's talk around trade
    deficits and tariffs.
        I fear the administration lacks a basic understanding of
    what a trade deficit is. I think many economists take issue
    with equating a country's trade deficit with any one country
    and its economic wellbeing.
        Some economists actually view a trade deficit as a sign of
    a country's economic health because it means we are purchasing
    more.
        For me, I have a pretty large trade deficit with my local
    grocer, or my hairdresser. It is a good thing. It means I have
    money enough to get my hair done once in a while, and to keep
    food on the table. It tells nothing about my overall financial
    position.
        Do you know when this country actually had a trade surplus,
    Secretary?
        Secretary Lutnick. We have had trade surplus--the President
    likes to speak about before----
        Ms. Dean. Historically, when did we have a trade surplus? I
    am not talking about the President. Historically.
        Secretary Lutnick. I think early--about 100 years ago.
        Ms. Dean. It was the Great Depression. It was a sign of
    what was going on. It was during the Great Depression. That is
    a direction none of us wants to go.
        Tariffs. It is 90 days. We are going to have 90 deals in 90
    days, then there is a 90-day pause. Many of these tariffs, as
    they say, punishing. Tariffs on things that make no sense
    whatsoever. Where are we going to go with the remaining deals?
        I know of one deal that has been apparently resolved with
    the United Kingdom. We got 89 more deals to do in just a few
    more days? Where are we on those deals?
        Secretary Lutnick. We are in the midst of negotiations with
    dozens and dozens of countries. We could sign deals, but they
    are only going to get better as we negotiate them.
        Ms. Dean. That is just simply not true, because as I told
    you, the American----
        Secretary Lutnick. Actually, I promise you it is true,
    because I am doing it. So I promise you it is true, and I am
    here testifying in front of you, and I promise you it is true.
        Ms. Dean. And Mr. Trump promised to bring down the cost of
    goods day one. And what he has done through his trade deficit
    fixation and his tariff chaos has nakedly increased the cost of
    goods. The estimates are that for consumers in my area,
    suburban Philadelphia, $2,000 at least a year increases on
    goods.
        I will give you an example of one. Bananas. What is the
    tariffs on bananas? Americans, by the way, love bananas. We buy
    billions of them a year. I love bananas. What is the tariff on
    bananas?
        Secretary Lutnick. The tariff on bananas would be
    representative of the countries that produce them.
        Ms. Dean. And what is that tariff?
        Secretary Lutnick. Generally, 10 percent.
        Ms. Dean. Correct. Ten percent. Walmart has already
    increased the cost of bananas by 8 percent, recognizing----
        Secretary Lutnick. But as countries do deals with us, that
    will go to zero. As countries do deals with us, that will go to
    zero.
        Ms. Dean. But the cost is on the American consumer now and
    on the businesses with the confusion now. Mr. Secretary, I
    believe you know better. I believe you recognize that a trade
    deficit is not something to fear. I believe you know that
    predictability, stability is essential for businesses. I wish
    you would show that truth to this administration.
        And I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
        Secretary Lutnick. Do you mind, Mr. Chairman, if I make one
    quick comment to the end? Would that be okay?
        Mr. Rogers. I am sorry?
        Secretary Lutnick. Would you mind if I make one quick
    comment to the Representative?
        Mr. Rogers. Sure, please.
        Secretary Lutnick. There is no uncertainty if you build in
    America and you produce your product in America, there will be
    no tariff.
        Ms. Dean. We can't produce bananas in America.
        Secretary Lutnick. So the concept of building in America
    and paying no tariff is very, very clear.
        Ms. Dean. We cannot build bananas in America.
        Mr. Rogers. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
        Mr. Clyde.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you, Secretary Lutnick, for appearing before the
    subcommittee today. First, I want to mention that, as I read
    your biography, I noticed that you have been awarded the
    Department of the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award.
    And as a 28-year Navy officer myself, I want to congratulate
    you as this public service award is the highest honor granted
    to nonmilitary personnel by the Navy. So congratulations, sir;
    job well done.
        Secretary Lutnick. Thank you.
        Mr. Clyde. Last November, the American people decisively
    elected President Trump with a mandate to restore common sense
    in Washington, including the mission of reducing the size,
    scope, and cost of the Federal Government. Thankfully,
    President Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget delivers on that
    promise by charting a course to rein in Federal spending. It
    proposes a 22.6 percent reduction in nondefense discretionary
    spending, $163 billion cut from the fiscal year 2025 levels.
        As a member of both the House Budget and the Appropriations
    Committee, I strongly support this effort and remain committed
    to restoring fiscal sanity, ensuring that future generations
    are not burdened by Washington's reckless spending addiction.
    And that is right, I say Washington has an addiction problem.
    It is an addiction to OPM. That is other people's money, OPM.
        Washington needs to go to rehab for this spending
    addiction, and I was encouraged to see that your budget request
    reduces the Department of Commerce's footprint by $1.75
    billion, a 17 percent decrease from the fiscal year 2025
    enacted level. And your proposal rightly eliminates duplicative
    programs within the Economic Development Administration and the
    Minority Business Development Agency, and curtails over a
    billion in Federal dollars that the Biden-Harris administration
    funneled into radical climate initiatives, research, and grant
    programs. So thank you for that.
        The Department of Commerce's budget request also includes a
    historic investment in the Bureau of Industry and Security.
    Now, that bureau is also responsible for a rule issued in April
    of 2024, an interim final rule, which makes permanent the pause
    on firearm export licenses, severely restricting U.S.
    manufacturers from exporting firearms, ammunition, and
    components. This rule shortens licensed durations from 4 years
    to 1 and requires case-by-case approval. It also revoked around
    2,000 previously approved export licenses, forcing companies to
    reapply.
        So, Mr. Secretary, does the Department of Commerce have any
    plans to rescind this Biden administration interim final rule?
    How are we going to handle that?
        Secretary Lutnick. Yes. We are looking into it now, and I
    find that inconsistent with our views, so we are examining it
    now and you should expect us to comment on it shortly.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you. Thank you very much. I encourage you
    in every way to rescind that rule. I think it is very, very
    damaging to the firearms industry. And I think that, you know,
    that is a very important industry in this country because it
    has to deal with our constitutional rights.
        Now, I would also like to address the tariffs and give you
    an opportunity to talk about that. For far too long, the U.S.
    has been disadvantaged by countries across the globe due to
    unfair trade practices. These longstanding trade imbalances
    have led to the off-shoring of manufacturing and have
    undermined critical supply chains, which have resulted in some
    of our defense industrial base becoming dependent on foreign
    adversaries. Ultimately, the status quo trading system that we
    currently have has failed our workforce, threatened our
    national security, and left small town America behind.
        Thankfully, President Trump is bringing countries across
    the globe to the negotiating table, ensuring that our economic
    policies remain America First and ensuring everyday American
    workers and families do not continue to be disadvantaged.
        Can you speak to your role and that of the Department in
    the trade negotiation process, and could you highlight the
    successful trade agreement that was previously mentioned with
    the United Kingdom that President Trump recently secured?
        Secretary Lutnick. My role is to assist in opening markets
    for our ranchers, for our farmers, and for our manufacturers so
    they can sell their goods in markets that were always precluded
    from our manufacturers and our farmers having access. That is
    number one.
        And number two, to break open the barriers that these
    countries put up to keep us out even without tariffs. So if we
    break them down and we open those markets, America will
    flourish. Remember, $1.2 trillion of us buying from them means
    4 percent of annual, our GDP, the largest country in the world,
    we are giving to other countries. If we had that domestically
    produced, our growth rate would be 6 percent, our deficit would
    go away by math, and we would be the winner in the world, and
    that is what the President is all about.
        Mr. Clyde. Well, thank you. Mr. Secretary, it is nice to
    see a successful businessman in charge of the Department of
    Commerce.
        And with that, I yield back. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mrvan.
        Mr. Mrvan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Secretary, it is a pleasure. I reside--I represent
    northwest Indiana, the steel--top steel producing capital
    within the Nation. With that, giving credit where credit is
    due, section 232 helped our steel industry, our steelworkers,
    and also our trades in the first administration. Now, as we go
    through this----
        Secretary Lutnick. So they are happy, right? Your
    constituents are happy.
        Mr. Mrvan. The market goes up and down, as you well know,
    in the steel industry. No. They are--they were happy with
    section 232. That is why I said I give credit where credit's
    due.
        Secretary Lutnick. Thank you.
        Mr. Mrvan. Yes, sir. So my underlying question is,
    ultimately, we want to make sure we have a level playing field
    and capacity in foreign countries such as China. They subsidize
    their steel. They flood the market. Then my steelworkers and
    people within my community lose their jobs.
        I am going to give you an opportunity to talk about the 50
    percent steel tariffs that are in place now, and I also want to
    talk about the concern that I have for downstream industries.
    Specifically, you had talked about in many different areas
    reshoring domestic manufacturing. I am on board and have
    advocated for reshoring domestic manufacturing. The time it
    takes to invest those trillions of dollars and build up for
    capacity to build--as you had mentioned cars are being built in
    Mexico for America.
        How are we going to invest, or how are you, one, the impact
    of the 50 percent tariffs, if you could discuss that with me,
    and then how is it affecting downstream industries, and what is
    the plan to make sure that those individuals who work in those
    plants that are downstream of the steel industries are going to
    be protected?
        Secretary Lutnick. So foreign countries subsidize the
    power, which is the biggest cost.
        Mr. Mrvan. Energy.
        Secretary Lutnick. And so China can produce steel at $450 a
    metric ton, and our price was generally just below $1,000. So
    they basically put 40 blast furnace companies out of business,
    so they basically were crushing steel in America. And Donald
    Trump came in and said, look, it is a subsidy. So we put on 25
    percent and that moved the price up to about $900, and then it
    started to drift down because the Chinese are producing it at
    $450, because they don't pay for power.
        Mr. Mrvan. Right.
        Secretary Lutnick. So the President said, I have got to
    protect domestic steel. Because his view is you can't fight a
    war unless you can make steel. You can't fight a war unless you
    can make aluminum. And the steelworkers and aluminum workers of
    America are happy because they are being protected. The
    reasonable price point is where we are right now, which is just
    below $1,000 a metric ton. We are going to build--tens of
    billions of dollars have been committed because of that to
    building plants, mills----
        Mr. Mrvan. Can you give me examples of the promised
    investments?
        Secretary Lutnick. Hyundai promised $7.5 billion.
        Mr. Mrvan. Hyundai.
        Secretary Lutnick. Hyundai, you know, the Korean----
        Mr. Mrvan. Hyundai. Sure.
        Secretary Lutnick. $7.5 billion plant. There were a
    variety--I met with a variety of steel makers who offered us
    about $6 billion of two new plants. Nippon Steel, $14.1 billion
    of new investment.
        Mr. Mrvan. That is a whole other 5 minutes, but yes.
        Secretary Lutnick. I believe you. But those are commitments
    that we have. And in auto, we have $250 billion of commitments
    because of the tariffs to build and reshore in South Carolina,
    in Ohio, in Michigan, in Tennessee. These are all coming in
    because of our tariffs.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. So along with tariffs is the enforcement
    that you talked about. So what I--one of the reasons why I
    wanted to be in this committee is to be able to make sure that
    the enforcement side of it, the ITA, has the resources
    necessary.
        Are you here making a commitment that there won't be cuts
    to the ITA that will reduce the resources that they need to
    make sure that the enforcement of the products that are coming
    in to our country that we can track that?
        Secretary Lutnick. Importing, exporting are key roles that
    we will never cut; we will only enhance. There are a whole
    variety of areas within these bureaus that you would agree with
    me are just not necessary. So we are reexamining what is
    important and putting the resources on that, which is most
    important.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. I will wait for the second round to talk
    about Nippon, the Nippon deal. And just one very quick
    question. Were you in the room in the CFIUS committee for the
    Nippon deal?
        Secretary Lutnick. Yes.
        Mr. Mrvan. What was your recommendation?
        Secretary Lutnick. My recommendation was it could be
    approved with mitigation, change.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. On my second round--and I am--I would like
    to continue that conversation. Thank you.
        With that, I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Strong.
        Mr. Strong. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member
    Meng, for holding this hearing today. I would also like to
    thank the subcommittee staff for their hard work.
        Secretary Lutnick, great to be with you again. Thank you
    and your staff for being here today. Each of you have had a
    full 48 hours.
        I commend you for your efforts to prioritize President
    Trump's America First trade agenda. During your Senate budget
    hearing yesterday, you highlighted Alabama's role in the
    automotive industry and noted your department's $250 billion
    commitment to reshore that sector.
        In my district in Alabama, we are honored to be home to
    Mazda, Toyota, and Toyota Motor Manufacturing, where 66 percent
    of all combustible engines for Toyota North America are made in
    our district, 4,000 every 24 hours.
        Mr. Secretary, what other sectors are you prioritizing
    investment in beyond the automotive industry to reduce our
    dependence on foreign suppliers for critical goods?
        Secretary Lutnick. We have examinations in pharmaceuticals,
    right. Too many of our pharmaceuticals are antibiotics. You
    can't fight a war and need to ask your adversary to send you
    the antibiotics. So we need pharmaceuticals to be reshored to
    America. We need semiconductors, which we have already
    discussed, reshored in America. Those are two big items.
    Aircraft parts is another place that we think there is focus,
    right. And, of course, as we have discussed, automotive is
    vital to America. Steel and aluminum, which I just discussed.
        So those are the kind of topics that we are focused on
    bringing and making sure that we are reshoring for national
    security reasons in America.
        Mr. Strong. Thank you, Secretary Lutnick. My home,
    Alabama's Fifth Congressional District, has over 400 companies
    developing and deploying technologies with various national
    defense, space exploration, and homeland security applications.
        Your budget request includes a 60 percent increase in
    funding for the Bureau of Industry and Security. How does your
    department plan to utilize this funding to protect and bolster
    domestic companies, and how would this funding be used to
    improve our economic competitiveness and national security?
        Secretary Lutnick. Export controls, making sure that our
    adversaries don't get our best equipment, our most cutting-edge
    ideas. So if we don't have enough agents--you know, we have two
    agents in China. That is just--come on. So we just need more
    agents to protect and defend our policies, and that is what the
    request is for. Let's grow our agents in the field to enforce
    the policies that we make at home.
        Mr. Strong. Totally agree, and that leads to my next
    question. We are seeing increased sophistication from bad
    actors to circumvent U.S. trade laws. China is producing goods
    domestically and routing them through other countries to avoid
    the made-in-China label.
        Your department has asked for funds to address unbalanced
    trade through increased anti-dumping and countervailing duty
    investigation. How will this funding help combat China's
    circumvention of American tariffs, and what tools or
    technologies are you leveraging?
        Secretary Lutnick. Unfortunately, it is not just China.
    There are numerous countries whose governments subsidize their
    industries and, therefore, create an uncompetitive environment,
    and then they, basically at below cost, try to export to
    America, which creates our trade deficit. So we have anti-
    dumping, countervailing duties. That is the idea. We need to
    study them and we need to enforce them, and that is a key role
    of the Department of Commerce. And we need to augment that and
    we need to defend it for exactly the point that these--for
    example, steel and aluminum, they are crushing our industry
    trying to put us out of that business.
        What I loved is that the U.K. had one blast furnace left.
    They sold it to the Chinese, and the Chinese then got all their
    customers and shut it. I mean--and then they have no steel
    industry.
        Mr. Strong. Secretary Lutnick, in 2024, the Census Bureau
    selected Huntsville, Alabama as one of six cities to
    participate in the 2026 Census test run. The 2026 test is an
    opportunity for the Census to refine its operations in a city
    like Huntsville, which is experiencing fast population growth,
    making it harder to accurately count.
        Secretary Lutnick, what will you do to commit to advocating
    for full funding this year and next to carry out this 2026
    testing program, including the Huntsville site, and will you
    provide a clear timeline to the State so they can begin
    preparation without delay? And also, your thoughts about
    consistency from State to State not allowing non-U.S. citizens
    to be counted in the United States Census.
        Secretary Lutnick. Consistency makes sense. Commitment to
    doing the absolute best statistical analysis of the Census is
    easy for me to commit to. We will focus on it and we will
    deliver the structure to have the greatest Census with the best
    statistical analysis ever in the United States of America, and
    that is what you are going to get from the Department of
    Commerce.
        Mr. Strong. Mr. Secretary, thank you for bringing it home
    to America.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Ms. DeLauro.
        Ms. DeLauro. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. My apologies.
    There are a lot of appropriations markups and hearings today,
    so I apologize for being late. And with that, I would like to
    ask unanimous consent to put my opening remarks in the record,
    if I can. Thank you.
        [The information follows:]
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        Ms. DeLauro. And good morning to you all. It is good
    afternoon now.
        Mr. Secretary, let me just follow up on something that my
    colleague, Mr. Mrvan, was asking about, and that was the
    International Trade Administration, which helps to increase our
    exports of American products and services, protects American
    producers against trade cheating by China and others. I think
    it is important to note to my colleague, Mr. Mrvan, that there
    has been almost a 30 percent cut to the ITA, $183 million. That
    is below what was proposed for 2025.
        So it was going to cost American jobs, decimates ITA's U.S.
    commercial service, operates out of U.S. export assistance
    centers and U.S. embassies abroad, works to maintain and
    increase the exports of U.S. products and services. So the
    agency which is meant to protect, if you will, our exporters,
    et cetera, is now being decimated.
        I think one has to look at what has been cut. There is the
    MEP program that I believe has been eliminated. One needs to go
    carefully through each of these areas and get a sense of, in
    fact, what is being cut back.
        And, you know, facts are funny. You have got to deal with
    the details and with the facts. You just can't speak about it
    and make general statements. And when you cut back on agencies
    in the way that you have, and slash and burn, if you will, then
    we are not going to get to where we want to go.
        I want to focus a second on two quick areas. One is
    transparency in government, because it is critical. Americans
    need to see where their tax dollars are going. And since 2022,
    we have had in place--I say that, it may be self-serving. I
    worked hard on this issue, and we got bipartisan, bicameral
    agreement to make sure that the executive branch, and I made
    sure--that was with the Democratic administration--they are
    legally required to publicly post budget documents. That is how
    and where taxpayers' dollars are being spent. They are called
    apportionments. Put that aside. It is about saying how the
    money is going to be spent, and that is online.
        Now, this information is legally required. It is binding on
    a Federal agency. The Office of Management and Budget uses the
    information to tell agencies how and when they can spend the
    funds that Congress has appropriated. Beginning in March, OMB
    stopped posting these documents. This is illegal, and it is a
    slap in the face to the principle of transparency,
    accountability, and government spending, which this
    administration claims to champion.
        Mr. Secretary, I am going to ask for your commitment to
    once again making the amount specific budget documents,
    apportionments, how and where U.S. tax dollars are being spent
    by the Department of Commerce and its bureaus publicly
    accessible. Will you commit to doing that?
        Secretary Lutnick. It is my understanding that my
    department is following the CR with precision, as is required.
        Ms. DeLauro. No. You are inaccurate, because I will get to
    spend plans. We do not have details on the spend plans, which
    the CR requires, and it hasn't happened. We have a lack of
    specificity on--this is--it is more than 5 weeks after the
    legal due date. We do not have a detailed spend plan as
    required by the law.
        Let me go back. Will you commit to getting online how and
    where the American taxpayers' dollars with regard to the
    Department of Commerce are being spent, as is required by the
    law?
        Secretary Lutnick. I will, of course, follow the law, but
    it is my understanding, as I have been advised, that we have
    filed precisely according to the CR's requirement.
        Ms. DeLauro. I do not know who you got your advice from,
    but this is the Appropriations Committee. We are looking at
    every spend plan. And let me just tell you, the bare-bones
    spend plan was 3 weeks late. Surely, in that time you must have
    had time to put together a more detailed spend plan.
        This is false. The law sets out the timeline and the level
    of detail. What is happening is illegal and in contravention of
    what this committee does and it puts together. And if you can't
    make a commitment--I take that as no, you will not commit--so
    that the public has no idea, no idea of what any agency in this
    administration as how they are spending the taxpayers' dollars
    and where those dollars are going.
        I yield back and wait for a second round. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman, for your indulgence.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Moore.
        Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you, Secretary Lutnick, for being here. Really
    appreciate it. A lot of your comments are just so spot on. Just
    a little while ago, we heard something pretty interesting: the
    idea that trade deficits are good. We heard an example of, I
    guess, a banana, the price of a banana at a Whole Foods outside
    of suburban Philadelphia going up.
        I can tell you in West Virginia what the generational price
    has been for the degradation and destruction of our industries
    in the State of West Virginia over the last several decades, 40
    years of it, it has destroyed us. It has destroyed us.
        And you talked about this blast furnace switcheroo that
    they had there in the U.K. That happened to us in West
    Virginia. So Cleveland-Cliffs and the United Steelworkers Union
    had requested tariffs on template steel from the Biden
    administration. We didn't get it. We didn't get the tariffs on
    the template steel, and we shuttered that steel plant. We have
    lost thousands of jobs since then, and now there is only one
    blast furnace left in the whole United States that makes
    template steel.
        And I would appreciate it if the Commerce Department would
    take a look at that, because that is a national security issue
    and it is terrible for us. I mean, we used to be known for
    manufacturing steel. It was hugely disappointing by the last
    administration not taking any action on that.
        But I do want to ask this. Just shifting gears real
    quickly. Is BIS specifically--and you have talked about plusing
    up that budget--have you all looked at--and this is during the
    Obama administration, we went through the Export Control Reform
    Initiative. This is where they created the 600 series and the
    ECCNs, and then expanded EAR99, right. So there is a lot more
    items that can go out without a license under that.
        Have you all looked at going back and reviewing that? I
    actually worked here when we were going through that process,
    and it seemed, I guess, to make sense at the time, but you do
    see that it has created at times, in my view, some gaps as it
    relates to critical technology. Have you all looked at perhaps
    reviewing that Export Control Reform Initiative that happened
    about a decade ago, and maybe trying to tighten up some of
    those export controls, specifically on critical dual-use
    technology?
        Secretary Lutnick. Very thoughtful point, right on the
    point, and we are on that topic. We are on it.
        Mr. Moore. Yeah. It occurs to me, particularly when we
    created the 600 series, which is essentially like a United
    States munitions light series within the Department of Commerce
    under BIS. This is how some of our defense technology gets out
    there, and it is very--it is very disappointing. Obviously,
    this is not the idea is that, you know, we wanted to cruise at
    export capacity for defense manufacturers and others out there,
    but specifically around some of this off-the-shelf technology,
    EAR99, items that are going to be exported, I would really like
    if you all would take a look at this and the way this was set
    up back then and trying to tighten those controls. BIS is, I
    mean, really the last stop in protecting our technology.
        Could you talk, though, just briefly--you talked about the
    steel industry. Could you talk about, from a national security
    standpoint, why it is so important? You touched on it a little
    bit, but why it is so important to the national security of the
    United States to have a vibrant steel industry.
        Secretary Lutnick. You cannot fight a war unless you can
    make the munitions, period. You can't make a missile without
    steel and aluminum. You can't produce anything in defense
    without steel and aluminum. You must have a domestic industry.
        The President has made it crystal clear, and I think it is
    obvious when I say it, and we need to protect it, just like you
    said, in West Virginia. They didn't protect you and you lost
    the business. That cannot continue, and the Trump
    administration will not allow it to continue.
        Mr. Moore. Yeah. And then they just raised the price of
    template steel right after they acquired it.
        Secretary Lutnick. Of course.
        Mr. Moore. After they crushed it. Last real quick question.
    One issue that I am concerned about is transformers in this
    country, which we don't have a great domestic capacity in terms
    of manufacturing. There is actually one manufacturer of
    electrical steel in the United States right now, and one, maybe
    a couple, that can actually manufacture transformers.
        Myself and others in the Steel Caucus, a few of us sent a
    letter, obviously not your department, but asking for the
    Defense Production Act to be invoked around that. Is this
    something that your department is looking at at all as it
    relates to transformers?
        Secretary Lutnick. We are now.
        Mr. Moore. Okay. That is a great answer.
        And with that, I yield back. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers. I thank the gentleman.
        Mr. Secretary, the results are in. You are a hit. They want
    an encore performance. Are you available for a few minutes more
    for the members that may like to ask another question?
        Secretary Lutnick. I am at your service, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Rogers. We promise you we will be brief and on time.
    Thank you, sir.
        I yield myself 5 minutes.
        Mr. Secretary, rural communities, which are often ignored
    by Washington, face unique challenges, one of which is access
    to reliable broadband. How is the Department planning to
    continue addressing broadband gaps and prioritizing expansion
    into unserved areas?
        Secretary Lutnick. The Congress has launched the BEAD
    Program for broadband access. Under the Biden administration,
    they gave out no money after 30 months. Our objective is as
    follows. Within the next 90 days--I think we are going to put
    it out on Friday--basically saying, if your State is willing to
    just be technologically agnostic, meaning produce the right
    access at the lowest price or at the--if it is a tie, I don't
    care which one you pick, make that application within 90 days,
    and then this department will put out the money by the end of
    the year.
        So we will go from not having given any money under the
    Biden administration to having the full program funded and
    distributed. Provided they are technologically agnostic by the
    end of 2025, all the money will be distributed so that
    broadband access can be built by the States. That is my
    promise.
        Mr. Rogers. Well, broadband is vital, as you well know,
    and, of course, the places where it is not in being really are
    the rural areas, where it is not profitable for a utility to go
    into, which is an age-old problem that we faced before.
        Let me highlight another important initiative to rural
    America. That is EDA, Economic Development Administration,
    particularly the one to have assistance to coal communities. My
    district, as was West Virginia, had a complete breakdown of the
    industry over the last 10 years. I lost 15,000 jobs in my
    district alone. But EDA has been a crutch for us to use to help
    revitalize and bring back into competitive nature rural areas.
    What do you think about EDA?
        Secretary Lutnick. So, first, I will address that the
    administration wants to revitalize clean coal. We think it is
    vital to America. And so for both yourself and the
    Representative I just spoke to, you should rely on this
    administration to bring back clean coal, because it is vital.
    The country needs power. We need power. And we will do that.
        And with respect to EDA, the same thing. There are many
    other ways to do it better than to have a reasonably small
    group inside the Commerce Department. We will stick with
    disaster relief, we will stick with our Tech Hubs, but the
    concept of providing that kind of program I think is better
    served with bigger, more sophisticated programs.
        Mr. Rogers. Well, there are rural areas that are not coal
    dependents. What about those communities?
        Secretary Lutnick. I would be happy to meet with you
    offline and go through it together. You know, I am tasked with
    being efficient with taxpayer dollars, and when I get a GAO
    report that has 80 other programs, I just think it is more
    efficient to do it in a more practical way than do it in a
    small way in my department. Not that I don't enjoy doing
    things, but efficiency is my objective. And I think it was
    important that I show a budget that was substantially lower
    that proves that we can do our great job with less taxpayer
    dollars.
        Mr. Rogers. Well, we want to work with you on this
    subcommittee. We want to see you succeed, because when you
    succeed, the country and the President succeed. But we have our
    priorities as well as it relates to offering jobs back home to
    keep our people from having to move to another locale. So I
    hope we can work with you.
        Secretary Lutnick. Of course.
        Mr. Rogers. Ms. Meng.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me fix my
    microphone.
        All right. I want to piggyback off a little bit about
    Representative Dean's banana example and how it affects the
    cost of living for our constituents all across America. You
    know, I have heard from many Asian-American business owners.
    They own restaurants. They own supermarkets. They own well-
    known supermarkets like 99 Ranch and H Mart. They are really
    concerned about the rising costs of goods, like anything from
    basmati rice to the burdock root to different sauces that are
    utilized by the Asian-American community, fastest growing
    community in this country.
        I know that you mentioned, you know, due to the tariffs,
    the price will eventually come back down, but I just wanted to,
    you know, make an observation that the cost of living for
    Americans, as we know, is already high, and it is hard for them
    to be able to afford these goods and these products that they
    are using today. And the restaurant owners, the supermarket
    owners, small business owners are really in a bind, because
    they don't know if they have to raise their prices and pass on
    the higher cost to consumers or to eat the cost themselves. And
    coming out of a pandemic where they barely survived, they are
    now worried that, because of these high costs, that their
    businesses, you know, may not survive.
        So I just wanted to highlight this issue that is happening
    in my district and I am sure in many other districts across the
    country, about a lot of these products that are largely not
    produced here in the United States.
        Secretary Lutnick. The inflation under the Biden
    administration was very, very difficult and created a very
    difficult time for Americans across the country.
        Ms. Meng. The prices have gone up recently, starting this
    year.
        Secretary Lutnick. Fortunately, inflation, as the last
    numbers were very low, in the low twos and back toward the
    level that the Fed says is their long-term goal, so that is
    very promising. But I will tell you, in our trade deals, our
    expectation is for unavailable natural resources, a banana,
    right, other spices and the roots, the things you have
    suggested, your expectation should be there will not be a
    tariff.
        But when we give that to a country, right, like coffee,
    right. When we say to Ghana, okay, we will not charge you a
    tariff on coffee or cocoa, but you will open your market to
    allow our farmers to sell soybeans, because you are blocking us
    on soybeans. Why do you expect to sell us coffee and cocoa and
    not let us sell soybeans? It seems unfair. Let's make that
    fair. And that is an example of a trade deal.
        Granted, these are small countries, but that is the kind of
    model that, when we are done, we will not have tariffs on
    unavailable natural resources, but we will have market access
    for our farmers and our ranchers. You know our chicken and pork
    and beef are treated horribly around the world, horribly. That
    has to end. And if we use that by saying you can export coffee
    to us, but you need to treat us better for our agricultural
    products back to you, I think that is fair trade.
        Ms. Meng. I appreciate that. Do you have a sense of a
    timeline? I appreciate that the costs will eventually come back
    down, but when my constituents, you know, just average
    individual consumers or small business owners are asking me
    when the prices will come back down, prices that have gone up
    only in recent months after this new Trump administration, what
    can we tell our constituents?
        Secretary Lutnick. The President has set out July 9 as the
    date by which he expects most transaction deals to have
    occurred. If they don't occur because of back-and-forth, the
    President can just set the agenda and say here is your offer,
    and set that trading deal in place. And your expectation should
    be by July 9.
        Ms. Meng. I appreciate that. And I just, in my 30 seconds
    left, I want to align myself with the concerns made by the
    Chair about EDA. This is a program that is very important, you
    know, programs from Tech Hubs, the Recompete Program, the Good
    Jobs Challenge. So many programs are important to our rural
    areas, to job creation. We know that in your confirmation
    hearing you pledged to maintain these programs, and we hope
    that that will continue.
        Thank you. I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Alford.
        Mr. Alford. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize for
    missing the first round. I just literally ran back from the
    House floor doing a speech, but that is our job. And I need to
    get in shape.
        Anyway, thank you for being here. You are doing such a
    great job. And we are proud to have you in that position.
        I want to--I know all the good questions have already been
    asked and answered, but I want to talk about the tariffs just a
    little bit. You know, the Democrats doubted these. The media
    doubted it. The pundits doubted it. A lot of people made fun of
    the tariffs, didn't like them, but they are working. We have
    already seen the results. In fact, the Congressional Budget
    Office now estimates the proposed tariffs will reduce our
    Federal deficit by $2.8 trillion. That is a success story.
        Secretary, what is the strategy behind these? Is it simply
    a negotiating tool? Is it the art of the deal? Or does the
    President mean it when he says it about these tariffs, and why
    are they being so successful so far?
        Secretary Lutnick. Build in America, in the greatest
    economy in the world. Remember, America is the consumer of the
    world. $20 trillion we consume every year. So if you want to
    sell here, build here. And if you don't want to sell here, pay
    to come into our market. We are receiving a run rate of $34
    billion a month to the Treasury of the United States of America
    because of tariffs. So anybody who says that tariffs aren't
    working can't count to $34 billion.
        Mr. Alford. I want to talk about the funding for NOAA and
    the National Weather Service. You know, Missouri has gotten hit
    pretty hard. We have a lot of tornados. We had a bad spring,
    and it is still going on. There was a lot of damage in my
    district just south of Kansas City.
        We have a regional NOAA center in Pleasant Hill, Missouri.
    It is a smaller center like you were talking about earlier, and
    I heard you talking about what is going to be happening in the
    future to some of these centers. Are centers like Pleasant
    Hill, which they already have some vacancies, are those
    regional centers in danger of closing at any time in the
    future, as far as you know, being replaced by automation and AI
    in a centralized location?
        Secretary Lutnick. I will give you an example in Missouri,
    which was we have all these research people in NOAA, but they
    were separate from operational. So we started putting them
    together to take that research and start using it. And what it
    did is it produced an analysis that showed that we had horrible
    tornado conditions in Missouri. And so 2 hours earlier than the
    record ever in NOAA, we gave those warnings and saved 120
    people. Got them out 2 hours earlier. So we are totally on it.
        But the concept of having four people, and one of them has
    a baby and one of them is out sick, and somehow we are not able
    to do it 24 hours a day, it seems silly. We should have--if we
    have 2,100 meteorologists, I promise you, we can cover the
    United States of America 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we
    can have better technology, right.
        We used to have human beings would launch a weather
    balloon.
        Mr. Alford. Right.
        Secretary Lutnick. Like, I could imagine, like, someone
    just going whoop on a--come on. It is called autosonders. We
    now do it in an automated fashion, so I don't need the person
    to launch the balloon because I can automate launch the
    balloon----
        Mr. Alford. So I have been inside the center; it is pretty
    cool. And I used to be in television news there in Kansas City.
    A lot of my friends are meteorologists at these stations who
    have personal relationships with the people at NOAA and NWS. I
    think they are a little concerned.
        Will these centers be closing, but the information, which
    is also lifesaving, be coming from a centralized location?
        Secretary Lutnick. I think it will be both. I think there
    will be many centers that will stay and will augment and be
    bigger and stronger and more powerful, but the concept is we
    have got to be able to automate ourselves and back each other
    up. This concept that the data just stays in Missouri and is
    not available to be analyzed by Nebraska or other
    meteorologists is illogical. That needs to change.
        If I showed you the technology, you would drop your head
    embarrassed to be an American. When we are done in this
    Commerce Department and I am done with my term, I promise you,
    you will be proud of the technology in the Department of
    Commerce.
        Mr. Alford. Mr. Chair, if you would indulge me for one more
    question. I want to talk about the BEAD Program, also very
    important to my State, very rural State. Biden administration
    put in $42.5 billion, and not one home hooked up. It is a
    disgrace, I think.
        You talked about tech-agnostic approach and you talked
    about the three options. It has got to be a fix--what are those
    three options again?
        Secretary Lutnick. Fixed wireless, which we all know is
    WiFi.
        Mr. Alford. Right.
        Secretary Lutnick. Right? Fiber, laying cable, or
    satellite. Any of those three serve broadband, and we should be
    agnostic to which one.
        Mr. Alford. So some of the folks in my district and State
    are concerned that we want to get everyone hooked up, but it
    has got to be the right system. Satellite is not going to work
    all over Missouri, so we are going to get the system that
    actually works, right, for our money?
        Secretary Lutnick. Yes.
        Mr. Alford. All right. I hear the light tap of the
    chairman's gavel. I will yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Ms. DeLauro.
        Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Just a couple of things. I gather, and I am just going to
    assume that it is a no, that you are not going to post where,
    how, and when American taxpayers' dollars are being used, for
    what programs. That is the issue of the apportionment, which
    is, again, illegal, so it is a legal issue there. You are not
    responsible, but you can get back to your OMB friends and tell
    them that they are liable for penalties when they come contrary
    to the Antideficiency Act.
        Food for farmers. Let me just--what you said there. U.S.
    food aid programs across USDA purchased roughly $1 billion
    worth of grain from farmers across the country. One farmer from
    Illinois said to kill that program is a disaster, it is morally
    bankrupt, and it hurts the farmers' bottom line. USAID spends
    $2 billion annually on U.S.-grown agriculture for humanitarian
    aid. Losing even a portion of that has already been a disaster
    for farmers.
        I want to talk about the spend plan, because lest you know,
    this is the public law. This is--which requires you in the CR
    to provide a spend plan to detailing how you will use taxpayer
    dollars at the program, project, and activity level. You
    provided a bare-bones spend plan with only account level
    numbers, no details, no transparency for the American people.
    You are out of compliance with the law.
        I am asking you, when are you going to come into compliance
    with the law with the spend plan?
        Secretary Lutnick. As I said, as far as I know, we are in
    compliance with the CR, but I will happily go back and I----
        Ms. DeLauro. No, no. Right. Please. Please let us know when
    we are going to receive the details that we need for this
    effort in order to be able to do our business. This is the
    Appropriations Committee. We need to know how much, where it is
    going, what are the specific programs. We just can't make a
    decision saying this is the pot of money we need, but we have
    no specificity about where it is going.
        And I just might add, you are not the only agency that is
    not in compliance. So I am going to ask you, give us a
    timeframe when you can get back to us with the detail.
        Secretary Lutnick. I will take it under advisement. I will
    talk to my advisers and----
        Ms. DeLauro. Okay. Well, I would just say, Mr. Chairman, I
    believe we need to have an answer on when that data is coming
    before we decide what it is that we are going to spend and
    appropriate with regard to the Department of Defense.
        I was listening on trade deals, et cetera, and this is--I
    will just state this. You are looking at doing a trade deal
    with Lesotho. Whoa. I know they have a lot of penguins.
        Secretary Lutnick. We are not spending time on that. Don't
    worry about it.
        Ms. DeLauro. Yeah, but I think it is important to note that
    Mr. Musk, who is now gone, I don't know if his contract is gone
    for Starlink in Lesotho. Let's just talk about what these deals
    are beginning to look like.
        Trade and tariffs. At one point you said about whether or
    not the cost would go up. You said that is, quote, silly. That
    is silly that they will not go up.
        I think Congresswoman Dean and I were at the same meeting
    this morning where the National Retail Federation is beside
    themselves with the uncertainty and with the struggle of what
    is going on with small businesses. 99.6 percent of businesses
    have fewer than 500 people. 40 percent of the wages are paid by
    small businesses. They will struggle if they are in a higher
    tariff environment, and the question of uncertainty looms
    large.
        Tariffs, taxes on the American people. Let's face it.
    American people are desperate for help with the cost of living.
    These trade policies are, in fact, causing it further--the Yale
    Budget Lab estimates that tariffs will lower American
    households' purchasing power an average of $2,500 this year.
    $2,500, most households who live paycheck to paycheck do not
    have.
        Mr. Secretary, $2,500 dollars is not a lot to billionaires,
    but it is a hell of a lot of money for Americans who struggle
    with groceries, with healthcare, and with housing costs.
        This administration, the President said that costs would
    come down on the first day. What the administration is doing is
    making it worse, and the level of uncertainty is providing
    chaos, it harms our economy, it jeopardizes small business, and
    it stifles the investment that creates jobs. We need to know
    what you are doing, how you are doing it.
        I thank the chairman again. But it can't be, you know, God
    is in heaven, all is right with the world. You need to face the
    facts and be truthful about what is happening with the trade
    policies and other areas that this administration is engaged
    in.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Secretary Lutnick. I disagree.
        Ms. DeLauro. I am sure you do.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Strong.
        Mr. Strong. Secretary Lutnick, Huntsville, Alabama is home
    to the National Weather Service Forecast Office. Could you
    elaborate on your plans to deploy an experimental AI-based
    forecast system?
        Secretary Lutnick. Sure. The way we have been doing it is
    we have been taking data in and doing it consistently over the
    last 20 years. AI systems can then take the weather patterns of
    the world, examine how they respond to each other, and do much
    better and be much more efficient, much faster, and much more
    learned. So we are going to take research, technology, and the
    enormous amounts of data that we collect, and we continue to
    collect and we are only going to continue to collect more going
    forward, and we will just become much, much better at
    forecasting dangerous conditions to protect Americans.
        Mr. Strong. We definitely know about those dangerous
    conditions and we have seen it in the last couple of weeks
    across the Southeast. How can we work with you to ensure that
    my district's existing expertise and capabilities are leveraged
    to support and collaborate with you during this significant
    effort?
        Secretary Lutnick. I look forward to meeting with you
    offline and be glad to go through that and help you do it
    together. Sounds great to me.
        Mr. Strong. Thank you. Recent reports by NOAA and other
    Federal agencies have highlighted significant concerns
    regarding China's distant-water fishing fleet. Notably, in
    September of 2024, NOAA denied U.S. port privileges to certain
    Chinese-flagged long-line vessels due to their involvement in
    illegal, unreported, and unregulated IUU fishing activity.
        Mr. Secretary, given these recent developments, what
    specific measures is the Department of Commerce implementing to
    enforce trade restrictions against Chinese food products linked
    to IUU fishing?
        Secretary Lutnick. Under the Biden administration, we were
    not even allowed--allowing our fishermen to use our 200 miles
    of exclusive fishing zone for ourselves, and of course, when we
    weren't out there fishing, guess who was out there fishing?
    Right? Our adversaries just go in. If you are not there, well,
    they are going to fish there just the same.
        So the idea was, first, we allow all of our fishermen the
    maximum usage they possibly can, because we protect and care
    about American fishing. We care about it. And second, we are
    going to hold accountable anybody who poaches, who breaches, or
    is in our space or near our space, we are going to go and make
    sure they cannot have access to our markets if they do so.
        Mr. Strong. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, the American farmer
    is suffering, commodity prices are low. Many countries have
    taken advantage of the American farmer. It appears that we are
    buying beef from other countries rather than buying from the
    American cattle farmer.
        What is the number one thing as Secretary that you can do
    to help the American farmer?
        Secretary Lutnick. We in trade deals can open the market.
    Beef in the U.K.; corn, right, in the U.K.; cereals in the
    U.K., in Europe, in India. India won't buy a bushel of our
    corn. If they buy ethanol, right, then that will help our corn
    farmers. So we have got to open these markets.
        Beef, poultry, pork. You won't believe how poorly our
    farmers are treated, our ranchers are treated, and our
    fishermen are treated. We weren't allowed to sell lobster in
    the U.K. You say, oh, come on. If you read the way we are
    treated so badly, you would understand why the President is on
    these trade deals. Make it fair for our people.
        I always lead with agriculture, because we are just treated
    so badly. If you read it, you would just keep shaking your
    head. I can't believe it. I didn't know it when I wasn't here.
    And when I first read it, I said, oh, come on. And it is all
    sort of old rules that are just not true anymore, and we are
    blasting those open. And that is what I am going to do for our
    farmers, our ranchers, and our fishermen.
        Mr. Strong. I am thankful for what you are doing, and these
    trade agreements have got to stop where America is being taken
    advantage of. And I commend you and your staff for what you are
    doing. I know it is a lot of hours being spent, but we are in a
    process of resetting America, and the American farmer, the
    American automobile industry will be better because of it.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Ivey.
        Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I wanted to follow up, Mr. Secretary, with respect to the
    chair's questions about EDA. You mentioned 80 programs with
    respect to what sounded like maybe the same 80 programs you
    were talking about for MBDA.
        Secretary Lutnick. From the GAO, and I will send you that
    report. You have asked for it. I will find it and I will send
    it to you.
        Mr. Ivey. Okay. I appreciate that.
        Real quick point. You know, the prices will come down point
    with respect to the impact on small businesses and retail and
    the like. I just want to say that, you know, I have got a lot
    of small businesses. I am sure there are plenty across the
    country who can't wait. You know, they are really up against
    the wall right now. The wolf is at the door. Their businesses
    are at risk of being shut down. So the faster this resolves,
    the better.
        I know you mentioned July 9 with respect to the tariffs,
    and that can't come soon enough. And I hope that, whatever
    happens on July 9, there is some effort to pay attention to
    what is happening to these businesses in the country. They are
    multinational, you know, corporations, they will survive. But
    smaller businesses that are really, you know, struggling to
    make ends meet, they don't have that luxury, they don't have
    that kind of margin.
        Real quick on NIST. And you heard I think from both sides
    of the aisle with respect to the need for a budget that gives
    more detail. And actually, I just saw you testified, I think
    you said you are reviewing all 5,700 contracts that--I don't
    think it was FEMA, but it was NOAA, and you said you are
    reviewing all of them. And so someone who is going to----
        Secretary Lutnick. All above $100,000.
        Mr. Ivey. Okay. Someone who pays that level of attention to
    detail, when you were a CEO, I am sure that you demanded
    something better than the skinny budget when you were making
    corporate decisions for your business. You had to. And I know
    that when you go through these contracts in the way that you
    are, that is the attention to detail that we want to actually
    provide in our roles here in Congress and in functioning and
    carrying out our aspect of the appropriations process. So
    please give us that level of information so we can do our job
    carefully and closely too.
        And then real quick point with respect to NIST. Again in
    the skinny budget, there is a $325 million reduction under that
    category. I don't really know where the money is coming from,
    but NIST is a critical agency, as you know, with respect to
    cyber and quantum and the like. You got a letter from--I guess
    in concern about this--Software and Information Industry
    Association, CCIA, ITIF Center for Data Innovation, a bunch of
    private industry leaders, tech net, raising questions about
    where these cuts are going to come from and what is being done
    with them.
        The work done at NIST is not just a matter of maintaining
    technical excellence; it is a direct investment in ensuring
    that American industry continues to set the global benchmark
    for innovation. And we emphasize that NIST work represents a
    high-value investment that directly contributes to U.S.
    economic growth, competitiveness, and technological leadership.
    We caution that downsizing NIST or eliminating these
    initiatives will have ramifications for the ability of the
    American AI industry to continue to lead globally.
        So I share those concerns. I would like to add to the
    record this article, Eric Geller, NIST loses key cyber experts
    in standards and research for the record.
        NIST is playing a critical role in our competition with
    respect to AI for quantum across the board. I don't know what
    cuts you are talking about making with respect to them, because
    the level of--or lack of detail with respect to the budget, but
    please be careful in the cuts that you make here. I don't know
    that any of them are justified necessarily. I can't really
    tell.
        But cutting NIST at this time--and that chart I tried to
    show you that you couldn't see, the quantum competition, we
    need all hands on deck. This is a critical time for the United
    States right now. Making cuts to those industries--or to those
    aspects of the government, they are such key players with
    respect to the industries, this couldn't be a worse time to do
    it.
        So I appreciate your leadership on this and hope that you
    will continue to make sure that the United States can take a
    leadership role in these industries.
        Secretary Lutnick. We are not cutting in quantum. We are
    not cutting in AI. But there are old programs that need to be
    reexamined, and that money can be used better.
        And the last thing I would say is we keep talking about
    small businesses. Ninety percent of our businesses are American
    businesses. And we keep talking about 10 percent that import.
    If you build in America, you are being protected by the
    tariffs. It is good for small business in America that build in
    America. Ninety percent of them build in America.
        Mr. Ivey. Not all businesses build in America, as you just
    heard from----
        Secretary Lutnick. Ninety percent.
        Mr. Rogers. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        Ms. Dean.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thanks for hanging around for a second round.
        I wanted to first, Mr. Chairman, just offer for the record
    some articles and documents. The first is a Washington Post
    article of this week, entitled, ``We are Witnessing the Suicide
    of a Superpower.''
        The second is, as ranking member revealed, the report from
    Yale Budget Lab, titled, ``The State of U.S. Tariffs: June the
    1st of this year.'' One of the highlights, American consumers
    face the highest average tariff rate they have endured since
    1938, the Great Depression.
        The next one, U.S. trade document--U.S. Trade
    Representative, titled, ``Reciprocal Tariffs, Calculations, and
    the Flawed Formula.'' I am sure you know this formula very
    well, Mr. Secretary. It is incoherent and flawed. I enter that
    for the record.
        And a New York Times article, April 7, ``The Trump White
    House Cited My Research to Justify Tariffs. It Got It All
    Wrong.''
        And the final one, which was revealing of my use of the
    banana here, ``Bananas to Car Seat--to Car Seats, Walmart Warns
    of Price Rise Due to Tariffs.''
        For the record. Without objection?
        Mr. Rogers. Without objection.
        [The information follows:]
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        Ms. Dean. Thanks so much.
        I want to ask you about--I was interested in what you said
    to Mr. Morelle in terms of the mission, and some of the
    language you used, the mission of your department, to protect,
    defend, and enhance business in America. That was a good
    summary?
        Secretary Lutnick. Sounds good.
        Ms. Dean. I think that is what you said. I tried to write
    it down fast.
        Secretary Lutnick. Still sounds good.
        Ms. Dean. I just wonder, did your department, did you
    personally, or your department whose mission that is, have any
    problem with the President's recent trips overseas; or the
    development of his business and his family's business around
    bitcoin, meme coin, fundraising, or investor raising dinners;
    any worry with the Department of Commerce with the President
    and his family growing their own business while on the job?
        Secretary Lutnick. My trip to the Middle East was
    extraordinary in that we came home----
        Ms. Dean. I am sure. I am asking you about----
        Secretary Lutnick [continuing]. With $5.1 trillion of
    investment in America. It was amazing.
        Ms. Dean. Mr. Lutnick, I am asking you, did the question of
    conflict of interest come up for the leader of the free world?
        Secretary Lutnick. No.
        Ms. Dean. No? Thank you.
        I ought to have a team of lawyers take a look at that. It
    is grotesque the way this President is using his office to
    enrich himself, his businesses and his family's. That ought to
    be something you are interested in.
        I want to tell you something I agree with you on and I
    agree with the President on, the closing of the de minimus
    loophole. You are absolutely right, it hurts retailers when
    stuff comes in here, package after package, order after order,
    under $800, no tax, no tariff, no review. It hurts retailers.
        But I know the other reason that I believe the President is
    interested in that is in tackling the precursors of fentanyl
    and making sure these packages don't come in unabsorbed,
    unknown, and then off to Mexico to only come back manufactured
    and to kill our children.
        So I want you to know, I want the President to know, that
    is a good thing. And I hope it brings great revenue to our
    Treasury. It should. We have passed on that, at the expense of
    our children and at the expense of retailers.
        Secretary Lutnick. Thank you.
        Ms. Dean. So please take that back.
        And, finally, I guess I want to tell you, do you know when
    we met? I don't know if you remember. We met once in Davos. We
    had a very interesting conversation, and you told me some of
    your backstory. And this goes back to where I started with
    stability.
        I think it is very well known that, when you began college,
    your father died. And what a trying time that must have been
    because your mother had predeceased. And you were at Haverford,
    very near my district. And Haverford College said stay, you
    stay, get your education, and you did. And they offered you
    that stability at a time when you must have needed it most.
        I had a similar experience. My father died when I was in my
    third semester of college, suddenly, of a heart attack.
    Difficult. We were all wobbling for quite a while. But his
    company offered scholarships to kids who lost their parents,
    and I got a scholarship to go to law school, offering me
    stability that I had no idea I would ever lean upon.
        I take you back to that because what have you done in the
    meantime? You have rewarded Haverford. You are making sure that
    other kids get that stability. Please take that back into your
    work in the Department of Commerce. You know stability is what
    our consumers, our constituents, our businesses, our banks
    need. This is not stability. It is an incoherent tariff policy
    that is costing every single one of us.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mrvan.
        Mr. Mrvan. Mr. Secretary, during our first exchange, we
    talked slightly about Nippon. My first question will be, is,
    with that deal you said you agreed, and I don't want to put
    words in your mouth, were you in the room or at the table for
    the CFIUS agreement, and what was your recommendation?
        Secretary Lutnick. I can't really discuss the particulars,
    but generally, we came to the view that the deal would be good
    for America. The President came to view it, it would be good
    for America, and we are discussing how to make sure that that
    protects the USA and America, and those discussions are ongoing
    right now.
        Mr. Mrvan. So in the beginning, the administration, when he
    was a candidate, was against the deal.
        Secretary Lutnick. Well, the terms of the deal did not
    protect America, and he is interested in making sure the terms
    of the deal protect America.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. And I agree. So I represent northwest
    Indiana, Gary, Indiana, one of the top steel producing. One of
    the concerns with it, the USW, the union, is to specifically
    make sure that the investments that have been agreed upon, that
    those----
        Secretary Lutnick. You can say promised. How about that?
        Mr. Mrvan. See, that is my concern. You are right,
    promised, based on market conditions. So these are real-life
    individuals. My father came over from--or grandfather came over
    from Czechoslovakia, ended up in northwest Indiana, worked in
    the steel mills. Families, everywhere around my district, it is
    our economic engine.
        You have passionately talked about how it is a national
    security issue, right. So with that, many promises have been
    made.
        First and foremost, to my steelworkers, just a
    recommendation, the USW wants a seat at the table because they
    are concerned about disinvestment in their union blast furnaces
    that will go to nonunion shops and other parts of the country.
        So in my district, which I am here to protect, that--our
    concern level is to make sure that the administration hears the
    voices very loudly and clearly from my district that we want
    assurances, not based on market conditions, that this
    investment, promised investment, will protect steelworkers'
    jobs and tradesmen who provide the back--the maintenance on
    those blast furnaces.
        So what are you going to do specifically? Not broad strokes
    of what is going to happen. Specifically, what are you going to
    do to protect those jobs in my district?
        Secretary Lutnick. I agree with you. My understanding is
    the President agrees with you, and I think the end result of
    the transaction with Nippon will agree with you.
        Mr. Mrvan. What are some of the specifics, or can I get a
    commitment from you that the USW union representation
    leadership will have a seat at the table to protect their
    interests in U.S. steel?
        Secretary Lutnick. I think the best I can say is that the
    President understands their concerns, I understand their
    concerns. I have met with the steelworkers union, and I
    understand their concerns, and----
        Mr. Mrvan. Do you understand that this creates uncertainty,
    unpredictability for families who want to make sure that they
    have a secure income, healthcare, secure pension; that that
    uncertainty causes great disbelief in what is going on? And
    specifically, what are you going to do to protect those jobs?
        I understand you agree with me. We agree that a $14 billion
    investment on top of a regular $14 billion investment, that is
    pretty good. But what are you specifically going to do to
    protect those steelworkers' jobs?
        Secretary Lutnick. The President of United States flew to
    Pittsburgh----
        Mr. Mrvan. I saw the press conference. I have got a minute.
    What are you specifically going to do? I saw what--I saw the
    press con--I saw it. I saw the rally. Specifically, what are
    you going to do?
        Secretary Lutnick. The President of the United States will
    direct what he wants to do, and I will assist him in doing so.
    He knows the steelworkers union concerns, and I think they will
    be very happy with the outcome.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. So time is of the essence, they want a
    seat at the table so that there is not disinvestment in my
    community and investment in other parts of the community which
    would have cheaper labor. I want to make sure that I articulate
    that to you.
        Then, ultimately, I also want to ask about with the Nippon
    deal. If there is reshoring manufacturing and there is a 50
    percent tariff around the world on steel, correct, Nippon now
    is an investor in U.S. steel, please tell me if they are going
    to be able to circumvent that 50 percent tariff and ship steel.
        Secretary Lutnick. No.
        Mr. Mrvan. No.
        Secretary Lutnick. No. If they make it in America, you
    don't pay the tariff. If you make it anywhere else but America,
    anywhere else, you are going to pay.
        Mr. Mrvan. But the--are you following me? A foreign country
    is investing in an American company to circumvent those trade
    policies--to the tariffs----
        Secretary Lutnick. If you hire Americans and you build it
    here, you don't pay the tariff.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay.
        Secretary Lutnick. So if a foreigner builds, good for them.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay.
        Secretary Lutnick. But in America, with American----
        Mr. Mrvan. Know that--I just want to close in saying, know
    that I agree a $14 billion investment in the infrastructure of
    our steel industry is a good thing, but understand how vitally,
    gravely important it is to the steelworkers, to my community,
    to my economic development, or my economic engine----
        Mr. Rogers. Time of the gentleman has expired.
        Mr. Mrvan [continuing]. That you stand up for those jobs.
        Thank you, Chairman.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Secretary, you have been so generous with
    your time. I am sorry that we went over what we had intended
    timewise, but it was worth it from our point of view.
        We look forward to working with you to be sure that you are
    a success, and we are very impressed with your exuberance in
    the work that you are upon now.
        So good luck to you. We wish you well, and we want to stay
    in touch with you to try to help to be sure everything works
    out A number one.
        So that concludes today's hearing. We want to thank our
    witness, Secretary Lutnick, for being here and sharing with us
    his plans for the future.
        Without objection, members may have 7 days to submit
    additional questions for the record.
        The subcommittee stands in adjournment.
        [Whereupon, at 1:14 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                                 Monday, June 23, 2025.

                             DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

                                    WITNESS

    HON. PAMELA BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
        Mr. Rogers. Good afternoon. The committee will be in order.
        Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
    recess at any time.
        We will begin by myself being recognized for an opening
    statement.
        I would like to welcome our witness, the Honorable Pam
    Bondi, Attorney General of the United States, to testify on the
    Department of Justice's fiscal year 2026 budget.
        To begin, I want to thank the Attorney General for speaking
    at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit this past April down in
    Nashville, Tennessee.
        That is, I think, the third or fourth of those summits that
    you have been there to speak, and we appreciate that
    especially.
        That summit gathers the best and brightest to discuss ways
    our Nation can tackle the opioid and addiction crisis impacting
    every corner of our country.
        At this year's summit, we received some encouraging news
    from the CDC: that overdose deaths have decreased by nearly 30
    percent.
        Unfortunately, we still lost over 80,000 loved ones in
    2024, and recent provisional data from the CDC suggests that
    the progress that has been made might be coming to an end. And,
    indeed, 70 percent of those deaths were from fentanyl.
        Significant more work needs to be done to curb opioid
    addiction, including focusing on the precursor chemicals being
    produced in China and the manufacturing labs in Mexico, as well
    as tracking down the cartels and criminals that shop these
    drugs to our Nation's children.
        The Department of Justice must keep this at the top of
    their priority list.
        Unfortunately, Madam General, your job at the top will not
    be easy, and the list of issues that the American people are
    counting on you to address is long and dangerous.
        From fentanyl and immigration to violent crime and
    supporting local law enforcement, the Department of Justice
    needs to uphold the rule of law and equal justice while
    tackling the most dangerous situations confronting Americans.
        To make matters even more difficult, this all must be
    accomplished within a budget that needs to be rightsized for
    efficiency and effectiveness.
        The Department of Justice's fiscal year 2026 budget request
    totals just under $34 billion. This represents a reduction of
    close to $3 billion from fiscal year 2025.
        Specifically, the request includes about $11 billion to
    target violent crime, $10 billion to tackle drug crimes, over
    $3 billion to defend the Nation and our citizens against
    transnational organized crime, and over $3.5 billion to address
    immigration.
        These are the exact issues that hit home for many families,
    and these are the issues that are being discussed between
    neighbors in all of our States, including mine in Kentucky, and
    across the Nation.
        After 4 years of politicization at the Biden Department of
    Justice, these are the issues that the American people expect
    you to address. They want a Department of Justice that protects
    American citizens from violent crime, not one that is
    weaponized against them for speaking their minds.
        Thus far, we have seen much progress on many of these
    fronts, including an administration that is taking the Nation's
    borders seriously.
        Attorney General Bondi, I stand ready to support you in
    your efforts to ensure that the American public lives in a
    society that is free from crime and abuse. I look forward to
    hearing from you today regarding the fiscal year 2026 budget,
    and then we will go from there.
        There are critically important funding decisions ahead of
    us, and I hope we can gain a better sense of your priorities
    today so that we can make the best decision on behalf of the
    American public.
        Let me now recognize the ranking member of this
    subcommittee, Ms. Meng, for any remarks she cares to make.
        Ms. Meng. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And welcome, Attorney General Bondi.
        Tens of thousands of public servants at the Department of
    Justice and its bureaus have historically worked very hard and
    continue to work hard to protect public safety and uphold the
    rule of law in our country.
        Yet, I must take this opportunity to express my very strong
    concerns about this current administration's lack of respect
    for the rule of law.
        Over the past 5 months, we have seen numerous examples of
    this administration outright breaking the law.
        The administration continues to illegally withhold billions
    of dollars in funding that Congress appropriated, including
    hundreds of recently terminated Justice Grants that had been
    previously awarded through open and competitive processes.
        The administration is violating the Federal law that
    mandates that the Office of Management and Budget publish
    apportionments and show the public how and when Federal
    agencies are spending appropriated funds.
        The Justice Department has begun illegally restoring the
    gun possession rights of convicted felons and domestic abusers.
    It is allowing the sale of forced reset trigger devices without
    a background check.
        These are devices that effectively convert regular firearms
    into machine guns, which I fear will only make mass shootings
    in the United States more numerous and deadly.
        More than 1,500 individuals involved in the January 6
    attack on the Capitol were pardoned or granted commutations of
    sentences.
        The President's new appointee as Pardon Attorney, Ed
    Martin, previously raised money to help defend some of the most
    violent of these individuals, people who assaulted police
    officers. Some of the pardoned January 6 defendants have
    subsequently been arrested, charged, or sentenced for other
    crimes.
        Under this President, the U.S. has accepted a luxury
    jetliner from Qatar, very likely in violation of the Emoluments
    Clause of the Constitution.
        This President has also issued a series of illegal and
    unconstitutional executive orders, several of which are being
    challenged in courts right now.
        Presidential actions in recent months have also directed
    highly political and targeted investigations against law firms
    and individuals, including Miles Taylor, a former staffer for
    the House Appropriations Committee's Republican majority.
        Meanwhile, the administration has weakened law enforcement
    against political corruption by gutting the Department's Public
    Integrity Section, which fairly investigates and prosecutes
    corruption by government officials.
        It has dismantled Task Force KleptoCapture, which was
    started after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine to enforce
    sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin. It has
    also ended the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, which was
    created to defend against foreign influence operations
    targeting U.S. institutions.
        Furthermore, dozens of experienced career Federal
    prosecutors, litigators, and FBI leaders have been fired or
    forced out since the start of this administration, including
    James Dennehy, the highly respected leader of the FBI's New
    York Field Office.
        I am really concerned about what is happening in the
    Department of Justice, especially based on the Department's
    fiscal year 2026 budget request. The proposed budget weakens
    the country's efforts to fight crime and keep Americans safe.
        The proposal reduces funding for the FBI, despite the
    heroism of agents like those in Minnesota who aided in the
    recent capture of the deranged man accused of killing a State
    representative and nearly killing another.
        It slashes funding to fight the trafficking of fentanyl and
    other dangerous illegal drugs by reducing the budget of the
    DEA, cutting the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program
    by more than a third, and by completely eliminating the
    dedicated funding for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task
    Force program.
        The administration also proposes a cut of more than 25
    percent to the ATF, which will further weaken the government's
    ability to fight illegal gun trafficking.
        This budget proposal also puts further pressure on State
    and local budgets at a time of great economic uncertainty.
        The proposal cuts by more than $800 million funding to
    grants to local and State law enforcement for fighting and
    reducing crime, including a cut of more than $37 million to
    Byrne Justice Assistance formula grants that help our local law
    enforcement in every single State.
        I am also concerned about the huge cuts to grants aimed at
    preventing and prosecuting violence against women, such as STOP
    grants and Sexual Assault Services grants.
        The administration also proposes eliminating three valuable
    programs aimed at fighting and preventing hate crimes at the
    same time that the FBI is reporting that hate crimes are at
    historic highs.
        The administration's budget would completely eliminate the
    Community Relations Service, which was created by the Civil
    Rights Act of 1964 to prevent and resolve conflicts in American
    communities.
        These actions and this budget proposal simply don't
    demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law and equal rights
    for all Americans.
        I look forward to discussing these important issues at
    today's hearing.
        Thank you for being here.
        And thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. We have in attendance the ranking member of the
    full committee, Ms. DeLauro, whom I now recognize.
        Ms. DeLauro. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
    you and Ranking Member Meng for holding this budget hearing.
        And I also want to say a thank you to our witness, Attorney
    General Bondi, for appearing before the subcommittee today.
        Welcome to the House of Representatives.
        A well-functioning, well-funded, well-led Department of
    Justice is critical to the safety and the security of the
    American people. And the Department of Justice's employees are
    dedicated public servants who work diligently and often in
    dangerous settings to keep criminals off the streets.
        But, unfortunately, the Department of Justice under your
    leadership has become a tool of political retaliation and the
    front door for criminals seeking to curry favors and pardons.
        As I told Director Patel last month, pressure from the
    White House to investigate the President's opponents or to
    quash investigations of his allies threatens the Department's
    credibility and the very foundation--and the foundation on
    which this Nation stands, and that is the rule of law.
        The Attorney General must shield the rule of law from
    political pressure, not act as an instrument for implementing
    the President's political hit list.
        Attorney General Bondi, the Department of Justice is not
    the President's personal law firm. Loyalty or disloyalty toward
    the President, or even the President's agenda, is not a valid
    measure of the performance of your employees nor of the
    appropriateness of a particular criminal investigation.
        President Trump is more focused on revenge, retaliation,
    and retribution rather than lowering the high price for
    everyday essentials, and the American people are bearing those
    costs.
        The American people expected President Trump to address the
    high cost of living, but the President is not laser-focused on
    the cost-of-living crisis. He is actually making it worse.
        Instead, he put billionaires like Elon Musk in charge of
    our government, and they are attacking civil servants who are
    not loyal to him but to the Constitution and to the rule of
    law. And they are stealing programs, the funding for the
    programs that keep America's communities safe.
        This administration is deliberately undermining agencies
    that protect the American people. Over $4.5 billion in the
    Department of Justice grants, those funds, including COPS
    grants, the Office on Violence Against Women grants, have been
    unlawfully frozen, stolen from the communities that are
    counting on this funding to improve their own law enforcement
    capabilities.
        This funding supports reentry initiatives, violence
    prevention. It helps prevent hate crimes, provides services for
    crime victims, and supports underserved communities. Stealing
    this funding makes the American people less safe, more likely
    to become victims of crime.
        Freezing this money is an illegal impoundment. There is no
    lawful authority to unilaterally impound or, in my words,
    steal. You can continue to say there is inherent authority. You
    can say it over and over and over again. But it is not true and
    we are going to correct it over and over and over again. And
    how many times can the courts and the Government Accountability
    Office tell you so?
        Your Department is responsible for upholding the law. You
    must unfreeze grant money appropriated by the Congress or be in
    violation of the law.
        Moving to the next fiscal year, I am eager to learn about
    how the Department of Justice will continue to fulfill its
    mission with a proposed budget that significantly cuts our
    Nation's law enforcement agencies, key offices, and grant
    programs.
        The President's proposed budget would impair and defund the
    core law enforcement agencies that keep our communities safe.
    In essence, you are defunding law enforcement.
        It slashes funding for the FBI, the Drug Enforcement
    Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
    Explosives, limiting Federal efforts to help our State and
    local enforcement combat gun violence, drug trafficking, and
    organized crime.
        The budget also targets DOJ's foundational legal divisions,
    cutting funding for civil rights enforcement, environmental
    protection, and even, yes, national security. It takes an axe
    to grant programs and other programs that support domestic
    violence survivors and local police departments.
        It dismantles DOJ's Tax Division, which will only make it
    easier for prominent tax cheats to avoid prosecution, further
    increasing the burden on honest taxpayers who pay what they
    owe.
        They pay what they owe. Our largest corporations do not.
        And why on Earth does your budget slash the Department of
    Justice's Office of the Inspector General by 30 percent? Does
    this administration want to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse
    or not?
        Our government's Inspectors General are absolutely critical
    nonpartisan offices that help Congress and the American people
    eliminate and prevent fraud and corruption. This administration
    has directly undermined and even removed over a dozen of these
    offices across our government.
        Waste, fraud, and abuse are not the targets of President
    Trump's White House. They are the primary objectives. This
    budget does not put the safety and security of the American
    people first. It puts white collar criminals, drug traffickers,
    and violent offenders first, while eviscerating your
    Department's ability to stop them.
        The Department of Justice exists to uphold the rule of law.
    The American people deserve assurance that everyone will be
    treated equally under the law. Instead, this administration
    breaks the law with reckless abandon.
        President Trump, like every other American, must follow the
    law. Russ Vought must follow the law. Secretaries Noem and
    Kennedy and McMahon must follow the law. And we must understand
    why your Department is complicit in lawbreaking from the
    highest office.
        I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. We want to say congratulations to the Attorney
    General on her selection to this very important post. But she
    brings a great record from her home State of Florida in her
    earlier part of her life.
        So we are proud of you, and we welcome you to the
    subcommittee. And you are now recognized for an opening
    statement, which will be entered into the record.

                     STATEMENT OF HON. PAMELA BONDI

        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you, Chairman.
        Good afternoon, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member DeLauro,
    Ranking Member Meng, and distinguished members of the
    subcommittee. I am honored to appear before you today to
    present the President's fiscal year 2026 budget for the
    Department of Justice. I look forward to working with all of
    you to ensure continued support for the Department and our many
    critical missions.
        President Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal totals
    $34 billion for the Department of Justice. That money will
    support Federal law enforcement as well as our State, local,
    and Tribal law enforcement partners.
        My primary objective as Attorney General is to return the
    Department to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and
    vigorously enforcing the law. This budget will allow us to
    continue doing just that.
        Since January 20, we have dismantled deadly fentanyl
    networks across our country. We have prosecuted MS-13 and TdA
    members using terrorism and RICO charges. We have seized
    thousands of illegal guns from cartels and extradited key
    cartel leaders into U.S. prisons.
        Last month, the FBI arrested 205 child predators in a
    single operation, and the DEA executed the largest fentanyl
    bust in history across four States.
        We have also surged FBI resources to investigate thousands
    of violent crimes committed against American Indian and Alaska
    Native people.
        These are just a few examples of what we have achieved thus
    far. The budget will allow us to continue doing our crucial
    work.
        We have also led the charge to enforce our immigration
    laws, rebuild our immigration system after 4 years of chaos,
    and help secure our Nation's borders. Moreover, we must
    guarantee that our laws allow us to process, hold, and remove
    those who enter our country illegally.
        Our U.S. Attorneys continue to effectively work with law
    enforcement at all levels to investigate and prosecute the
    increasing volume of immigration-related criminal offenses.
        Additionally, the President and I have established and
    reinvigorated three task forces to enforce the administration's
    priorities.
        The Homeland Security Task Force is enhancing Federal and
    State law enforcement cooperation to destroy criminal cartels,
    foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations
    throughout our country.
        Joint Task Force Alpha will continue to specifically target
    the human trafficking and human smuggling networks that took
    root while our border was wide open.
        And Joint Task Force Vulcan will continue successful
    efforts to arrest and prosecute members of TdA and MS-13.
        We are also committed to making America safe again by
    reducing recidivism. The Bureau of Prisons has suffered
    mismanagement, lack of funding, and low morale. Throughout my
    confirmation process, BOP came up in every single meeting
    regardless of the Senator's party.
        The President's budget proposal will address critical
    staffing shortages, enhance staff retention, and deliver
    positive changes to a system that has long needed improvements.
        The resources made available through President Trump's
    proposal will also empower the Department to continue fighting
    our war on fentanyl.
        Since January 2025, the DEA has already seized 41.5 million
    fentanyl pills and 4,470 kilos of fentanyl powder.
        It is a historic rate, but it is not enough. We won't rest
    until this poison is off our streets.
        And finally, the 2026 budget continues my commitment to
    find savings in the Department, reduce inefficiencies, and
    deliver value to the American taxpayer.
        In fiscal year 2026, the Department will merge components
    that will work in overlapping areas and make our law
    enforcement and grant-making efforts more effective. We will
    emerge from this work as a leaner organization, better equipped
    to keep the American people safe.
        Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member DeLauro, Ranking Member
    Meng, it is my pleasure to highlight our efforts to be good
    stewards of these resources. I am working diligently to restore
    confidence and integrity to the Department and each of those
    components. Thank you for your continued support of the
    Department's financial needs and for the opportunity to present
    our budget request.
        I also would ask all of us now to pray for our troops in
    Qatar.
        Mr. Rogers. Amen.
        Attorney General Bondi. I look forward to working with you.
    And I am now happy to take any questions you might have.
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        Mr. Rogers. We will proceed under the 5-minute rule, and I
    will yield myself the first 5 minutes.
        As you know, Madam Attorney General, rural America, many
    parts of the country, including my district, continue to suffer
    from the lethal effects of illicit drug use and overdose
    deaths.
        How does your 2026 budget propose to address drug crimes,
    such as trafficking and the influx? What are you doing
    differently than in the past?
        Attorney General Bondi. Chairman, what we are doing, we are
    focusing all of our law enforcement agencies on getting these
    drugs off of our streets.
        Since I was a State AG, I focused on the opioid crisis. I
    focused with all of our agencies--all of our agencies--working
    hand in hand on the drug crisis.
        Securing our borders, I believe, was the first step. We
    will continue to do that.
        On May 22, I believe, Chairman, we announced the success of
    Operation RapTor, the FBI-led DOJ operation that targeted
    fentanyl trafficking on the dark web. That has become a huge
    problem with added technology now.
        We have seen drug trafficking increased not only across our
    boarders, not only through the mail, but also on the web. And
    that is something I believe that we can all work together on. I
    believe that crosses party lines. That is something that we all
    need to work together on.
        We have seized 144 kilos of fentanyl, 180 firearms, and
    over $200 million in currency and digital assets, working with
    nine international partners and arresting 270 drug traffickers
    across four continents. And that was all because of Operation
    RapTor.
        On May 6, we executed the biggest fentanyl bust in DEA's
    history. We dismantled a Sinaloa Cartel that trafficked across
    five States: New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, and Nevada. We
    seized 412 kilos of fentanyl pills, 11.5 kilos of fentanyl
    powder, and 49 illegal firearms. We arrested 16 accused drug
    traffickers.
        These cartels, these gangs, are so organized that they
    insulate their leaders. The leader of this particular cartel
    was living in Oregon. Yet none of the drugs were with him.
        This was incredible police work by all of our agencies,
    Federal agencies, working hand in hand to track them down. I
    met in conference rooms. We had charts.
        And I would invite any of you Members, on both sides of the
    aisle, to come in and see these investigations of what we are
    trying to do to get these drugs off our streets. They are so
    complex. They are so complicated.
        What our law enforcement have been doing is really second
    to none and I am so proud. They are some of the bravest in the
    world. And I am so proud at what they have been doing, working
    with all of our State and local partners to eradicate these
    drugs.
        My point of that was in Oregon was the leader of this
    particular Sinaloa gang. And, again, he insulated himself. But
    we were able to catch him thanks to great police work, and we
    will continue to do that.
        Mr. Rogers. Well, congratulations.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers. And thanks for the invitation. I hope we can
    take you up on that.
        During his hearing before us, FBI Director Patel indicated
    a lot of precursor chemicals that originate in China are now
    going to terrorist organizations that reroute the precursors
    into our country through the northern border.
        What can you say about that?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yes, Chairman, that is accurate. I
    have been fighting this fentanyl epidemic since I was a State
    AG when it really first came on the market.
        Ironically, I was recently in Poland at a security
    conference with all of my counterparts around the world, and I
    will never forget something they said to me. My counterpart in
    Poland said, ``Fentanyl isn't here yet.'' Yet. Because they
    protect their borders.
        And, yes, the northern border is now a great concern to all
    of us, I would think to everyone on this committee. And, yeah,
    that is a great concern. But we will continue to do that.
        We are fighting to protect those precursors from coming in,
    as we know. And what they keep doing is they are changing the
    precursors. And they continue to change them, and they continue
    to send them through Mexico, through Canada, on ships through
    our ports of entry into our country. But that is something we
    have to all work together on to stop.
        I went to our DEA lab. I met with our DEA. It only takes--
    it looks like almost two grains of salt. I had them put sodium
    chloride in a little bottle so I could show people.
        That is what it takes to kill you. And that is what our
    kids are taking. They don't realize that it is mixed. They
    think they are buying a Xanax, an Adderall--I can't say this
    enough--an oxycodone pill. They think they are buying something
    else.
        And this junk is being laced--this poison--into these pills
    throughout our country. And that is something I feel like we
    can all work together on to try to stop.
        But, yes. That was--sorry--a very long answer to, yes, it
    is coming in through our northern border, but we are doing
    everything we can to secure that. We are working with Homeland
    Security very closely, and they are doing an incredible job on
    that as well, Chairman.
        Mr. Rogers. Ms. Meng.
        Ms. Meng. Madam Attorney General, I wanted to ask about a
    topic that is of great importance to many Americans, and
    especially my constituents, which is about hate crimes.
        I am really troubled that your budget proposes to end the
    grant programs that may help prevent some of these hate crimes.
        As you may know, I was the author of one of these programs,
    the Community-Based Approaches to Advancing Justice program,
    which was created in fiscal year 2022.
        This program supported local groups working to increase
    hate crimes reporting, give community members resources in
    languages other than English, and to improve relationships
    between local law enforcement and the community.
        It was a direct response to the rise in hate crimes
    targeting Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. You may
    recall in March 2021, six women of Asian descent were
    tragically murdered in Atlanta, Georgia.
        My Hate Crimes Act passed through Congress in May of that
    year with bipartisan support, including from several of my
    colleagues on the other side of the dais.
        For years, I have been hearing from constituents about how
    scared they felt and have been hearing from members of these
    communities as well as experts who have told me that one of the
    best ways to combat hate in this country is to fund prevention
    programs. So not just prosecution but also prevention.
        I have a letter here that hate crime survivors and family
    members wrote to you in May expressing their strongest concerns
    about the termination of these grants, signed by people like
    family members of Emmett Till, James Byrd Jr., Matthew Shepard,
    and survivors of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
        I ask unanimous consent to enter into the hearing record
    this letter from these survivors and family members to Attorney
    General Bondi regarding the termination of hate crimes-related
    grant programs.
        Mr. Rogers. Without objection.
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        Ms. Meng. Thank you, Chairman.
        Attorney General Bondi, I absolutely share your support for
    law enforcement and for the prosecution of hate crimes in a
    just way. But we must combat all forms of hate on all fronts,
    bringing together law enforcement and community leaders and
    members of the public, and these grant programs have helped
    many communities do exactly this.
        So I just wanted to ask and hear from you why there is a
    proposal to eliminate the three largest sources of DOJ funding
    for hate crime prevention programs.
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. And, Ranking Member, can you
    list those three for me again? And I am sorry, I have not
    received your letter yet. But I would welcome working with you
    on any issue regarding hate crimes in the Asian-American
    community and any community. I welcome working with you on
    that.
        Ms. Meng. Okay. Yeah. I would love to.
        And this letter was sent May 15, and we will make sure that
    you and your team have received it.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Ms. Meng. So the programs. One of them, for example, is
    named the Community-Based Approaches to Advancing Justice.
    Three programs have been cut. One of these programs literally
    helped support our law enforcement departments locally, like
    our NYPD, to train and respond to hate crimes.
        Attorney General Bondi. Let me see.
        So we have 5,800 grants, Chairman, that come--Ranking
    Member, excuse me--that come through my office; 365 have been
    cut so far. That is approximately 6 percent.
        What I will tell you is we have turned back on 13 of those
    so far because people have reached out to me. If you want to
    reach out and talk to me directly, I will give you my cell
    phone. I would love to sit down with you and see if we can work
    that out. I am sorry. I am not familiar with those three
    directly.
        But, again, we will, if you have, on either side of the
    aisle, any grants that you believe should be back on, I would
    love to meet with you and work with you on that.
        We are doing that on a case-by-case basis. And law
    enforcement is my top priority, especially hate crimes,
    violence against women, everything I have done my entire career
    as a prosecutor. I think we have a former prosecutor in the
    room too.
        And I look forward to working with you on those and seeing
    what we can do to help you.
        Ms. Meng. Great. We would love to work together, and we
    will flag all the programs that have been impacted, including
    those that directly support our local law enforcement, like
    NYPD.
        And just to be more specific, the three programs mentioned
    are Community-Based Approaches, Jabara-Heyer NO HATE, and
    Shepard-Byrd. NO HATE, Shepard-Byrd.
        Thank you so much.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Gonzales.
        Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Chairman.
        And thank you, Attorney General, for being here today.
        When the DOJ submitted their budget, the United States was
    a Nation at peace, and now we are a Nation at war. So my
    questions are going to be focused on national security.
        How many Iranian sleeper cells do we suspect are in the
    United States?
        Attorney General Bondi. Congressman, I can't talk about
    that in this setting. But what I can tell you is I know
    Homeland Security, I know the FBI. They are focusing on doing
    everything we can to keep our Nation safe and they will
    continue to do that.
        Yeah, it is a frightening time in which we live right now.
    But President Trump is committed to keeping all Americans safe.
    And we look forward to working with you on that.
        Mr. Gonzales. Great. Thank you.
        How many active cases of threats to the homeland does DOJ
    currently have open as of today?
        Attorney General Bondi. Countless. Countless. I can't talk
    about those in this setting either, obviously, anything pending
    regarding national security issues.
        But there is not a day that goes by that we don't discuss
    the issues that you just brought up with me at the Department
    of Justice. But I also know that our counterparts at DOD, HSI,
    the State Department, and all of our agencies are working
    together to make America safe and, in turn, keep our world
    safe.
        Mr. Gonzales. This is very much on my mind. I spent 20
    years in the military. I spent 5 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    These aren't----
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Gonzales. Of course. These aren't dots on a board. And
    not only American lives abroad, what we saw today, are at risk,
    but it is also American lives here at home.
        And I don't want us looking back and going: What if? I want
    us to, as much as we can, get ahead of it, to give you the
    resources, the instruments that you need to go out and make
    sure that we are preventing things from happening, not waiting
    until after the fact.
        There was a report of over 1,500 Iranian nationals that
    have entered the country illegally over the last several years.
    Do we know, out of those over 1,500, how many of those have
    been convicted of a crime?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah, I don't have the number of
    the convictions. It is well over a thousand have entered, yes.
    I don't know if it is quite up to 1,500. But, yes, it is well
    over a thousand have entered our country. And I can tell you,
    we are on high alert, and everyone is looking at that very
    closely.
        Mr. Gonzales. Some things just don't line up as far as us--
    I see the world as on fire now more than ever before. Once
    again, when this budget was submitted we were a Nation at
    peace, and now things have changed.
        I look at this. I see law enforcement and national security
    has a reduction of $645 million, over 1,500 positions. The
    notes I have: The FBI will implement cost-saving measures. The
    largest decreases will be in criminal, cyber, response, and
    service branches and national security branches.
        FBI's criminal investigation, cyber, and international
    operations will reduce resources and support various
    investigations and partnership. Additionally, the
    counterintelligence, counterterrorism, threat screening, and
    weapons of mass destruction programs experience reductions.
        I mention those things because those, in my eyes, those are
    the programs that we need more resources to, more manpower to.
        And not everything is about money. I mean, you have alluded
    to this. A lot of times it is about being more efficient with
    the things that you are doing.
        I would love to hear your thoughts on some of the ways you
    are looking to get ahead of any problem sets.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        And we can do more with less. Of course, you can always do
    more with more. But we are doing more with less. We are
    prioritizing. We are refocusing. And the budget request
    supports $7.5 billion for national security.
        Also, that is why it is very important, I believe, for all
    of you to support the Big Beautiful Bill. The One Big Beautiful
    Bill gives us a lot of additional funding at the Department of
    Justice to carry out our mission.
        The Senate version gives us $11.82 billion. Currently, the
    House version gives us $3.3 billion. Hopefully, they will come
    to a compromise in there.
        But that is where it will truly help Department of Justice
    combat all of the issues that you brought up and many others.
        And thank you for your service to our country, especially
    now. I didn't realize that you had served in Iraq. Thank you.
        Mr. Gonzales. Yeah. No. Of course. And thank you for saying
    that. I mean, resources matter. And the Big Beautiful Bill, we
    look forward to getting that to the President's desk as soon as
    possible, once again, to give you the resources and the tools
    you need to get ahead of these problems that we see so clearly
    coming through.
        I represent nearly half of the southern border. The border
    is on my mind quite a bit.
        One of the questions I have--I focus a lot on convicted
    criminal illegal aliens. Do we know how many illegal aliens
    have been convicted of a crime in the United States?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. I can get you those specific
    numbers.
        Mr. Gonzales. Great.
        Attorney General Bondi. I don't know. But many, I can tell
    you. Our prosecutors are indicting and charging illegal aliens
    constantly--violent crimes, rapes, thefts, many crimes
    throughout this country.
        And, yes, our borders were wide open. And, Congressman,
    back in September, I went to our border at Yuma, Arizona. Not
    in Texas, but in Yuma. And at our border, what I saw firsthand,
    we saw IDs just dropped from every country you can imagine. El
    Salvador. Venezuela. China. Every country you can imagine.
        And of course I didn't see Iranian driver's licenses, but
    they are coming into our country. Yes, we know. That is
    documented. But just walking into our country.
        And that is why Homeland Security, that is why ICE, that is
    why the FBI, that is why all of our agencies, DEA, ATF, are all
    working hand in hand to combat that and to keep Americans safe.
    And that is what President Trump is committed to doing.
        Mr. Gonzales. Thank you.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Gonzales. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Ms. DeLauro.
        Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Just a quick note before I get to my questions.
        Fentanyl seizures are down 30 percent compared to last
    year. And that data is coming from the Customs and Border
    Patrol, CBP. I don't make it up. But fentanyl seizures are
    down.
        At your confirmation hearing you asserted that you will do
    everything in your power to prevent illegal gunrunners in our
    country. Your budget request for the Bureau of Alcohol,
    Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF, proposes a cut of 26
    percent below the current level.
        How can you justify such a massive cut without inevitably
    weakening ATF's ability to help our State and local law
    enforcement fight illegal gun trafficking?
        How many ATF law enforcement officers and industry
    operations investigators do you anticipate will be lost to
    attrition as a result of this funding reduction you are
    proposing?
        Attorney General Bondi. So I am a career prosecutor, and I
    believe in keeping America safe, making America safe.
        First, what we are doing is ATF is going to be brought over
    with DEA. Everyone knows, everyone sitting up here, guns and
    drugs go together. They go together. We are going to make it
    more efficient.
        What I will tell you will not be happening is ATF agents
    will not be knocking on the doors of legal gun owners in the
    middle of the night asking them about their guns. They are
    going to be out on the street--if I can finish--they are going
    to be out on the street----
        Ms. DeLauro. Well, I have 3 minutes.
        Attorney General Bondi. No, no, no. You asked me a
    question.
        Ms. DeLauro. I did, and you haven't answered my question.
        Attorney General Bondi. Yoo asked me a question. Let me
    answer it.
        So they are going to be out on the streets working hand in
    hand with DEA----
        Ms. DeLauro. You haven't answered my question. You haven't
    answered.
        Mr. Chairman, I would like an answer to my question. And
    the question is not being answered.
        How many ATF law enforcement officers and industry
    operations investigators do you anticipate will be lost to
    attrition as a result of the funding reduction you are
    proposing? You are proposing a 26 percent cut to ATF for fiscal
    year 2026 as well as a 4.4 percent cut to DEA.
        So you are going to merge the two agencies together, and
    then you are going to shortchange their resources so neither
    one of them will be able to do the job that they have been
    designed to do.
        You have got a 34 percent cut to the High Intensity Drug
    Trafficking Areas program, no dedicated money at all for the
    Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
        So my view, it is fair to say that the Trump administration
    proposal shortchanges Federal efforts to stop illegal gun
    trafficking and Federal efforts to stop the flow of dangerous
    illegal drugs like fentanyl.
        Attorney General Bondi. As I was attempting to answer your
    question very calmly, unlike you, what--what the--what I was
    saying----
        Ms. DeLauro. Excuse me. Excuse me, Madam Attorney General.
    Answer yes or no. Tell me what the numbers are. I don't want to
    hear all of your filibustering about this. Go ahead. Please,
    tell us the numbers.
        Attorney General Bondi. So we are reorganizing. ATF agents
    want to be out on the street working with DEA agents.
        Ms. DeLauro. Okay. Let me answer the question for you. I am
    going to answer it for you. Page----
        Mr. Rogers. Let the witness answer the question.
        Ms. DeLauro. Mr. Chairman, you give me a certain amount of
    time, and I have a high respect for you, but I don't have to
    listen, nor do my colleagues have to listen to a filibuster
    when it is a simple question.
        But I have an answer to your question. It is page 146 of
    the Department's fiscal year 2026 budget. And the performance
    summary explicitly says, and let me quote, ``ATF will eliminate
    541 Industry Operations Investigators, reducing ATF's capacity
    to regulate the firearms and explosives industries by
    approximately 40 percent in fiscal year 2026. ATF will perform
    fewer regulatory inspections.''
        And the Department summary goes on to say, and let me
    quote, ``ATF anticipates a reduction of approximately 284
    support personnel and 186 agents, based on historical attrition
    patterns, and these personnel cuts will impact ATF across
    various functions,'' unquote.
        If the capacity to regulate the firearms industry is
    reduced by 40 percent, if you are losing 186 ATF law
    enforcement agents on top of that, it is clear the direction
    you are headed with this budget. That is what it is, isn't it?
    The proposal will weaken our ability to stop gun trafficking,
    and it will greatly reduce ATF support for State and local law
    enforcement that helps them prevent and solve violent crimes.
        It is a bad proposal.
        Attorney General Bondi. Do you want to hear my answer in 3
    seconds?
        You mentioned regulatory functions. We will not be having
    ATF agents go to the doors of gun owners in the middle of the
    night, asking them about their guns. Period. They will be out
    on the street with DEA, guns and----
        Ms. DeLauro. How many are gone?
        Attorney General Bondi. They will--we are--it will be
    attrition. We are not firing agents who will be working----
        Ms. DeLauro. How many have taken attrition?
        Attorney General Bondi. Can I tell you that they all want
    to be on the street? They want to be doing their jobs. They
    want to be seizing guns.
        Ms. DeLauro. But you are getting them off the street.
        Attorney General Bondi. They want----
        Ms. DeLauro. You are getting them off the street.
        Attorney General Bondi. We are putting them on the street.
    They want to be working with DEA.
        Ms. DeLauro. You are getting them off the street. There is
    no clear----
        Attorney General Bondi. We will be efficient----
        Ms. DeLauro. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
        Mr. Rogers. Time of the gentlelady has expired.
        Ms. DeLauro. I yield back my time. Let's get some answers
    here.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Clyde.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you, Attorney General Bondi, for being here
    today. You are, in my mind, a breath of fresh air to our
    Department of Justice.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you.
        So thank you for your dedication to the Constitution and
    for equal justice under the law. I am thoroughly impressed with
    your experience and how you have handled the Department of
    Justice so far.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Clyde. As we all know, under the Biden-Harris
    administration the Department of Justice, FBI, and ATF were
    dangerously weaponized to target President Trump and everyday
    Americans, tactics more fitting of an authoritarian regime than
    a constitutional republic.
        From politically persecuting President Trump, then-
    President Biden's chief political rival, to going after pro-
    life advocates, like Mark Houck, the actions of Attorney
    General Garland, Director Wray, and the DOJ leadership were
    unacceptable and unconstitutional, in my opinion.
        That is why I was very encouraged to see the President's
    fiscal year 2026 budget commit to ending the weaponization
    within the Department of Justice and the FBI.
        And so can you elaborate for me how has the Trump
    administration's DOJ shifted away from politically motivated
    investigations and refocused on its core mission, prosecuting
    the most dangerous criminals?
        And you mentioned that a little bit in your opening
    remarks. So if you can focus on the moving away part, I would
    appreciate it.
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. Thank you, Congressman Clyde,
    and thank you for that.
        And also our budget includes $1.2 billion and 2,444 agents
    for ATF, and those agents will be on the street with DEA. And
    thank you for letting me answer that question.
        Mr. Clyde. Yes, ma'am.
        Attorney General Bondi. And we are prioritizing resources
    addressing illegal firearms and traffickers, and we will reduce
    unnecessary regulatory efforts, including what I just said
    about the weaponization. That is how ATF, I believe, was
    weaponized in the prior administration.
        Also, they were arresting peaceful protesters, the Biden
    administration, at abortion facilities. No longer. They
    targeted Catholics at church services. No longer. No longer
    will parents be arrested at school board meetings because they
    care about their children.
        That has ended under this Department. That is why Donald
    Trump won the popular vote and the electoral college by
    overwhelming margins. He made that crystal clear, and that is
    what is happening now in our country.
        That weaponization has ended. These ATF agents will be on
    the street fighting drugs. I have been a career prosecutor. ATF
    has taken thousands of guns off the streets since January 20,
    working hand in hand with DEA. Drugs and guns go together.
        Core function. No more targeting and weaponizing our
    citizens by any of the agencies, Congressman.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you. Thank you for that commitment.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Clyde. I was delighted to see that the Department of
    Justice's fiscal year 2026 budget also included a dedicated
    fund for a firearm rights restoration initiative.
        Can you describe this initiative a little bit and any other
    steps that your Department is taking to restore the Second
    Amendment rights to Americans who were unlawfully or unjustly
    stripped of them by prior administrations? Can you talk about
    that a little bit, please?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yes, Congressman. And that is a--
    the pardon power, of course, falls with the President. And he
    has been doing many pardons on that topic, and he will continue
    to do that, I am certain.
        Also, one other thing about ATF is our seizure of firearms
    is up 33 percent from this time last year.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you.
        Attorney General Bondi. I wanted to add that. Thank you.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you.
        I was going to ask you about the merger of DEA and the ATF
    and kind of if you would elaborate on that. You have talked a
    little bit about it already.
        One thing that I think is very important is that the ATF
    and Federal firearms licensees work together, because truly
    FFLs are the front line when it comes to illegal purchases and
    just the information that is out there.
        And we can help each other as long as we have a good
    relationship with each other. And during the last
    administration, it was a terrifying relationship. I mean, you
    had the zero tolerance against Federal firearms licensees.
        I am sorry, we are all human. Everybody makes mistakes. And
    they are not intentional. They are just mistakes.
        And when you can lose your livelihood and you can lose your
    business and your employees can lose their jobs over simple
    mistakes, that is a real problem, especially when, if you think
    about Federal firearms licensees, they are the pathway to the
    Second Amendment of the Constitution. They enable individual
    participation in the protection of liberty. I mean, that is
    what Federal firearms licensees do.
        So I think it is really important to have that critical
    relationship between ATF and the Federal firearms licensees.
        When the inspectors, when the ATF went from the Treasury to
    the Department of Justice and the inspection side of it, when
    the IOIs, when they were--industry operations inspectors--when
    they became industry operations investigators, when you
    investigate crime, you really inspect records. That was
    concerning to me.
        So my thought was maybe we could move the IOIs to the
    Department of Commerce. But just would get your thought on
    that.
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. And, Congressman, that is the
    first time I have heard about that. I would love to meet with
    you and learn more about that.
        Mr. Clyde. Great. I look forward to it.
        Attorney General Bondi. And thank you for asking about the
    ATF-DEA merger.
        In the world in which we live, bureaucracy has been around
    for a very long time, and just because things have been done
    one way for decades and decades doesn't mean that is the most
    efficient way to do them in the future.
        And I am a career prosecutor. I care about ATF. I went to
    ATF's memorial service. We are doing everything we can to put
    those ATF agents on the street where they want to be.
        Anyone in modern day history--the years of Prohibition are
    over. ATF, they want to be on the street. They want to be
    working hand in hand with DEA. That is what they do. No
    redundancy, no repeat of investigations. They are going to be
    working together. And that is what this reorganization does.
        They are all going to be--it is going to be a great
    marriage between those two agencies. They are working hand in
    hand on task forces already. Now they will be working under one
    umbrella and it is going to be great for our country.
        Mr. Rogers. Time of the gentleman has expired.
        Mr. Clyde. Thank you very much.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Clyde. I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Ivey.
        Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I wanted to follow up on what Congressman Gonzales raised
    with you with respect to the new environment that we are in now
    with the--essentially at war with Iran.
        A few weeks ago, your FBI Director sat in the same chair
    and said that he thought in the budget that has been proposed
    they are about $11.2 billion short. He wanted an additional
    1,100 positions that were lost to attrition and 1,300 he wanted
    to have filled. That is before the scenario with Iran.
        Now, I know you submitted the budget already and you want
    to stick with it. But please take another look. This is a new
    environment. I think the points that the Congressman raised are
    very valid with respect to the issue of sleeper cells and
    threats domestically here.
        Taking FBI agents off the street now is a bad--there isn't
    a worse possible time you could do it. So please reconsider
    that and move in a different direction on that, because we need
    more of them on the street, not fewer.
        Ms. DeLauro was raising issues with respect to your budget,
    the IOI cuts and the 86 agents that are going to be cut, too.
    And the concern I have on that front, I know you are saying we
    need--they want to be on the street--but there are ATF agents
    that do things that aren't on the street.
        So, like, for example, the NIBIN work where they match the
    cartridges to the guns is critical. And I am very concerned
    that some of the cuts you are going to make are going to impact
    that.
        And the NIBIN pieces are critical for State and local law
    enforcement, like you used to be, because a lot of them don't
    have the resources to track it down. And the information that
    they can get, you can turn it around in 48 hours.
        So the man who attempted to assassinate now-President
    Trump, the connection that was made was through this apparatus,
    this approach. Same thing with the Minnesota assassin.
        So that is an area where we can't afford to have those kind
    of cuts, I don't think, at this time.
        And the performance of fewer regulatory inspections. I had
    gun dealers in my district who needed those inspections to take
    place, and important findings have been made, certainly with
    respect to tracking crime guns and cracking down on gun dealers
    who are working illicitly.
        I am not saying they all do. I mean, many of them operate
    in the right way. But the only way to track it down is through
    inspections that have to be aggressive.
        And by the way, even under the current regime--or the
    previous regime--I think some of them didn't get inspections
    for maybe every 10 years or so. So it wasn't like it is a
    constant harassment piece.
        But I have got some folks here in the corner of the hearing
    room who are from my district, Moms Demand Action, DMV Mothers
    Like Me, Women's Missionary Society. I met with them a few
    weeks ago, and the concern was the issue of gun violence on our
    streets and the desire to make sure that the Federal presence
    continues to push hard to make sure we close those cases.
        You are reducing resources. You are taking--reducing the
    number of agents, as Mr. Patel said. That is moving in the
    opposite direction.
        What response would you give to them with respect to the
    steps that you are taking to make sure not only that we stay
    safe, but we get even safer and do even more to get violent
    offenders off the street and get the guns off the street before
    the violent offenders get them?
        Attorney General Bondi. So, first, Congressman Ivey, you
    are a former prosecutor, and I am smiling because I could see
    that in some of your questions. Thank you for those questions.
    I am going to try to answer them all in order of how you asked
    them.
        You asked about the FBI. Our budget--and Director Patel
    clarified that in front of the Senate, I think, and our budget
    includes $10.1 billion, 12,926 agents for the FBI.
        Mr. Ivey. I think ``clarification'' would be gentle. It was
    a complete flip-flop on what he said when he was here.
        Attorney General Bondi. So they prioritize----
        Mr. Ivey. And he was asked three times by Ms. DeLauro, just
    to make sure that he was right about what he had said when he
    was testifying.
        Attorney General Bondi. They prioritize realignment of
    personnel to the field to carry out national security, which
    you just talked about, intelligence, criminal law enforcement,
    and criminal justice missions.
        The budget----
        Mr. Ivey. Can I do this?
        Attorney General Bondi. Can I just keep--I only have 34
    seconds to answer you, and I really want to answer.
        Mr. Ivey. I have got three quick questions for you, and I
    would love to get your answers----
        Attorney General Bondi. You are asking three questions, and
    you haven't let me answer one.
        Mr. Ivey. I would love to get your answers in writing.
        Attorney General Bondi. I want to talk about NIBIN.
        Mr. Ivey. Quick question.
        Attorney General Bondi. NIBIN.
        Mr. Ivey. When you were the attorney general in Florida----
        Attorney General Bondi. Chairman, can I answer the
    question?
        Mr. Ivey [continuing]. You offered after the Parkland
    shooting----
        Mr. Rogers. If the gentleman will suspend.
        Mr. Ivey. I believe this is my time under the rules and I
    had----
        Mr. Rogers. If the gentleman will suspend momentarily.
        Ms. DeLauro. Stop the clock.
        Mr. Ivey. Can we stop the clock?
        Ms. DeLauro. Stop the clock at a different----
        Mr. Rogers. Let's be respectful of each other.
        Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chairman, what I just said was, if you could
    submit your answers in writing, that would be great. I don't
    think I have made any kind of statement that has been
    accusatory with respect to her or her professional reputation.
    There has been no attack on her. These were just questions that
    were asked. I am seeking the answers in writing, which would be
    great. But I have a couple others I would like to ask, too, and
    we will do them on----
        Mr. Rogers. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Ivey. No, it hasn't. You cut me off when there were 30
    seconds left. Yeah. So----
        Well, that is true, too. A couple of you all went over,
    like, a minute and a half.
        Ms. DeLauro. Congressman Clyde went over almost 2 minutes.
        Mr. Ivey. I just would like my 30 seconds back. And then if
    she can submit answers in writing, that will be fine, but, you
    know--but I want to get these questions in while she is here.
        Mr. Rogers. Submit your questions.
        Ms. DeLauro. Go ahead. No, no, no.
        Chairman----
        Mr. Ivey. I want to ask the questions, and she can submit
    the answers.
        This is my 5 minutes. I get to do it the way I want to do
    it under the committee rules and under the House rules. These
    are my 5 minutes. And as I said, I have not been disrespectful
    to this witness. I have not.
        Ms. DeLauro. Go ahead.
        Mr. Ivey. Okay. When you were the attorney general in
    Florida, after the Parkland shooting, my understanding is that
    you moved to ban guns--gun sales to people under 21. Is that a
    position that you would take now as the Attorney General? I
    have a bill, H.R. 2368, which does something like that. I would
    be interested if you would be willing to cosponsor--or support
    that bill.
        You also moved to enact red flag laws, allowing a judge
    temporarily to confiscate weapons when he or she viewed that
    the person was at risk of hurting himself or someone else. Is
    that a position you would continue to support now?
        And the last one is ghost guns. Ghost guns--I don't think
    you took a position on it back when you were the AG in Florida.
    But we have had two bills come through here in the Congress,
    all Democratic cosponsors. I think there is no argument that
    ghost guns have any, you know, appropriate use on the street.
    They only help criminals avoid prosecution. Would you support a
    legislative ban on ghost guns?
        And, with that, I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Strong.
        Mr. Strong. Thank you, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member
    Meng, for having this hearing today. I would also like to thank
    the subcommittee staff for their hard work.
        Attorney General Bondi, thank you for being here today. I
    commend you for your efforts to prioritize President Trump's
    America First agenda and commitment to making America safe
    again.
        As you know, I represent Alabama's Fifth Congressional
    District, which includes Huntsville and Redstone Arsenal. I am
    especially supportive of the FBI Director Patel's plan for the
    continued movement of FBI personnel to north Alabama. My
    district has repeatedly answered the call to support our law
    enforcement agencies with a second-to-none workforce, cutting-
    edge facilities, and room for growth.
        Attorney General Bondi, do you support the FBI's plan to
    move additional personnel and programs to Redstone Arsenal and
    out of the Beltway?
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you, Congressman, for your
    question.
        And, yes, we are moving 500 additional personnel from D.C.
    to Alabama to Redstone. Redstone is a state-of-the-art
    facility. It will enhance everything we do, training for FBI,
    training for other employees. And Huntsville provides the most
    cost-effective location with a distinct partnership
    opportunity, and we support all of that that is happening, and
    I look forward to visiting it one day.
        Could I have a couple minutes to answer a couple of your
    fellow Congressman's questions?
        Mr. Strong. Please do. I will yield.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you. He asked me about--he
    asked me about NIBIN, and yet he didn't want to hear my answer.
    NIBIN means National Integrated Ballistics Enforcement Network.
    I am very aware of that. We are not cutting that. ATF is
    receiving $66 million. It is an important program. And I know
    he would not intentionally attempt to mislead anyone by saying
    that I am trying to cut that, but that is not being cut.
        I am a career prosecutor. I have used that, and I am sure
    he has used it as a prosecutor. It is an important program that
    provides critical support to 7,200 State and local partners we
    work with. It is a key element to combat violent crime and
    firearms. So I am a huge supporter of NIBIN, and we will
    continue to do that.
        You asked me to talk to moms. I will always speak to moms
    in my office and any environment. Yes. And I lived the Parkland
    shooting. I still talk to and meet with all of those families,
    both Democrat and Republican alike. I will continue to do that
    as a career prosecutor.
        Speaking of moms, I am sure you met with--I am sure you met
    with Patty Morin. She is the mom of a murdered woman in your
    district. I am sure you met with her. I am sure he met with
    Tammy Nobles. Kayla Hamilton--that was her daughter who got
    murdered. So yes, I am willing to meet with any mom from any
    side of the aisle.
        And thank you, Congressman, for letting me correct that.
        Mr. Strong. Absolutely.
        Mr. Ivey. Will the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Strong. I have got--I want to move to my questions.
        In my district, we have the FBI, the ATF, and DHS working
    together to address bombing incidents and use of explosives.
    The FBI's Hazardous Devices School and Terrorist Explosive
    Device Analytical Center, effectually known as TEDAC, the ATF's
    National Center for Explosives Training and Research, and the
    U.S. Bomb Data Center are all located at Redstone Arsenal.
        As mentioned, ATF's National Center for Explosives and
    Training Research is a world-class facility located at
    Redstone. The center provides remarkable training facilities
    and specializes in lifesaving explosives and arsons training.
    Can you discuss how merging the ATF with the DEA will
    streamline their activities while ensuring their critical and
    unique capabilities are maintained?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yes, absolutely. And, yes, the
    National Center for Explosives Training and Research at
    Redstone--it is pretty remarkable what they do. They oversee
    the canine operations, I believe, as well as the criminal
    profiling, the explosives, the arson investigations, and I look
    forward to working with you. I look forward to visiting that. I
    really want to go to that facility.
        Yeah. There are no cuts planned for that. And that is where
    ATF and DEA, again, can partner together. The drugs and the
    guns go together. Those agents will be working hand in hand.
    The bureaucracy at the top will be gone. There will be no
    redundancy. They will be working hand in hand at that facility
    and many others throughout our country. Thank you.
        Mr. Strong. Ms. Attorney General, I just want to thank you
    for how you represent yourself and you represent this country.
    It is a hard task, what you have to do. You represent
    Democrats, Republicans. But what you have done in these first 5
    months, have reestablished the American people's belief in what
    the DOJ is to do for the American people.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. The gentleman yields back.
        Mr. Morelle.
        Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
    Meng, for holding this important hearing, and thank you,
    Attorney General Bondi, for appearing before us today.
        Madam Attorney General, I serve, in addition to the
    Appropriations Committee, as the ranking member of the
    Committee on House Administration. I sent you a letter last
    week along with my Republican counterpart, Chairman Brian
    Steil, requesting an increase in Federal prosecutorial
    resources to address threats against Members of Congress,
    particularly in light of what happened last week in Minnesota--
    that tragedy.
        In 2024, the U.S. Capitol Police identified and received
    nearly 9,500 concerning statements or threats against Members.
    Federal prosecutors have only secured eight convictions so far,
    and the heightened threat environment demands an all-hands-on-
    deck approach.
        Will you commit to assigning an assistant U.S. attorney or
    special assistant U.S. attorney to each of the 94 Federal
    districts to, at least on a part-time basis, investigate and
    prosecute threats against Members of Congress?
        Attorney General Bondi. So thank you for bringing that up,
    and I take that very seriously. Not only what happened in
    Minnesota was horrible; I have spoken to Keith Ellison. I have
    spoken to Amy Klobuchar about that. It is horrible. We are
    involved in that. The FBI was involved. Our U.S. attorneys are
    involved.
        Many of these are district-to-district. So the way we are
    doing that is--I will tell you my national security division is
    involved in all of those and assisting in those. We meet every
    single morning and we discuss that. But many of those--
    Minnesota--will be handled in the State in which it happened.
        Another one is----
        Mr. Morelle. So, ma'am----
        Attorney General Bondi. I am sorry. If I could keep going.
    I am sorry. I don't mean to----
        Mr. Morelle. Quickly, though.
        Attorney General Bondi [continuing]. Filibuster.
        Governor Shapiro and what happened in Pennsylvania with
    Governor Shapiro. I have spoken to Governor Shapiro. We are
    working hand in hand--our U.S. attorney with the district
    attorney there--hand in hand just like in Minnesota. I made
    sure our U.S. attorney and our district attorneys there were
    working hand in hand. Political party doesn't matter when
    something like this happens, and I also want to make sure all
    Members of Congress are safe as well.
        Mr. Morelle. Okay. And I would reiterate Chairman Steil and
    I--I think Chairman Steil and I agree that at least a part-time
    in each of the 94 districts would be appropriate.
        Let me change topics for just a moment. As I said--I am
    sorry.
        Attorney General Bondi. And just really quick on that. Yes.
    We are doing that through our national security division, so I
    think that is already in the works. And I would be glad to meet
    with you in a secure facility to talk about that.
        Mr. Morelle. Very good. Thank you.
        Continuing, in addition to my role here, the committee that
    I serve on as an authorizer oversees Capitol security as well
    as Federal elections, so I am closely following the aftermath
    of January 6. Recently, several defendants who received
    Presidential pardons related to that day are now arguing in
    court that the pardon covers crimes like, for instance, illegal
    firearm possession discovered in a search of an individual's
    home in California months after January 6.
        What is your position on whether the pardons cover these
    separate offenses?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. The pardon power rests with
    the President, not the Department of Justice. And some of that
    is pending litigation, and I cannot discuss pending litigation.
        Mr. Morelle. Well, I am not asking you about who has the
    right to a pardon. I think as the Department of Justice, in
    February, wrote, ``The pardon is an act of grace which removes
    the punishment from a crime a person has committed.''
        It further said, ``In its effect, the granting of a pardon
    is, in no sense, the overturning of a judgment of a conviction.
    It is an executive action that mitigates or sets aside
    punishment.''
        So, as the chief law enforcement officer, what is your
    opinion? Not the President's power of whether he can offer a
    pardon. That is pretty clear in the Constitution. But, for
    crimes committed unrelated to January 6, would you suggest that
    the pardons would cover activities or crimes potentially
    committed outside of that by the same person?
        Attorney General Bondi. Well, I don't know if you are
    referring to Joe Biden pardoning his son after he said he would
    not pardon Hunter Biden or the communization of all the----
        Mr. Morelle. No, I am actually referring to January 6. I am
    sorry.
        Attorney General Bondi [continuing]. All the sentences
    that--the people that were on death row. I have met with those
    families. All of those sentences were commuted. I am not going
    to comment on pardons on either side of the aisle.
        Mr. Morelle. So, well, I am not asking about either side. I
    am asking--you are the chief law enforcement officer in the
    United States. You have a responsibility directly. You swore an
    oath to the Constitution, not the President. I want to know
    what your views are on the extent to which pardons cover
    potential are crimes committed by individuals who have been
    pardoned but unrelated to January 6.
        Attorney General Bondi. Do you mean the ones that were done
    by the autopen? I am not going to discuss anything that could
    be or not be pending litigation.
        Mr. Morelle. All right. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully--you
    know, Ms. DeLauro accused you of filibuster, and I think that
    is the height of filibuster.
        This is a serious, serious topic, and for you to suggest
    that you don't have an opinion or to divert to other things
    that had nothing to do with January 6 pardons, I think it is
    frankly demeaning to your responsibilities and your job.
        With that, I will yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Cline.
        Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Attorney General, thank you for being here today.
        You know, when I am home in my district talking to my
    constituents, they are concerned about their safety. They are
    concerned about the safety of their communities, the safety of
    their neighborhoods. And, as we have spoken many times, under
    your leadership, the DOJ has taken decisive steps to restore
    the rule of law, to tackle violent crime, and to hold both
    foreign and domestic bad actors accountable.
        I read your opening statement, and I just wanted to give
    you an opportunity to go back again and talk about--in light of
    4 years of open borders, the drugs that are coming in, the sex
    trafficking, the human trafficking, the gangs that have moved
    in, the terrorism that has infiltrated the United States, the
    sleeper cells that may or may not be present in this country,
    the political prosecutions that we saw over the 4 years of the
    Biden Administration, the fact that we are restoring integrity
    to the office and the rule of law--can you restate for my
    constituents how the actions of the Department of Justice and
    your agencies are keeping them safe?
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you, Congressman. And we have
    also been working hand in hand on a task force with your
    governor, with Governor Youngkin, and we really--we started a
    task force with Governor Youngkin, and that is something that
    we would like to take to every single State, both Democrat and
    Republican. And that is how we have been able to fight these
    gangs, these transnational cartels, these organizations--these
    criminal organizations, and it was really remarkable. One of
    the top members of TDA was living 20 minutes from where we are
    sitting right now in Virginia.
        And working hand in hand regardless of political party with
    State and local law enforcement officers throughout the State
    of Virginia, we were able to dismantle a major, major gang. And
    there are so many gang members, and he was another one who was
    living there. I think when he was arrested, he had multiple--
    and ATF was involved in that--multiple guns when he was
    arrested, but he did not have any of the drugs on him. He had
    insulated himself because he was one of the leaders of the
    criminal organization.
        And so these task forces working together with the State of
    Virginia have been remarkable. So that is one way to break it
    down--what we have done, and we are just so proud of the
    partnership that we have had with your State dismantling the
    gangs, the guns, the drugs, and we will continue to do that.
        Mr. Cline. And, when you have that partnership, you can get
    a lot done.
        Attorney General Bondi. You can get so much done.
        Mr. Cline. You can secure a safer community for the people
    living here. When you have sanctuary States like California who
    are preventing you from actually getting in there and actually
    getting the gangs off the streets, getting the drugs and the
    human trafficking off the streets, that hurts the people of
    those States.
        You know, when the streets of Los Angeles descended into
    scenes more fitting of a failed State than a major American
    city--mobs setting fire to police cruisers and looting entire
    city blocks, videos online showing American flags being burned
    and the flags of foreign nations being flown, some carried by
    riders proudly waving them through smoke-filled streets.
        The Department of Homeland Security has revealed new data
    saying that ICE law enforcement is now facing a 500 percent
    increase in assaults while carrying out enforcement operations.
        Can you describe what actions you have taken to hold these
    sanctuary jurisdictions accountable? And I have a couple
    questions after that.
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. Thank you.
        To California specifically--and we have made it very clear.
    If you spit--I believe it was an ICE officer. Someone spit on
    him. We charged them federally. We will charge you if you spit
    on a law enforcement officer. If you loot, under the Hobbs Act,
    that is a robbery, and we will charge you with robbery. We are
    going after the maximum penalty federally for anyone who
    touches a Federal agent, and we are also going to protect our
    State and local law enforcement agencies and officers.
        The men and women every day around this country, whether it
    is a blue or red or purple State, are out there fighting crime.
    That is what they care about. They care about keeping every
    single one of us safe. That is what they are doing. They care
    about preventing drug abuse and drug overdoses throughout this
    country, and they jeopardize their lives every single day to
    keep us safe, and we are going to do everything in our power to
    fight for them.
        Mr. Cline. Do you think that these sanctuary
    jurisdictions--these cities or States should be receiving law
    enforcement grants if they refuse to uphold the law?
        Attorney General Bondi. That is pending litigation,
    Congressman, and I can't discuss that right now.
        Mr. Cline. I think the answer should be no, but I will
    leave that to the judges and to this committee to decide. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Rogers. The time of the gentleman has expired.
        Ms. Dean.
        Ms. Dean. Thank you, Chairman.
        Thank you, Ranking Member.
        Thank you and welcome, Attorney General Bondi. I just
    wonder--sincerely wonder--do you hear how hollow your last
    words sound in light of the pardon of all of the January 6
    people day one of this administration? I believe you are
    sincere. You want to protect law enforcement. But your
    principal, the President, pardoned every single one on January
    6.
        It rings hollow when you say these words that if you spit
    on a police officer, we are going to go after you. Talk to my
    friends who are Capitol Police officers who were here, five of
    whom are no longer here. They are dead. And this
    administration--and I guess I want to ask you. Did you have any
    advice for the President when he came forward with the blanket
    pardon on January 20? What advice did you offer the President?
        Attorney General Bondi. I am never going to talk about
    conversations, advice in any way----
        Ms. Dean. Were you asked for advice?
        Attorney General Bondi. I am never going to talk about
    discussions I have had or have not had----
        Ms. Dean. Because you will remember----
        Attorney General Bondi [continuing]. If I can answer--with
    the President of the United States.
        Ms. Dean. Yes or no. Did you give him any advice? Yes or
    no.
        Attorney General Bondi. I am not going to discuss any
    conversations----
        Ms. Dean. That is a no.
        Attorney General Bondi [continuing]. That I have had with--
    you just put words in my mouth. I am not going to discuss----
        Ms. Dean. No, I am going to reveal your own words.
        Attorney General Bondi. I am not going to discuss
    conversations----
        Ms. Dean. Please stop. Please stop. This is my time.
        Attorney General Bondi [continuing]. That I have had with
    the President of the United States. You asked me a question----
        Ms. Dean. Attorney General.
        I would like to reclaim the last 20 seconds.
        Attorney General Bondi [continuing]. And you have asked me
    to answer.
        Ms. Dean. I have asked to reclaim my time. Please put 20
    seconds back on the clock.
        Mr. Clyde. You can have an extra 30.
        Mr. Rogers. If the gentle----
        Ms. Dean. She answered and then answered it again and
    answered it again with a nonanswer.
        Ms. DeLauro. It is a filibuster.
        Ms. Dean. I ask for your consideration of putting time on.
        Mr. Rogers. If the gentlelady will let the witness answer
    the question, we will resume.
        Ms. Dean. She answered it by saying no. Okay.
        The three hallmarks of this administration are
    incompetence, corruption, and cruelty. I am going to focus
    today on corruption. And, in my mind, there are two types of
    corruption: personal, and then the other I am going to call
    public, governmental.
        Attorney General, have you ever been registered as an agent
    of a foreign principal under the Foreign Agents Registration
    Act?
        Attorney General Bondi. I assume you are talking about when
    I represented the country of Qatar for a very short time----
        Ms. Dean. The answer is yes.
        Attorney General Bondi [continuing]. Hold on. Hold on. No.
    For anti-human trafficking for the World Cup. Anti-human
    trafficking for the World Cup.
        Ms. Dean. Yes or no. Attorney General----
        Attorney General Bondi. You can't put words in my mouth. If
    you want to talk about incompetence, you are the one that said
    Joe Biden on PBS was competent. You had to retract those words.
    So don't talk to me--don't insult me publicly.
        Ms. Dean. This is so discourteous. This is so outside the
    committee's guidelines. Taking a personal shot at me while
    swiping at Biden? Very strange and very unprofessional of you.
        The answer is yes or no, and the answer is yes. You were
    registered as a lobbyist for Qatar. Is that correct? Yes. Never
    mind. Don't answer.
        Did you disclose that when you went before the Senate for
    confirmation? Yes or no? No, it was not in your documents. The
    answer is no.
        President Trump----
        Attorney General Bondi. This was discussed at my
    confirmation hearings in detail.
        Ms. Dean. Well, it was discussed, but you failed to bring
    up the conflicts that you had.
        President Trump recently announced he would accept that
    $400-million Qatar airplane because it was just prettier than
    the one he was flying around in. Is it true that you gave
    advice that this was legally permissible? Yes or no?
        Attorney General Bondi. I will not discuss any advice that
    my Office of Legal Counsel gives to the President of the United
    States on any matter.
        Ms. Dean. When you spoke before the Senate, you said you
    would ask for ethical advice. Did you recuse yourself from that
    issue?
        Attorney General Bondi. And talking about unprofessional,
    you say the President wanted a jet because it is pretty? Come
    on. This is a Senate--this is a congressional hearing.
        Ms. Dean. He said it himself. He said it himself.
        Let me go to April the 2nd. You are a part of this--you
    know, the President has dabbled in memecoin. He had you, the
    DOJ, disband the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. His
    son recently launched the Executive Branch Club, a private club
    with $500,000 memberships here in D.C.
        Any of this seem like it might be a problem--might be
    profiteering from the office and maybe you and your ethics team
    might be concerned about these conflicts of interest, your own
    and the President and his family? Yes or no? Any concerns?
        Attorney General Bondi. What I would be concerned about in
    Pennsylvania are all the child sex cases that we have
    prosecuted, and all the CSAM cases that we have prosecuted in
    Pennsylvania.
        Ms. Dean. Did you hear my question?
        Attorney General Bondi. That is what I would be concerned
    about.
        Ms. Dean. I ask the witness to actually answer questions
    that are asked----
        Attorney General Bondi. Congresswoman Dean----
        Ms. Dean [continuing]. Chairman.
        Mr. Rogers. Please let the witness answer the question.
        Ms. Dean. She didn't.
        And I would like to ask you one more question. You are not
    just complicit in this. You are actively helping and profiting.
        Isn't it true that on April the 2nd, the same day that
    Trump announced his chaotic tariff regime that plummeted the
    stock market, you sold more than $1 million worth of your
    shares in Trump Media stock? Trump Media stock fell 13 percent
    in the following days. It seems you avoided that loss. Well
    done.
        I yield back.
        Attorney General Bondi. May I answer that, Chairman?
        I complied with my ethics. And yeah, I would take a class
    in financial literacy if you think I profited from that because
    I lost a tremendous amount of money, Congresswoman.
        And, also, on page 25 of my S.J. 2, it lists my involvement
    with Qatar for anti-human trafficking for the World Cup. Thank
    you.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Moore.
        Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
    holding the hearing.
        Thank you, Attorney General Bondi, for being here.
        You just mentioned this previously and--obviously, as you
    are aware about the recently uncovered information about the
    FBI's egregious, politically motivated, anti-Catholic field
    memo which was disseminated to more than 1,000 employees. The
    Biden Administration claimed that this memo only was circulated
    at the Richmond Field Office. It is now clear that this memo
    went much beyond just that one field office.
        This was a memo that suggested that Catholics, based on
    their theological beliefs and practices, were radical and that
    their traditional parishes were vectors for extremism. The FBI
    went so far as to infiltrate and spy on Sunday masses.
        So Attorney General Bondi, I am grateful for your efforts
    to combat anti-Christian bias, including the task force you
    recently stood up. It is clear from both the original leaked
    memo and the additional documentation that has been released
    that extremist Southern Poverty Law Center was the basis for
    this anti-Catholic bigotry coming from the FBI.
        Will you commit to not use the Southern Poverty Law Center
    to determine who is a hate group?
        Attorney General Bondi. Committed to working with you on
    that, Congressman. And thank you for bringing that up about--
    yeah, that was--that was horrible, what happened to Catholics,
    in that memo. It didn't just happen to Catholics, of course. It
    happened to parents at school boards. It happened to people who
    were peacefully protesting at abortion clinics. That is the end
    of weaponization under the Trump administration.
        Mr. Moore. Thank you for that, Attorney General Bondi.
        What additional resources can this committee provide to
    further execute your efforts to eradicate anti-Christian bias
    in the Federal Government?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. We are committed to working
    with you. Our Civil Rights Division led by Harmeet Dhillon is
    doing an incredible job working on those issues and many more.
    Our Civil Rights Division--I met with her this morning. I talk
    to them almost daily. And they are working to protect people of
    all religions.
        And, you know, especially now--I am actually surprised that
    hasn't come up yet this morning--but in light of everything
    happening with Israel, all of the anti-Semitic things that have
    been happening around our country. I went to the crime scene
    here in D.C. of two young people who were leaving a Jewish
    museum and were gunned down simply because of their religion.
    It was horrific. It was horrific. And then in Boulder,
    Colorado, when a Holocaust survivor was firebombed--lit on fire
    because she was Jewish.
        And so, it is not only Catholics. It is every religion and
    even mosques that were slow-walked under the Biden
    Administration and not allowed to open. We will protect every
    religion in this country.
        Mr. Moore. Thank you for your commitment to that, and I
    truly appreciate, and I think everybody of faith in the United
    States appreciates that.
        And I just want to switch gears real quick to just another
    topic. In 2022, the D.C. Metropolitan Police recovered the
    remains of five unborn children apparently from a D.C. abortion
    mill which appeared to be the victims--these five remains that
    were found--victims of a brutal partial-birth abortion. As you
    know, Congress passed a bipartisan law outlawing this gruesome
    practice in the early 2000s.
        Public reporting suggests that the President--President
    Biden's DOJ directed the D.C. chief medical examiner to destroy
    the remains of the children without performing an autopsy,
    which the CME appears not to have done yet.
        General Bondi, will you commit to working with me and this
    committee to conduct a full and fair investigation into the
    deaths of these children to ensure justice is served for the
    D.C. Five?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. And, Congressman, that is an
    ongoing investigation and pending; so I cannot discuss that in
    this forum.
        But, on a collateral matter, the woman who retrieved those
    five fetuses was convicted and she was pardoned by President
    Trump. And they were--basically, unborn babies is what is
    alleged in the--but I can't discuss it any further.
        Mr. Moore. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you, Attorney General Bondi. I yield back.
        Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mrvan.
        Mr. Mrvan. Thank you, Chairman.
        Thank you, Ranking Member.
        Attorney General, thank you for joining us today.
        Our law enforcement officers, first responders, and local
    safety agencies are the backbone of our communities. In
    northwest Indiana, I have worked hard to bring critical Federal
    grant dollars home, funds that directly support the brave men
    and women who protect us every day. Unfortunately, funding for
    2025 has been rescinded, weakening our public safety framework
    and making our neighborhoods less safe.
        I firsthand have a positive impact in securing dollars and
    investments for Gary, Indiana, East Chicago, Lake County, and
    Michigan City that were force multipliers that were technology
    such as license plate readers and COPS grant. I am asking you
    today, what can we do to ensure that those funds are going to
    continue to flow to my district and in light of the HIDTA?
        I am in northwest Indiana. Gary, Indiana. We are a HIDTA
    district. We have the Chicago traffic. That is vitally
    important to my district. I just need commitments that that
    funding will continue to be going forward and that our agencies
    will have that support.
        Attorney General Bondi. Congressman, thank you for bringing
    that up. I am well aware of the HIDTA. I believe that is in
    Merrillville. Is that correct?
        Mr. Mrvan. You are correct.
        Attorney General Bondi. And, yes, that funding will remain
    where it is. We do not intend on touching that funding. We want
    to protect HIDTA.
        Mr. Mrvan. Very good.
        So, in light of the escalation with Iran, part of our
    cybersecurity and our infrastructure when it comes to our
    electric grid, our banking systems--that is a new threat. Does
    this budget reflect increasing our cybersecurity protections,
    and how is the Department of Justice going to protect our
    infrastructure when it comes to bad actors such as Iran coming
    directly at our infrastructure in a cyber attack?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. We have $50 million for
    cybersecurity. And also, in the One Big Beautiful----
        Mr. Mrvan. With an M? 50 million?
        Attorney General Bondi. Fifty million. Yeah.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay.
        Attorney General Bondi. But, also, in the One Big Beautiful
    Bill, it is also addressed to give us more resources. And, you
    know, it is not only Iran. As you well know, it is China as
    well.
        Mr. Mrvan. Right.
        Attorney General Bondi. But yes, I wholeheartedly agree
    with you, Congressman.
        Mr. Mrvan. In the reconciliation--tomato, tomato.
        In the reconciliation bill, can you tell me what more
    resources are going to go towards cybersecurity? Because I was
    under the impression that was decreased.
        Attorney General Bondi. Can I get you--I will get you those
    numbers.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. Yes.
        Attorney General Bondi. And I want to do everything I can
    to help you protect cybersecurity--all of us in this country--
    not only, again, with Iran but also with China and all of our
    foreign adversaries around the world.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. And then just a question of curiosity that
    I have. Director Patel was here a couple weeks ago, and we
    talked about the emails that went to the FBI agents, meaning
    please tell us what you did at the end of the week. Give us
    five reasons why you did.
        At first, Director Patel said that that didn't exist. Then
    he specifically said, Well, that came from the Department of
    Justice to the FBI agents and I--his words--I told them not to
    fulfill that obligation.
        How do you manage that if you give a directive to your
    director of FBI and he chooses not to fulfill that, and where
    did that information go? So, when someone from the FBI--an
    agent fulfilled that obligation of giving you the information
    of what they were working on, where did that data go and how is
    it secured?
        Attorney General Bondi. Yeah. And, Congressman, I would be
    happy to see who answered that, but I have asked--I asked--when
    I learned about it, I asked that it be withdrawn, and it was--
    that email.
        Mr. Mrvan. When you learned about the email going to the
    FBI agents, you asked them to withdraw it. Who did you ask to
    have it withdrawn?
        Attorney General Bondi. My entire office, and it was.
        Mr. Mrvan. So it is unknown who sent that email?
        Attorney General Bondi. Well, the office--it came from my
    office. But, when I learned it went to the FBI, we asked that
    it be withdrawn.
        Mr. Mrvan. Where is the gap of my understanding if it came
    from your office? You are telling me you didn't send it?
        Attorney General Bondi. I didn't realize it went to the
    FBI. That email went out. And the purpose of that email was to
    make sure--just so you know, it wasn't--it was to make sure
    that these people were sitting at their desk and working and
    alive, that there were people actually responding.
        Mr. Mrvan. Okay. And I agree.
        Attorney General Bondi. It could have been I got up and got
    a cup of coffee. That was the purpose.
        Mr. Mrvan. Sure. So, without going into that, the people
    that did answer it, where did that data go?
        Attorney General Bondi. I will find out, and I will get you
    that information.
        Mr. Mrvan. And I only ask as a national security issue----
        Attorney General Bondi. Absolutely.
        Mr. Mrvan [continuing]. As they are working on sensitive
    issues.
        And I thank you for joining us, and I yield back my time.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers. The gentleman yields back.
        That concludes today's hearing. I want to thank our
    witness, Attorney General Bondi, for being here today. We would
    normally like to do another round of questions, but we don't
    have time.
        Ms. DeLauro. Yes, we do.
        Mr. Rogers. The gentlelady, the Attorney General, has a
    meeting scheduled, I think, at 4:00.
        Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers. So we will not be able to do a second round
    because of that.
        Ms. DeLauro. Great to answer the question.
        Mr. Rogers. So, without objection, members may have 7 days
    to submit additional questions for the record. The subcommittee
    stands adjourned.
         [Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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                               W I T N E S S E S

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    Lutnick, Hon. Howard.............................................     4
        Prepared statement...........................................     6
    Bondi, Hon. Pamela...............................................   100
        Prepared statement...........................................   102

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