i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until noon tod >> watch live coverage of the house on c-span when members return. in about an hour. we continue our live coverage now take you to a hearing under way on the president's 2025 budget request for the commerce department. secretary raimondo testifying.

chief justice roberts: it's more doable if you can identify what are the poke points and foe $$. secretary raimondo: i will tell you we have controlled almost 700 types of dual use items to russia to the questions before. and we are constantly adding -- i think we have added almost 100 chinese entities to the entity list because they are trying to aid and abet russia going around our export controls. so this really is hand-to-hand

combat every day. we got to get up and go at it every day and the resources i'm asking for will help us do a better job. >> i yield back. >> mr. cline. mr. cline: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, madam secretary for being here. i want to talk about bidol which allows federal contractors to take ownership of patents on inventions created with federal funding. the federal government has the power to march in and grant compulsory licenses to third parties in some circumstances. on it's 8 last year, nist issued a draft framework to provide guidance to federal agencies on what to assess when considering whether to exercise the authority, explicitly included price as a factor for the first time since the act was passed in 1980 with strong bipartisan support. the authors have stated that the law makes no reference to reasonable price that should be dictated by the government and this omission was intentional. aren't you concerned the administration's proposal to consider price as a factor for exercising marching rights will

send us back to a time when government funded research just sat on the shelf not benefiting anyone? secretary raimondo: let me say this, we stand strongly on the side of i.p. protection. and the document to which you are referring is nonbinding. it is interagency memo for guidance. which is just that. all of this is a balancing test. the president has rightly focused excessively -- extremely on bringing down the cost of pharmaceuticals and bringing down the cost of medicine and drugs successfully. but i don't want you -- i don't want to give you any impression we stand strongly on the side of i.p. protection. mr. cline: thank you. let me stay with i.p. over the past decade standards essential patents, s.p.e.'s have become a focal point of catastrophe. the european courts, germany,

frequently issue injunctions against companies for common industry standards such as wi-fi which do not align factors in the united states. these injunctions compel companies to agree to excessively high royalty fees. the recent establishment of the unified patent court in europe poses an increased risk as its injunction also have broader implications across multiple countries in europe. given the signature impact of -- significant impact of this, can you explain the administration's stance on the proposed regulation concerning essential patents and how it plans to stand up for u.s. companies in the face of challenges posed by entities like huawei and others. secretary raimondo: what i can tell you is we just had kathy, who runs the paptent office, in china, focused on many of these issues. she was recently in europe. i have to get back to you with a proper answer. i will do it and maybe you and kathy and i can have a phone call and go into the details.

mr. cline: that would be great. as the president's principal advisor on spectrum issues, ntia play as role in continuing the technologies of the future advance. u.s. telecommunications industries, employing 5-g technologies, forced to falling behind china, do you agree the united states must restore the s.e.c.'s auction authority and identify and spectrum that can support it. secretary raimondo: i do. here's what i think. i think certainly we need to restore their auction authority. i think this is a balance which is to say we support an ntaa studying the spectrum, seeing what could be made available. and looking at maybe spectrum sharing. we can't -- d.o.d. needs what it needs to do its mission. a lot of the spectrum is really important. i strongly support figuring out how we can find some spectrum to

advance commercial innovation without ever impairing their mission. i think it's possible. by the way, here's what i also think. we can't think of national security so narrowly. i said this before. national security isn't just tanks, missiles, satellites, etc. it's also our ability to outseat huawei, our ability to out compete china. if you look at the amount of mid band spectrum available in china versus here for commercial sector, we got a lot of catching up to do. i think it's complicated and i don't want my comments to be interpreted as saying go take from the d.o.d. whatever we need. but i do think it's a discussion we have to have. and we absolutely need their auction authority re-authorized. mr. cline: thank you. ntiaa has approved only four states bead plans so far. you testified repeatedly,

underlying the statute prohibits them from broadband rates. you are not price setting. i'm hearing approval of the plan by my state virginia has been held up because it declined to do just that. set prices at their request. it's been five months since they approved louisiana's plan which was submitted at the same time as virginia's. and virginia still has not been approved. there are no remaining outstanding issues i understand with virginia's plan under the rightful acknowledgement that neither ntiaa nor the state has the right to set prices. can you commit to approving a state plan that provides the law and approving virginia's plan? secretary raimondo: can i not commit to the last one. i'll commit to the first one. let me say this. these are super complicated. there will be more next week and more the following week. we are getting our fly wheel going. i will look in on virginia when i go back this afternoon. what i can promise you we aren't rate regulating. we are not telling any state, including yours, if you don't

provide it at x dollars we are not going to give you the money. the statute requires us to have low-cost options. we are obviously pushing states to make sure they are providing low-cost options. i will tell everyone here that by the end of this year, by the fall, i'm pushing the team to have all these plans approved. i meet with them every week to say where are you and how to go faster, and i'll look in on your plan. mr. cline: thank you. yield back. >> ms. meng. ms. meng: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, secretary raimondo, for your tremendous work and being here today. i wanted to go back to the citizenship question that was mentioned earlier. as you know well and you alluded to, the 14th amendment of the u.s. constitution states that representatives shall be apportioned among the several

states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state. i know that you and the public servants who lead the census bureau take this mandate from the constitution seriously. is there any agency in the federal government that keeps track of noncitizens? secretary raimondo: you have stump me. ms. meng: i assume -- secretary raimondo: not certainly in my permit -- remit, no. ms. meng: why is the practice of counting every person living in each state needed to produce an accurate and full census? secretary raimondo: because as you well know, and every governor knows, i know this from being governor, the census is just about getting information. how much housing is required in a particular state. how much -- how many people are going to be in the schools. that's why i bristle at any

political interference frankly from either side as it relates to the census. it's like just the facts, ma'am. we have experts collect, as you say, follow the constitution, every person. under counting, under counting is a problem because it's an inaccurate picture of what's going on in every state and what kind of safety services are needed. what kind of educational services are needed. if people are afraid, if people are afraid because of their immigration status to talk to the census counter, we are not going to get an accurate number, that inaccuracy prevents us from doing the best job we can at running government at the state level and federal level. ms. meng: if we were to violate what the constitution has charged the census bureau to do, would that potentially affect the amount of federal funding

that a state could receive? secretary raimondo: absolutely, yes. ms. meng: thank you. i wanted to also thank you for your department's recent action on regulating licenses for firearms experts. i know that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are extremely concerned as we are about the threats posed by transnational criminal networks and adversarial governments. i must say that i'm confused by their opposition to their proposed change. i want to ask if this rule will keep american guns out of the hands of drug trafgers? secretary raimondo: we hope it will. that's its intention. that's how we are going to enforce t i'll say i was recently in costa rica, a region of great instability. the president there was -- their democracy, they are trying to develop their economy. that's good for the united states to have an ally with a

thraoeufrpbg democracy in the region. contrast that with ecuador. we are doing this, not for political reasons, but for our own foreign policy. it's not in our interests for drug traffickers, terrorists, murderers, people interested in fomenting instability and destroying democracy to have guns. ms. meng: will this rule decrease the number of american guns in the hands of foreign terrorists and transnational criminal organizations? secretary raimondo: yes. we believe that it will. ms. meng: will this rule make our world and our country safer? secretary raimondo: yes. we believe it will. ms. meng: finally, how will the funding -- funding that the department of commerce has requested for fiscal year 2025 enable the bureau of industry and security to continue its work of protecting our national security, especially as it relates to gun violence? secretary raimondo: we are asking for additional funds for

more analysts, more technologists, more data sets, more technology, and more enforcement agents. we can have the best policy in the world, but if we don't have enough people to enforce it, we are not going to be effective. ms. meng: thank you. i yield back. >> mr. garcia. mr. garcia: thank you, mr. chairman. on the census conversation i agree everyone should be counted for the purposes of infrastructure and public safety. but not for the purposes of representation either at the state level assemblies or in the house of representatives. which is currently -- to does wag the dog in terms of representation. that's the point what we are trying to do. madam secretary, you and i share the aspirations of reciprocal trade agreements with china. i agree we can't cut off all

trade with china, but imparting on them the same terms and conditions of contracts and share ratios, access to intellectual property that they put on us when we do business in their country i think is important when they do business in our country. we'd love to keep those conversations going offline if we can and figure out how we can help in you that regard. that's a broader conversation. the former program director and me can't help but look at chips act as a very massive program that should have program management reviews on a regular basis. this is probably one of the forms where we -- forums we get to do that. i'm going to ask you questions. there are indexes, s.p.i. and c.p.i. schedule performance index, cost performance index. the original budget of chips was roughly $280 billion. now we are approaching about the two-year anniversary of the passage of chips. we didn't really have an

objective end state goal in terms of dates, but we all understand that 2027 is an important calendar line in the sand relative to the highest risk potential of china invading taiwan. with those numbers and that paradigm, how are we doing from a program management perspective? are you on schedule? are you on cost? and before you answer i want to overlay the feedback that i'm getting from folks in silicon valley, also smaller mom and pop shops in southern california and throughout the country. they feel like they are being overregulated. they feel like we are overlying other requirements and specs that have nothing to do with the technology. that have nothing to do with the performance or construction of facilities. there are actual d.e.i. metrics being imparted on these

contracts and tracked as conditions of awards. nepa issues and environmental quality issues that continue to just get worse and deeper. there are some companies having to go back and show baselines to davis-bacon policies they would not have otherwise have had to do with construction that would not have been done by outside union labor organizations. you are push ago lot of small -- pushing a lot of smaller companies away with these regulatory requirements from participating. this is exactly what we were afraid of happening. you and i, i appreciate all the time you spent in the skeuf -- sciff with me, i'd like to take that conversation offline and follow up. talk about the health of the program in terms of metrics. are we on schedule, on cost? how do we go faster? these barriers to speed are

real. how can the contracting officers' value speed as much as they value other things maybe such as d.e.i. or some of these labor policy requirements being enforced? secretary raimondo: thank you. first we'll rick on reciprocal trade. one of the things we did recently was through b.i.s. was around connected vehicles. you can't drive your tesla to the airport in beijing. you can't. you can't drive an american made connected vehicle around certain areas in china. so what's fair is fair. what we are saying is we are concerned about chinese connected vehicles on the roads in the united states not for tariff and such, economic disparities, but data. think of all the data. mr. garcia: electric buses driven around plant 42 driven by a chinese company would be a

problem which is what we have in our district. secretary raimondo: collecting data on the driver, what they say, where they go, their driving patterns. just a second to let you know i am trying to move out on some of these reciprocity ideas we have been discussing to protect americans. mr. garcia: thank you. secretary raimondo: on chips, here's what i'll say i'll try in 30 seconds. i think we are on path. that's the bottom line. you say we are approaching the two-year anniversary. i have six months before the two-year anniversary. that's a lot of wood to chop between now and then. we have put out -- i started with nothing. i now have 200 people. amazingly talented people. we would welcome you to come meet them any time. we have put out i think $29 billion. we have been on a roll recently. i know people were frustrated until the beginning of this year. the last three months we have done i think seven or eight big

deals putting out nearly $30 billion. all to the leading edge providers. the conversation we had earlier, tsmc has committed to build three fabs, including nanometer fabs in the united states. samsung is included. leading edge, plus research and development, plus packaging. my kron would be at scale -- micron would be at scale. i now i have to go fast. it's more important i get it right. the metric i look at is will we be making 20% of the world's leading edge chips in the united states by 2030? and i say yes. i think we can. with respect to the smaller companies it's a challenge, but we are trying. we have just put out an application for smaller companies to apply. i can get you that information. get the word out to your constituents. it's harder for little companies to interact with government. we have a specific application.

we are going to do another one, a $50 million research and development that only small companies can apply to. with respect to nepa, look, it's tough. i have a whole team that is helping companies work through the nepa issues. we are getting there, but it's a challenge. davis-bacon's in the law. davis-bacon is in the statute. we will comply. we are complying. i don't think -- every condition we are putting in there, some related to workforce, some related to childcare, some related to d.e.i., i can honestly tell you, congressman, it's designed to make sure these projects are successful. they need to find workers. if you say what's the biggest risk, it's lack of workers. we are pushing these companies to broaden the way they think about workforce, the way they train workforce so they can have the talent they need on the timeline that they need it. this is a big discussion.

i'd be very happy to follow up. mr. garcia: i yield back. >> that concludes the first round of questions for the witness. there is a request for additional questions. we'll do a second round. mr. rogers: i ask unanimous consent of all members that we limit remarks to three minutes. to allow the witness to meet an obligation at noon that she has. madam secretary, we will get you out of here in due course. i recognize myself for three minutes. talk about space business, space commerce, rapidly growing thousands of new small and medium-sized satellites being deployed to low-earth orbit

yearly. this office has been designated as the organization for tracking and managing those assets. small satellites. there are thousands of them. what will the space commerce unit at the department of commerce do to count these satellites? secretary raimondo: there are so many, as you have said, so we are developing a space situational awareness and traffic coordination program. i think of it as like air traffic control for space. by received $65 million last year to develop this. we are requesting another $75 million in this budget to continue that. it's on track. it is on track. we have an excellent person running the office of space commerce. and that's our primary focus

right now is developing this tracking system. so we can have an awareness where all of this space satellite activity is. chair rogers: space commerce has been given the mandate to begin to track those assets existing and new ones to be sure they don't prevent the deployment of new systems. low-earth orbit and perhaps more importantly that they do not inhibit civil and other space satellite deployment as well as rocket launches for various nasa missions. tell us how this is going to happen? this is a big task. secretary raimondo: it is a big task. i think -- space commerce is a

burgeoning industry and it's critical the u.s. leads. in the civilian space areas. commerce space. so fundamentally what we have to do is make sure the u.s. leads in that area. developing this space situational awareness system, which we are doing and the space traffic coordination system enables us to do that by -- if you keep track of everything it reduces collisions. it reduces problems and creates safety. quite frankly it's an incentive for investors to invest in u.s. commercial space industry if we have this space trafficking system effective. chair rogers: one complicating factor is we are going to de-orbit the international space station in 2030.

and many of the commercial providers now on that station will be looking for a new home in lower-earth orbit which complicates it even more. is that right or wrong? secretary raimondo: that's right. it's balance. we have to balance these interests. chair rogers: thank you. mr. cartwright. mr. cartwright: thank you, mr. chairman. secretary raimondo, i want to talk about the united states economic development administration which is housed in the department of commerce. e.d.a. has an important role in spurring job creation and economic diversification in communities that have suffered decline and stagnation as the industrial economy rapidly evolves. that's true in my district. you know that in northeastern pennsylvania our economy has been bumping along since the decline of coal mining, since

nafta, which bestowed benefits and burdens across our nation. but unevenly. we suffered a lot of manufacturing loss in northeastern pennsylvania because of nafta. and legislative efforts since then have not fixed that problem. e.d.a. is one of the solutions. i'd like to hear -- thank you for visiting pitston -- pittston. you know the mayor has done amazing things to bring back that small city. we want to do more. i'd like to hear broadly what key economic development needs are you hearing most often as you go around the country visiting places like pittston? secretary raimondo: i had fun going. i enjoyed the visit. what i hear, and it's across all of your states, it's coal

affected communities, nafta affected communities, where i'm from in rhode island we -- jewelry manufacturing capital of the country, all withered away. what i hear is a need for u.s. manufacturing. there's something special about manufacturing jobs. they are high paying. they don't require a college degree. a job for everyone in the facility. people say why can't we make more in america? that's why it's so exciting for me when i'm out in arizona where i recently was with tsmc and intel it's amazing. tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs are brought about by the chips act. i hear the constant need for retraining which is why i created good jobs challenge when i became secretary. people want to work. put yourself in the shoes of a 42-year-old woman who has been a retail clerk her whole career. or a waitress and got put out of work in covid. she can't retire. she wants to work.

but she needs skills. she needs digital skills or a.i. skills or something. a desperate need for retraining. a desperate need to invest in infrastructure that will attract companies. you see that in pittston or wherever. sometimes you might have a vacant mine or manufacturing facility. they have to be resus stated -- resuscitated to new uses, that takes money. e.d.a. spends money on all of that. we are investing in infrastructure, job training. the recompete program. recompete is about helping the most distressed communities. those are the ones that are the hardest and take a lot of investment, but it's worth it. mr. cartwright: i yield back. chair rogers: mr. cline. mr. cline: thank you.

madam secretary, i'm concerned are the department's handling of a long-standing issue over imports of vietnamese plywood into the united states. two companies with operations in my district have been assessed, counter vailing duties over imported vietnamese plywood in 2021, 2022 even though the department previously assured importers that plywood imports with a vietnamese core would not be subject to such duties. retroactive decision in 2023 has had negative impacts on u.s. companies which imported this product. moreover these companies independently audited proved the plywood originated in vietnam and not china which was the target. the department refuses to consider such proofs and merely relies on the failure of vietnamese exporters to satisfactorily respond to commerce questionnaires. thish is where did the product come from? this matter is current administrative review with a

decision by july 30. i would ask you to hopefully accept and consider the independent audits to resolve this matter. if you have any response. secretary raimondo: a couple things. this is a quasi-judicial process which i can't interfere. the concern which we see a ton of is, it is china dumps into vietnam. vietnam into the united states. it's an end run around our anti-dumping regulations. it's appropriate for me to look at it and certainly have my staff reach out to you. we are not -- we don't want to hurt your local company. we do want to hurt china trying to get around our rules. mr. cline: completely agree. ask for a fair evaluation of the evidence being -- secretary raimondo: i will do it. mr. cline: with regard to counterfeit chinese vapes, in the december 2023 press release announcing f.d.a. and c.b.p.'s

joint seizure of illegal e-cigarettes with a retail value of $18 million. some were intentionally misdeclared with various items as toys and shoes. if shipping containers full of ill kneel e-cigarettes products from china either as to the contory of origin to avoid the 20% china tariff and product category to avoid that tariff, this would represent criminal violations of custom laws on an industrial scale. it would also amount to massive fraud on the u.s. treasury in terms of lost tariff revenues. i am assuming you are aware how big this problem s what steps have you taken to recover those lost revenues? secretary raimondo: it's detail. i can get back to you. these mostly a c.b.p. issue. we work closely with c.b.p. we furnish them the data we need and cooperate with them. but this is what you are talking

about is primarily their remit. mr. cline: i yield back. chair rogers: ms. delauro. ms. delauro: thank you. with regard to dumping i think closing the loophole is something that ought to be considered as well. that's within the ustr. with regard to that talking about unfair trade practices, what role does the department have in confronting chinese's manufacturing dominance through trade policy? working with ustr to address trade issues that have concern with allies, partners, adversaries what is -- how if at all is the department working with ustr? secretary raimondo: we work hand in glove with them on so many issues. i want to say i'm very concerned about this. it's no secret that china's

economy is growing slower than it has and that they have wanted it to. it's also no secret that their strategy is wra*pbg crank up production. they now represent about 30% of the world's manufacturing output. they could decide to go to 60% to keep chinese people working, which would be disastrous for the global economy. i worry greatly, congresswoman, about the possibility that they do that and dump their cheap products whether it's electric vehicles, legacy semiconductor chips, critical minerals. the list is long if they crank out production and dump it on the world market. we are working very closely with ustr to try to identify where are we most vulnerable and what actions could we take? one thing specifically that we have done at commerce, we just used the defense production act to do a mandatory survey about

legacy semiconductor chips proud in china. we are trying to find out where are these legacy chinese chips in the supply chains and do we see any evidence of china dropping the price which would distort the market and make it impossible for u.s. championship companies to compete. i'm laser focused on that area in particular. ms. delauro: emerging markets as well. exporting it, manufacturing, and technical standards for emerging markets and certain technology efforts as you pointed out. information, communications, advanced manufacturing. and obviously you are aware of the challenge and take it from your comments that other department is preparing and designing what structures you need. again what resources you may need to be able to counter. secretary raimondo: that's right. ms. delauro: the $4 million for

global markets, the i.t.a. requests that. which markets do they see strategy for this purpose? secretary raimondo: africa. i was just in kenya. extremely important. china's all over africa. we have to show up. certain areas of southeast asia. ms. delauro: i yield back. chair rogers: mr. clyde. mr. clyde: thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, do you think the number of illegal aliens that were counted in the 2020 census had an impact on the apportionment of the house of representatives that we have today? secretary raimondo: i don't think so. but i don't have a great answer for you. mr. clyde: ok. can you get me a great answer? secretary raimondo: what do you think? mr. clyde: i think it did. it really did. we are looking at over 20

million illegals in this country. then i think that it would have a significant impact. secretary raimondo: my job, though, isn't -- mr. clyde: you mentioned that the census is counting the whole number of persons in each state. i agree with you. it's what the 14th amendment says. it also says in section 2 of the 14th amendment when it talks about representatives in congress it says the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the portion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens, 21 years of age in such state. now, i know, the 19th amendment added both male and fee. the 26th amendment lowered the age to 18. the 14th amendment still says male citizens is the basis -- excuse me citizenship is the basis of representation. i'm grateful to take a clarifying action this week to prevent the marginalizing of citizens voting by finally

requiring a citizenship question on the decennial census. by modifying the house of representatives apportionment to be based only on united states citizens. i look forward to voting for h.r. 7109, the equal representation act which i'm a proud original co-sponsor. can you tell me a little bit about the census bureau's annual business survey? what is the cost of that annual business survey? why did it go from five-year in 2017 to one year? secretary raimondo: i could probably get you the cost. i'll have to get back to you on the exact cost. i do want to say something to your last question. the census' job is to identify persons living in this country. and i know from experience, i lived it, when you start to ask people about their immigration status, they then don't answer the door and won't be counted. it will lead to inaccurate data.

mr. clyde: i appreciate that. i'm going -- moving on to the census bureau's annual business survey. my next question to you is how much money is spent on follow-up with those businesses that do not initially respond to the census' annual business survey? do you have that? secretary raimondo: i don't. but i can get it to you. a great deal of money. we try to get everyone to respond. mr. clyde: how do you determine who you ask? secretary raimondo: you have to -- you have to ask the scientists. to be clear, i don't interfere with any of this. this is statisticians figure out what's likely to lead to the best outcomes. i defer to their judgment. mr. clyde: then i can be assured that you'll get me that information. secretary raimondo: 100%. mr. clyde: thank you very much. i yield back. chair rogers: ms. meng. ms. meng: thank you, mr. chairman. i look forward to voting against the bill that is called the equal representation act but literally does the opposite.

and to pretend that noncitizens do not live in our communities, that's exactly what this bill would do, pretend, will only, as you mentioned, madam secretary, instill fear, force people into the shadows, and take critical federal funding away from every single state, red, blue, purple, rural, urban, suburban. that's not the point of the census to count like this. in 2018 the previous administration repeatedly tried and attempted to add a citizenship question to the census, which i am proud to say that senator who are roano and i and others fought against in congress and subsequently blocked by the supreme court. i wanted to ask a quick question about the minority business development agency which offers many programs and services that

held businesses to grow and be competitive. i represent a diverse district in queens, new york, where many minority-owned businesses are in many ways the backbone of our community. secretary raimondo, how does the fiscal year 2025 budget request show that those who most need the assistance and resources can continue to access them? secretary raimondo: thank you. we have asked for an additional $12 million in mbda to do that. our mission is to help business owners who are economically and socially disadvantaged, including asian americans, members of your district and all of your districts. we are looking to add more offices, more staff, more service official so we can be more available these small businesses. ms. meng: thank you. i yield back.

chair rogers: mr. ellzey. mr. eldzy: thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, people of the sixth district, very rural district, very worried about in many cases the debt of our nation being $34 trillion. a lot of the budget requests we have asked for -- you asked for here are increases and some new agencies particularly the supply chain resiliency, $37 million. off line, not necessarily here, please give me a justification for that and what the office of supply chain resiliency intends to actually do. once a bureaucracy grows it's very hard to dial it back whenever it's not needed. i believe in the market. i'm curious how this will help the market. later on in -- please send me the answer. i want to talk about china again and the threat we are facing from four dictatorsships, iran, china, north korea, and russia.

the chip issue -- it seems like china is controlling all the strings. everything that they do in this country technologically is a military operation from the ccp. and everything they do is a study on the pattern of life. everything's got a transponder in it from the big cranes in the ports to the box cars that dry to dump which we successfully stopped to the technological coming in is a pattern of life study, which is what you do whenever you are going to study how to best attack a nation. we are already in a proxy war in china with them using cartels to kill 200 americans every day as an equalizer for their one child policy which is about to send them into oblivion. can you describe for me what you think the threat is from the elech thereonics -- electronics from china in the united states. secretary raimondo: couple things, i was very pleased to see congress take action on tiktok. that's an example of tiktok

being on the phones of hundreds of millions of -- tens of millions of americans. collecting all that data. that was one thing. secondly, one thing we are doing is looking into electric vehicles, connected vehicles. chinese electric vehicles on our roads at scale. could be collectling massive amounts of -- collecting massive amounts of data on americans. who they are, where they go to, patterns of driving. we have opened an investigation at the commerce department looking at that. also very much looking at cranes. the vast majority of cranes at u.s. ports are chinese. cranes are no longer steel in the air. they are all connected collecting data. i'd say this is -- we are building the capacity of our icts unit at the commerce department and looking very seriously at all of these

connected apps whether they are games, cars, or that collects data on large numbers of individuals. their g.p.s. location. where they are. where they go. their family members. i think that we need to take the threat much more seriously. that's why we are moving on on these things. mr. ellzey: thank you very much. i yield back. chair rogers: mr. ruppersberger. mr. ruppersberger: can you hear me? secretary raimondo: yes. mr. ruppersberger: it was devastating for so many maryland families and businesses, i'm sure you know especially for the port of baltimore. last week my colleagues and i saw in person a terrific effort under way to clean up and replace this bridge. but our state is still feeling many of the ripple effects after the collapse.

secretary, can you describe what your department has done so far to support these maryland-based businesses? what are the department's plans for the future of this program? and how can we make sure maryland's business can make it through this rebuilding process? the maryland port of baltimore is one of the largest ports in the nation in the entire united states relies on it. secretary raimondo: my heart's with you and all those businesses and everyone there. i have talked to your governor on numerous occasions about this. by the way, noaa, the weather service, and our scientist team were on it right away to provide help in the immediate aftermath. mr. ruppersberger: it's one of the best efforts. hopefully it will pull the united states together. republicans and democrats, the benefit of our country. secretary raimondo: yeah. i agree with that. in any event, we are reaching out, the mbda and e.d.a. are reaching out to the businesses in that community, working with

governors office, working with the governor's economic development agency to see what services we provide to those businesses. i think -- i think it's on the books already. i'm going to do an event in baltimore with the governor, with small businesses, i'm going to go myself. just to let them know all the services we have available for small businesses. figure out ways we can help them get back on their feet. mr. ruppersberger: it's going to cost about $2 billion to replace it. it's a very unique place. affects the port of baltimore. thank you for your cooperation and your involvement. secretary raimondo: thank you. mr. rogers: mr. morelle. mr. morelle: thank you, mr. chairman. if i can just talk for a moment about quantum technology. i was at a group meeting with national quantum experts last week, and oned to mention in 2017 the chinese use add

satellite to send entangled particles between space and the ground. since then as i understand it china has construct add 2,000 mile quantum link between beijing and shanghai. obviously quantum technology was communications, computing, etc. is a hugely forward technology that we need to be at the leading edge of. is there value in building, should the united states consider a significant national link between major cities that will allow us to use quantum networking? secretary raimondo: i'm afraid i would have to research that. quantum expert i am not. we could follow up. it is an area -- a couple things. it's definitely frontier technology which is why we are export controlling seriously. it's up on investment screening list. we have asked in the budget for

$68 million which is an increase of $14 million, at nist to hire 41 people to develop new standards and create research partnerships for quantum. we are really leaning in at nist with universities to push forward on the research. whether or not what you say -- mr. morelle: i would love to see if there is value. secretary raimondo: i don't know the people at nist will have an opinion. we should make that happen. mr. morelle: i wanted -- you mentioned earlier a real problem around the chips space which is workforce development. talk to me a little bit about what the department's strategy is to promote workforce development in the space so that we can meet the needs of these businesses that are struggling? secretary raimondo: this is such a huge issue. i was yesterday with the c.e.o. of one of the biggest construction firms in america. he said that they -- attrition

rate on their projects is 50% because they are going to competitors. that they are turning down work because they can't find enough construction workers, and his number one biggest problem is lack of skilled workers. we are doing a number of things. we are asking every semiconductor company before they get our money to show us their workforce plan. we are -- as part of the money, the grant that we are giving to chips companies, a piece of it is for workforce. intel, all these companies are getting tens of millions of dollars just to do workforce. and also we are developing a chips workforce certainty of excellence just -- center of excellence to train people. i think this has to be a moon shot. if we success -- if we fail with this chips effort it's because we haven't taken the workforce stuff seriously enough.

which is why we are -- we have a whole workforce team that reports to me just to work with colleges, universities, labor unions, high schools to train people to go work in the semiconductor industry. mr. morelly: i'll yield back and just comment. you don't have to respond t seems to me for alt toubg about illegal immigration, we have hundreds of thousands of people who would like to come to the united states like my grandparents did to work in the united states, to fill critical jobs that we need to be successful with a low birth rate. maybe if we worked a reasonable thoughtful immigration policy we could meet some of the workforce challenges that all these companies, construction and health care and hoppity and the list goes on and on that we are desperately going to need. thanks for your comments. mr. chairman, i yield back. chair rogers: madam secretary, you have been very generous with your time and your opinions. secretary raimondo: hopefully not too generous in my opinions. chair rogers: we thank you for

giving us this time together. we will look at your budget request in detail as we proceed. thank you for the work you are doing. lots of good things happening. in a difficult world that we all of a sudden realize. thank you for your work. this concludes today's hearing. we want to thank secretary raimondo for being here today with us. without objection, members may have seven days to submit additional questions for the record. the subcommittee stands adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org]

>> the house will be back at noon eastern to debate three bills. one would repeal a securities and exchange commission rule requiring companies holding their customers crypto currency assets to include them on their

balance sheets. members will also consider allowing mining waste to be stored on public lands. and a measure adding a citizenship question to the census. starting in 2030. as always, live coverage of the house on c-span. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more. including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers. and we are just getting started. building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service. along with tse other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. st: welcome back. we are joined by representative john rutherford, republican of