I am so pleased that today we are going to focus on a topic that is so important to my home State of North Dakota.

Thank you so much. And, if I can just make one point, this whole problem, it seems to me, transitions to our broader issue, which is how do we recruit the next generation of Federal workforce.

We are going to continue to beat this drum.

I think it is one of the problems that we have with the Federal Government across the board, which is one-size-fits-all.

I just want to mention something in this context.

I have been fighting to address these challenges that have been faced by the Federal workforce in the Bakken region.

I think to Senator Lankford, Chairman Lankford's point, how do we get more agencies to get ahead of it and then make this a priority as they are looking at the workforce?

So, at your level of managing this are you looking strategically at each one of these border crossing locations' staffing?

The pay system just was not flexible enough to accommodate and remain competitive with the private sector.

The availability, the affordability, and the quality of our food, though often taken for granted, is a linchpin of every American's personal security.

If we find a way to make it easier to do business, companies respond. Investments are made, jobs are created.

When I was in North Dakota, Sen. Hoeven and I discussed how critical affordable, reliable infrastructure is to rural America.

These are not public lands.

I think that is pretty clear. There is something about what we are not communicating in terms of the science that is not getting through.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to both you and the Ranking Member for holding this important hearing today.

We constantly try and deal with the facts that are in front of us instead of looking at this in an historic context.

The data that you are presenting and the information you are presenting is not presented in a way that is accessible to the public.

This is not a new issue. During the 1990s, I served on something called Trade and the Environment Policy Advisory Committee for the USTR where European labeling of genetically engineered foods was starting to surface as an issue in terms…