When I am in the region, when I am sitting with leaders there, they want to deal with the United States of America.

Can you express the urgency for something like this as well as improvements that we could be making in the program?

It is shooting ourselves in the foot in many ways, undermining our ability to compete.

The thing that inspires me the most is when I visit and see the power of U.S. investments.

When I am in the region, when I am sitting with leaders there, they want to deal with the United States of America.

the only way I see us pursuing these reforms is by that type of conversation.

But what I have seen in the testimony was that the actual time for folks on the Privileged Calendar is slower than those who go to committee, and it is slower now than when that reform was passed.

the only way I see us pursuing these reforms is by that type of conversation.

the minority...has an incentive to slow things down, make it difficult, extract promises.

this expanding tension in which warfare is conducted by the minority against the President...is just not serving our democracy well.

I mean, here you have 100 talented people coming together with all their experience in the world, and we just spend an incredibly, tediously slow nomination process instead of putting all those talents to work on legislation to make…

the challenge is a reflection of almost tribal-level warfare between the parties.

But what I have seen in the testimony was that the actual time for folks on the Privileged Calendar is slower than those who go to committee, and it is slower now than when that reform was passed.

the minority...has an incentive to slow things down, make it difficult, extract promises.

this expanding tension in which warfare is conducted by the minority against the President...is just not serving our democracy well.

I mean, here you have 100 talented people coming together with all their experience in the world, and we just spend an incredibly, tediously slow nomination process instead of putting all those talents to work on legislation to make…

the challenge is a reflection of almost tribal-level warfare between the parties.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and certainly one of the reasons there is so much interest in my home state in electrics is because of what is happening right now. We have 121 fires burning in my state. Over one million acres have already burned…