Chris Coons

I urge the Senate to pass this legislation soon.

I will soon be introducing legislation that will help improve U.S. development strategy and promote private sector investment.

I hope will be joining us shortly, and others who may well join us today.

I think we really need a far deeper dialogue on Africa and need to show far more support politically and economically.

I think the United States could have quite a bit of leverage in terms of--even private funds in terms of investing in infrastructure.

The U.S. Government policy toward the continent must become coordinated and more accommodating to commercial realities on the ground

We need a new dialogue on Africa and we need that dialogue very soon.

I look forward, Under Secretary, to working with you to better understand the model that you are using going forward.

I think we need to get the message out that U.S. investment abroad is a huge booster for the domestic economy.

Would it make a difference if those standards were African-led and applied on an equal basis?

I want to urge the Senate to pass this legislation as soon as possible.

I am pleased to convene today's hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee entitled 'Economic Statecraft: Increasing American Jobs through Greater U.S.-Africa Trade and Investment.'

I just wanted to reflect briefly on yesterday's passing of President John Atta Mills of Ghana.

I agree, since, in any of the scenarios we have been discussing, it is likely to be State and local responders who bear a lot of the responsibility, are likely to be first on scene, or likely to be leading the recovery effort.

Broadly, how would you appraise the capabilities and the preparedness of State and local first responders, law enforcement, emergency management agencies, to deal with this sort of a combined attack or the emerging threats of cyber?

If there were to be standards that were negotiated--that were agreed to between industry and regulatory agencies, for an area like cyber, where the threat seems to be rapidly evolving, how would you update, routinely, those standards in a…

There is very few issues I lose more sleep about than our cyber vulnerabilities.

I happen to agree that a cyber attack of this kind would be particularly dangerous.

I was happy to join you last year in supporting the Grid Cyber Security Act.

In my view, Chairman Leahy and this Committee and the Senate made a significant step forward in aligning our patent system with the world by adopting a first-to-file system.

Please continue to press to move on the AGOA legislation, not just the Third-Country Fabric Provision, but also on the extension of AGOA beyond 2015.

I appreciate your personal commitment, as well as the personal commitment of the ranking member, Senator Isakson, for meeting with African members who came in from the continent to participate in the AGOA Forum.

You mentioned in your testimony progress toward a bilateral investment treaty with Ghana, and yet at the same time, the Foreign Commercial Service, if I understand correctly, has just withdrawn their representative, their participant in…

How might we in the Senate, who are particularly concerned about continuing to expand and promote business relationships between the United States and Africa for our mutual benefit, be more constructively supportive of the work of the…

My view is that we will always do better developing exports in partnership with countries that recognizes their legitimate need to develop their own domestic technology and industries as well.