Mario Díaz-Balart

It is always great to welcome you, Mr. Secretary, back to the committee.

I happen to be a big fan of Congressman Quigley, he is a brilliant guy, he is an active guy, and he is a legitimate fighter, and very effective.

I want to talk a little bit about lead in healthy homes. I would like to commend you first for your focus...

I am grateful to you for your efforts.

I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, you are the second-best chairman of this subcommittee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for bringing up the coronavirus issue.

This is a national security issue.

the other party may be the advisory, but the Senate is the enemy, right, of the House.

I want to be diplomatic about this. But look, other certifying international agencies have, may have potentially, and I am thinking about China, for example, you know, may not be as transparent as the FAA...

You have been a remarkable partner in this effort.

In December, I joined my two Florida Senators raising concern with, at Miami International Airport... regarding the potential purchase of the passenger boarding bridges from a Chinese state backed enterprise.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for holding this hearing today.

I think that is something that we have to also look at.

General, you have heard a lot of our colleagues here thank you for your service, but you know something, it is genuine and it is heartfelt, and we all feel that way.

So just let me add my voice to that as well.

So again, if the report says that just to--forget about anything else--just to keep the industrial base alive it requires 14 aircraft, how do we then zero it out overnight?

you could create performance measures to deal with--to making sure that we are getting a return on this mitigation money that is invested.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. Look, you, as well as the full committee chairwoman, always, you have aggressive questions, but you are always pursuing the facts.

I hope you realize that you have folks here who want to be helpful and understand that that issue is of the--I mean, it is the most important issue that we deal with.

I have seen nothing that shows--there is not one iota of fact that shows that there is anything having to do with race that has anything to do with any of the decisions that you have made.

And, by the way, I know on this issue I can speak for the full committee chairwoman, her issue has always been safety.

I mean, that is--you know, you have to be able to get timely whatever you need.

I just want to reemphasize that.

And thank you for being here, but more importantly, thanks for what you do.

It cheapens the issue when you throw racism out there for political reasons, because racism does exist, but it cheapens it when you just throw it out there.