Mazie K. Hirono

I have heard from those who oversee our State veterans cemeteries that they do struggle year after year with two key issues, one, to ensure enough funding is available for day-to-day operations, and two, to maintain proper training for…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to ask each of you with the diverse backgrounds that you have...

The First Step Act has seen a lot of success, and it was done in a bipartisan way.

These technologies should be licensing our content. If they're not, Congress should act.

If we have clarity that current law applies to Generative AI, then let's let the marketplace work.

It just seems to make sense that the creators of the content should get some kind of compensation for the use of their material in training the AI platforms.

As the only Buddhist ever to be elected to the United States Senate, thank you for your advocacy on behalf of religious diversity.

I believe that both of you would be able to do that.

As far as I'm concerned, we did not do that adequately during the Kavanaugh hearings.

So of the panelists, how does the VA prepare?

And that includes instances where your infrastructure and facilities are destroyed during a natural disaster. There's a plan B?

Thank you. This is for Dr. Balbus--am I pronouncing correctly? So in your testimony, you stated that the climate-related extreme weather events and disasters can disrupt healthcare systems at multiple points, creating a surge in healthcare…

Providing long-term homes, including, of course, for the Veterans in those communities remain a huge priority.

In August, Hawaii experienced our worst natural disaster since becoming a State in 1959 and the deadliest wildfire in our country since 1918.

I would be very interested in knowing how many, because it seems to me that clinical trials is one of the ways that people sign up for these trials.

So when you say the VA funded clinical trials, how many VA funded clinical trials are there?

I don't imagine that you have a lot of Asian Native Hawaiian cohorts in this 1 million population.

The whole idea is to provide, I take it, better healthcare for veterans?

What is the hope and expectation of having a million people's genetic information?

So I'm curious about this, the Million Veteran Program.

I think diversity is important, both personal and professional diversity on the bench, because a diverse bench represents the community that it serves.

I think diversity in its broadest sense is very important.

The Sixth Amendment requires that there is a right to counsel.

It is necessary to have attorneys represent these individuals in order to hold the Government to that high burden of proof that is required under the law.

I urge their swift consideration and confirmation.