David Vitter

And I want to continue this same line of discussion because I strongly agree with it.

We have four expert witnesses from here in Louisiana talking about energy jobs and everything those mean to our economy.

Now, at the Federal level, I assume part of the problem in terms of delays and complications is you really have two different processes, FERC and DOE, and it's never exactly clear who goes first, how it works, how they intersect.

Charles and I work really well together, particularly on this issue of energy jobs.

Federal programs--for instance, student loans, Pell Grant--those are really mostly designed for four-year colleges.

One of the first things I wanted to do was bring the committee to Louisiana and bring it to the real world, not just in Washington.

I've actually heard of instances where a particular skills training program is artificially lengthened just because of the Federal requirement for students to be able to get that Pell Grant or other financial aid.

In my opinion, we really need to even the playing field and right the balance at the high school level.

$100 million. I know it's a big project. I know you're a big entity. But still, a tenth of a billion dollars for pieces of paper before you really started productive activity.

I'm really glad you could be here.

I'm hoping one of the ways we change that attitude and even the playing field, at least here in Louisiana, is when in the next few years those folks with the right skills training at 21 step into a job at $55,000, and in five years they're…

We need to give our young people the education, the training, and the skill sets they need to benefit from good jobs.

I would say a more modest proposal and one that Senator Vitter referenced earlier is greater access to financial aid.

Our current system of higher education really, in my opinion, stifles innovation in a lot of cases.

We will be unable to meet those workforce demands.

We need to fix that, and we need to give these folks the training they need.

Thank you very much, David.

I think there is great opportunity on a bipartisan basis to move forward with some regulatory relief for smaller institutions.

I would really commend this issue to all of you. It is pretty darn important.

I want to echo the comments that have been made about the bipartisan work of this committee on infrastructure.

We need to get it done on a medium to long-term basis, not another band-aid approach.

That is taking all meaning out of the word 'mandatory.' It is replacing your and your colleagues' judgment for the judgment of folks who wrote the law.

This is just a way to clearly ignore mandatory minimums.

The plan is not for the Attorney General to be in the middle of this at all. The statute says that the Attorney General is.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you Madam U.S. Attorney and thank you for the meeting in my office.