Well first, congratulations on your child. A boy, I understand?

My concern is that, it may have worked well for West Virginia, but Mr. Chairman, we need some national direction to hold those responsible accountable, whether it is private industry, or whether it is the Department of Defense.

So you are used to this. You are a real pro at this.

SBIC funds have provided more than $100 billion of funding across 200,000 financings to small businesses, creating more than 3 million jobs in just the last 20 years.

According to information I have, only 5 percent of the funds go to companies owned by women, veterans, or minorities.

I want to thank our colleagues, Senator John Hickenlooper and Senator Jim Risch for their leadership on this issue.

In January, Senator Hirono and I introduced the UPLIFT Act, which would nurture innovation ecosystems in minority, low-income, rural, and other underserved communities.

I am concerned about their safety. Is there more aggressiveness that the international community can be in order to protect the safety of the protesters in Belarus?

It is interesting that we have provided help to large industries during economic downturns.

we are going to make sure that small businesses are properly represented in those negotiations.

To invest more equitably, we need more diverse managers in the existing program.

Our first order is to make sure we have the safety of our communities.

Despite the success of the SBIC program, it is underutilized.

So having a mechanism to deal with equity capital, under our supervision, would certainly be a tool that could help deal with that.

the President is challenging us to do better as we build back better.

I applaud the leadership of our Committee in pushing the issues on PFAS.

We would welcome your suggestions in that regard, because we are very much interested in workable programs to improve diversity among fund managers.

we will very much look to you for advice as to how we can protect the people of Belarus.

We should expand the program and fully utilize it to get more capital invested in small businesses.

The protesters in Belarus are extremely brave people. They are out in great numbers protesting against their government.

I introduced the Global Learning Loss Assessment Act with Senator Boozman to encourage the U.S. to play an active role in mitigating this educational crisis before it's too late.

I appreciate that. It also helps us, if we then have the information we need to impose sanctions, such as Global Magnitsky, by having that capacity in each of our missions.

It certainly reflects the commitment that we have a value-based foreign policy.

I certainly agree with Senator Menendez, our Chairman, that we welcome the budget that has been submitted for our foreign policy issues.

I agree with Chairman Menendez. He and I had similar views on the JCPOA and President Trump's decision to leave the JCPOA.