Chris Van Hollen

Well, speaking for myself, I would like to help you on both counts there, and maybe we can work with your team.

Absolutely. But as you know, there are other Federal agencies that do have the authority to bring lawsuits, and they develop sort of shared authorities.

Let me turn quickly to the question of robocalls. And we are obviously going to do another round of questions for any members who are interested.

And as the Chair Rosenworcel said, in some of these areas... there has been local resistance to allowing a municipality... to simply... start their own broadband service.

We need to get this done in the coming weeks because it is hurting all of us.

I say, amen, to everything you said, both in terms of making sure that those companies that have already paid for their spectrum should get it.

This would obviously be a huge blow to our effort to really connect people, because physical connection is important, but if you can't afford it, it doesn't do you much good.

I hope we will all figure out a way forward on this.

Thanks to the passage of the Infrastructure Modernization Bill, we are well on our way to connecting them.

Getting people physically connected to the Internet won't do them any good if they cannot afford to pay the bill for services.

The BEAD Program and other Internet connectivity programs would be flying blind if it were not for the FCC's broadband mapping program.

We must, of course, not only connect students to broadband but every American household and small business, no matter where they live--in rural, suburban, and urban areas.

But don't you think that any company should be able to, with their own money, pay somebody for proxy advice which they can take or leave without anyone trying to pass a law or regulation to prevent them from using their own money in that…

Investors and the public have a right to know when corporations are taking big risks through the use of offshore tax havens.

Well, thank you. We hope we can work with you to get ahead of them as much as possible.

I just want to express my thanks to you and your team at the SEC, for being important cops on the beat.

It is critical that the Commission have the flexibility to pursue bad actors in our capital markets, like FTX.

I was pleased to team up with Senator Kennedy, also a Member of this Committee, to require that all companies that are listed on U.S. exchanges comply with the same auditing standards that apply to U.S. companies.

I particularly appreciate the updates he has made to insider trading disclosure with last year's revisions to Rule 10b5-1.

Senator Kennedy and I also hope to ensure that Chinese companies that trade on our exchanges, and all foreign public companies trading on our exchanges are held to the same insider trading disclosure rules as U.S. companies.

I would like to begin by thanking our Ranking Member, Senator Hagerty, and the Members of the subcommittee for their input and work in getting the FSGG Appropriations Bill through our subcommittee and through the Full Committee last week.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Vice Chair of the Full Committee, Senator Collins, for working with the Chair, Senator Murray, to create the framework that allows us to proceed and conduct our business.

This meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government will come to order.

I am hoping that you would agree that all economists would agree that it is a bad idea to default on our debt.

I hope in the coming weeks we can have a sober conversation up here about the budget and deficits.