Steve Daines

I'd like to put this to bed. I'd ask if you'd release the three safety reports that were conducted during the duration of the lockout.

I have been hearing concerns from Montana ranchers and farmers across our State about the President's budget that is proposing to consolidate these food safety programs currently split between the USDA and HHS into a new agency entirely…

I think these investments in broadband infrastructure are really investments in innovation.

It took 5 weeks to produce the simple and low-cost mitigations, all the while the livelihoods of grain growers in Montana were threatened.

Thank you, Chairwoman Murkowski, for holding this hearing on the bipartisan Sportsmen's Act. It is an important bill to Montana, and I am a proud co-sponsor.

If I told you it was the Boozman, Montana, it wouldn't have been your first guess, anyway.

To me, it's relevant to grain growers across Montana that the USDA's decisions are transparent and held to account.

Maintaining a high-quality food supply is of paramount importance for our producers.

Environmental approaches are needed to compliment individual based efforts to improve diet and reduce obesity and other diet related diseases.

I think it's important to remember that we're here to serve the people, not the other way around.

Thank you for coming to this subcommittee hearing today. As you know, Montana is a large producer in ag, it is our number one industry, $5 billion a year.

One of the concerns I am hearing from the ag community is the loss of expertise by removing the USDA from the food safety process.

We have some very important national assets. We have a third of the nation's ICBMs are located in Montana.

I look forward--thanks for that update--to what has happened in the last month.

I think we have got an opportunity here to, again--it is back to empowering organizations that probably will even provide better answers.

As you approach the second increment of the Distributed Common Ground System, what is the Army doing to address critical capability gaps?

Do you all have a goal to try to continue to reduce your admin costs as a percent of overall spend?

Thank you, Madam Chairman. Director McSwain, according to Northern Cheyenne tribal leaders we spent some time with, IHS owes over $2 million to the Northern Cheyenne members for healthcare received from non-IHS providers.

I would love to see that number.

What sort of contingency plans do we have for these types of areas like, for example, the Northern Cheyenne Reservation that doesn't even have 3G service let alone 4G LTE?

In a state like Montana, we have almost a tale of two types of environments, very rural environments across most of our state.

Yes, and of course the paradox here is that some of those areas are in the greatest need right now of telecommunications.

I am very pleased to be here today, discussing this very important topic of religious freedom.

I hope we are doing all we can, in terms of government here, to help the cause there, the freedom of the Catholic Church.

We need to do a better job here at home.