Thomas R. Carper: “Both of you mentioned the PROTECT Program that we created in Congress in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”

If I had known--as you know, the breadth of the issues that we cover in this Committee are enormous. It is impossible for any of us to fully master each of them.

I would say there is a lesson here for both of us, and one of those is to make clear I am always ready to take your calls, your meeting, whatever you want and engage.

Public engagement can build trust, it can increase public buy-in, can help resolve issues, can help prevent litigation, and ultimately it can save time and money.

Given how important this obviously is, my only regret is that we didn't have an opportunity to talk about it 24 hours ago.