Thank you for having me here today. We appreciate your attention to this vital program.

It is unfathomable to me that the President would want to eliminate the only federal agency that is specifically focused on local and regional economic development.

I urge your continued support for the Economic Development Administration which helps build prosperity from the ground up at the local, regional and national levels.

EDA is proven to be an effective program for counties, communities and regions to aid in economic development and job creation.

How do you screen the people that come into that program from Saudi Arabia?

How do you keep tabs on them after they have gone through the program?

It just doesn't seem to me to make any sense that you want to raise the fee from $5.60 for a one-way trip to $6.60, and then take away $1.6 billion to go to the deficit.

Aren't we just throwing money down a rat hole trying to catch up with a 15-year-old plan?

I look forward to working with the chairwoman on critical issues within our subcommittee and continuing the tradition of this subcommittee's ability to work in a bipartisan fashion.

Counties across the country urge your continued support for the Economic Development Administration which helps us build prosperity from the ground up at the local, regional, and national levels.

I am here asking you not to spend money.

Know that there is no real appetite from this chair to move in that direction. We are much more interested in reauthorizing, improving, strengthening, and if anything, bringing some of those other grant programs under this umbrella.

So the Saudis are paying for all of this?

I just don't really think that is fair to the people who are flying into my district for a little holiday.

I wonder if you are satisfied that there is enough oversight and security there, especially with a country like Saudi Arabia that we really--I don't trust.

I think he is moving us absolutely in the wrong direction, not only by pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords but by not recognizing climate change in the national security strategy.

we have seen--I think it is American Society of Civil Engineers who rates our infrastructure. We always get a bad grade on that.

I represent Las Vegas, so you can imagine how important travel and tourism are to us.

I don't want to do anything that is going to hurt tourism, because it is such a key to our economy.

We have not paid much attention to the movement of people. And by people I mean tourists.

We know that we need comprehensive immigration reform, we would like to see it bipartisan.

I thank my friend for yielding and for her support of this bill that creates the RISE Award. I would like to address the bill before you by telling you the story of Ms. Virginia Mills. Ms. Mills started her career as a security guard at…

you have to include your allies as you move forward in any kind of negotiation

President Trump seems averse to international cooperation and multilateral agreements. He seems to prefer go-it-alone, shoot-from-the-hip, mano-a-mano type of diplomacy, such as it exists.

This week we mark the sixth anniversary of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 26 dead, including 20 children ages 6 and 7. In the years since, there have been 1,917 mass shootings, killing 2,175 men, women, and…