Remarks
Good morning. The Subcommittee will come to order.
First of all, I would like to sincerely thank all of our guests here today. We thank you for being here and taking time out of your schedule to share with us today your outlook for your departments and agencies, especially from the budget aspect.
Collectively, your offices have the responsibility for ensuring that we, as a country, are prepared to mitigate, respond to, and ideally preempt biological—and in some cases, man-made—threats to the American people.
Those of us blessed with the responsibility of public service and leadership understand that while not every choice comes with a cost, every choice comes with a price.
Sadly, I think those who will pay the price for the many mistakes made during the COVID pandemic are the most vulnerable among us.
Good morning.
The Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses at any time.
I would like to welcome everyone to our hearing on the Fiscal Year 2024 budget request for the National Science Foundation. Thank you to our Subcommittee Members and to our witness, Dr. Panchanathan, Director of the NSF, for being here today.
The National Science Foundation plays an important role in our government, with a broad mission to promote the progress of science. Unlike other federal agencies that have mission-specific approaches to research, the National Science Foundation supports fundamental, basic research from across the spectrum. This research is the foundation for the technological advances of the future.
Good afternoon.
The Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
Senator Nelson, it is good to have you back here visiting the Subcommittee to help us examine NASA's fiscal year 2024 budget request.
The Biden Administration is requesting $27.2 billion in funding for NASA – a roughly 7% increase over the fiscal year 2023 enacted level. And as you know, Congress also provided $367 million in emergency funding for NASA Construction and Environmental Compliance in fiscal year 2023.
The subcommittee will come to order.
Today, we welcome testimony from the Honorable Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Thank you for appearing before us today and for your service.
Mr. Secretary, I appreciated our recent phone conversation about your visit to the FAA's Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center and the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City a few weeks ago. I'm glad you were able to see firsthand some of the critical transportation assets there are in Oklahoma. I look forward to discussing what more we can do in Oklahoma, given our unique geography, DOT facilities, and opportunities with other federal entities, like the Department of Defense.
The Subcommittee on Homeland Security will come to order.
I want to welcome everyone to our Subcommittee hearing on the U.S. Coast Guard's 2024 Budget Request with U.S. Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Linda Fagan.
Welcome Admiral Fagan. It's a pleasure to see you again, and I thank you for your testimony today as we discuss the Coast Guard's fiscal year 2024 budget request.
Whether it is enabling the flow of commerce through our maritime transportation system, interdicting migrants on the open ocean, or combatting illicit narcotic trafficking, our nation relies on the men and women of the Coast Guard.
The demands on the Coast Guard have never been greater. The Arctic, IndoPacific, and the maritime border have all presented challenges to the agency over the past year.
The work agents and officers of U.S. Customs and Border Protection do every day has immense importance to both our national and economic security.
Put simply, their collective job is to keep bad things and people from entering the country illegally.
However, our agents and officers' jobs are made harder by the President's fundamentally unserious budget request for CBP.
Unfortunately, the Fiscal Year 24 request is full of inexplicable gimmicks, and I'll explain those later.
For example, the President proposes $174 million dollars for additional surveillance towers, but fails to provide adequate funding to maintain the ones we already have in the field.
The Subcommittee will come to order.
Good morning and thank you for being here. Mr. Secretary, it is good to have you here. It is also good to have the Budget Director from the Department here as well. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule and we appreciate your presence here. I look forward to your testimony.
I'd like to start by expressing my concern with the new rule your Department just proposed which would establish that schools violate Title Nine when they categorically ban biological male students from participating in women's sports teams. Forcing schools to allow biological teen males into girls' locker rooms is one of the greatest overreaches of the federal government I have ever seen.
Not only does this undermine decades of work in giving girls the same opportunities to compete in women's sports – the original intent of Title Nine - it creates potentially unsafe situations.
The Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
Our witness this morning is Steven Dettelbach, Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
I will begin by recognizing myself for an opening statement.
The FY 2024 budget request for the ATF totals $1.9 billion, which is a 7.4% increase over the FY23 enacted level.
The primary criminal enforcement mission of the ATF is to protect the public from violent crime. And while the ATF's budget request attempts to assure us its resources are directed toward the most serious offenses and most dangerous criminals, some recent decisions tell another story.
Many folks are justifiably concerned about sweeping, seemingly poorly reasoned, new rules emanating from the ATF in recent months.
The Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
I would like to welcome everyone to this afternoon's hearing. Thank you to our Subcommittee members and to Secretary Raimondo for being here today. I will begin by recognizing myself for an opening statement.
The Department of Commerce's mission of promoting job creation and economic competitiveness is critical to our economy and to furthering American innovation.
The Department of Commerce has 13 major bureaus with a budget of over $11 billion. The FY24 budget request is $12.3 billion, an increase of over $1 billion, or 11% over the enacted level.
The Department's diverse mission areas combine to help foster the innovation and development that propel the U.S. economy.
Thank you for appearing today, Madam Secretary. I am looking forward to this discussion, and especially looking forward to hearing from a distinguished and well-respected former colleague. I am very glad that HUD has a Secretary who understands what we do here in the House, and we thank you for your hard work and service to the American people.
I also want to welcome my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to this budget hearing. I know we're all excited to hear from you and start the process of getting to a bipartisan bill that responsibly funds the government.
