Lecture Summary on Silicon Valley Bank Bailout and Related Topics

uh thank you Mr chair um and and thanks to the three of you for being here I would have talked just a little bit about the inherent unfairness and what I think transpired with Silicon Valley Bank and you I come from the Venture Capital industry and this is a statement against interests and certainly a statement against the interests of of some of my friends but uh the the business model of Silicon Valley Bank was to provide banking services to venture capital firms and to venture-backed companies and if you think about the fundamental trade that was implied and I would even say explicit in their business business model what they did is they offered highly beneficial Financial products to venture back companies and Venture capitalists in exchange for having a large number of deposits in your Silicon Valley bank account sometimes often exclusively so a common practice for example uh was to say that you would provide a line of credit to a venture capital firm but only if that firm put all of its money 100% of its deposits in Silicon Valley Bank or they would offer private jet financing goodies that are basically beneficial only to the very wealthy in exchange for having all of your deposits at Silicon Valley bank now given that that was implied in the business model of the bank I think it's important that we use the term bailout and I know that some of you don't like that term but I think it's the only term that applies fairly here because we using excess fees on Community Banks all across the country effectively chose to bail out the uninsured deposit of Silicon Valley bank now there are some outrageous examples there I think you know one firm had had had deposits over $3 billion another I think Roku had deposits of 500 million um but there were a lot of people a lot of firms at Silicon Valley Bank that had deposits well over a million well over $5 million and what we did in practice do was was bail them out I I guess my first question i' I'd put this to all three of you mean because time is limited I I i' I'd like to um I I'd like you to answer quickly is what is the threshold what whether whether you guys meant to or not I I think the the the implication of what happened with Silicon Valley Bank is that there are a lot of people who expect that their uninsured deposits are effectively insured at an unlimited level or if you're a banker uh there's an assumption from a lot of people that at a certain level if you're systemically important enough your uninsured depositors are going to get bailed out uh maybe just go from left to right starting with Mr Greenberg but at at what level do you think uninsured deposits in theory are effectively Unlimited unsur in our banking system today well if I may say senator you're asking important questions I think we have a lot of lessons to learn from this episode uh the decision to cover uninsured depositors at these two institutions was a highly consequential one yes that has implications for the system I I think we need and I indicated in my statement earlier uh we need to do a comprehensive review of our Deposit Insurance Insurance system and consider the questions that you rais the FDIC is going to undertake that and by May 1 will deliver a report including uh policy considerations uh to take into account so we we want to try to be responsive on that thank you Mr B I also think you uh you you rais important questions uh when we were looking at the systemic risk determination uh with respect to uh these institutions uh we were thinking of about the risk to the broader Financial system not the particular uh depositors uh at at one or or two institutions you're thinking about and concerned about the extent to which that could impact Regional Banks across the country Community Banks across the country we were hearing concerns um from Bankers and from depositors from businesses around the country it's a difficult judgment but one that at the end of the day unanimous FDIC board and a unanimous Federal Reserve Board of the treasury secretary agreed that that that risk to the system was not a risk that was worth taking uh and so you know today I think we can you know say that that the banking system is sound and resilient and the steps we took demonstrated that resilience and the safety of deposits around the country so so I I'm less concerned um less concerned with the decision itself though obviously I have a lot of questions there I think there's an open question about whether we could have provided the confidence to the banking system and the liquidity that was needed in case of a bank run without bailing out the uninsured Silicon Valley Bank depositors I think that's maybe a topic for for a follow on hearing but what I worry about is is the the the fundamental unfairness here that we've drawn a line and I don't know whether the line stops at Silicon Valley Bank maybe it goes much further maybe it stops there where if you're systemically important which is a term that impossible for anybody here to Define with confidence if you're systemically important your uninsured deposits are effectively unlimited um in their insurance whereas if you're not systemically important if you're a Regional Bank in Ohio there's a very good chance that your uninsured depositors will not receive that bailet and I think that uncertainty is a really really big problem with what you guys have done uh I'm not saying that an accusatory way I understand that there were reasons to do what you did even though I don't think it was the right decision I'm just saying I think it has some real moral hazard here uh I I know I'm over time here so so the one thing I'd ask here uh is just uh unanimous consent to introduce a letter to the record from American Share Insurance uh this company provides private disposit insurance to most State chartered Credit Unions uh including the 43 in Ohio and just on this point of moral hazard and on this point of unfairness what I what I'd like to I'd like you guys to consider doing is extending the same implied offer that you gave to the Silicon Valley Bank uninsured depositors to do it a little bit further down uh the banking ladder so that everybody benefits from the rule that you guys have created for Silicon Valley Bank without without objection Senator thank you uh thank you Mr chairman thank all of you uh for your service and and uh thank you Mr chair and thanks to um deputy secretary for being here um I would to ask just a couple of questions about our sanctions regime and potentially you know efforts within this body to really ramp up that that sanctions regime so um you and I I believe discussed last year excuse me um you know how the sanctions on Russia after Putin's invasion of Ukraine what effect they were having on the Russian economy what effects actually matched our expectations and what effects didn't match our expectations uh you know we're we're a little further down the road here uh it's April of 20124 do do we have a good sense of how the Russian economy did in 201 23 and how effective the sanctions were or were not at inhibiting Russian growth we have a better sense now than we did um earlier this year and to answer your question sender I think what we have found is that the Russian economy has largely transitioned to a war economy where all the tools of production have went from building out a diversified economy that was styled for long-term growth to one that is driven by a short-term need to build as many weapons as possible to further their War AIMS in Ukraine and what did their GDP grow last year do you know their GDP I believe grew somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 to 2% okay uh which is you know frankly at or above some of our European allies and uh I I I really do worry here and and I agree with you that they've transitioned their economy to a war footing that has its own internal momentum and one of the things I worry I know this isn't your area um of focus one of the things I worry some of my my colleagues underappreciate is that that war footing has a certain momentum to it and we should be trying to arrest that war footing as much as possible not leaning into it and prolonging this thing because I worry that once Russia becomes an economy that only works in a time of war that actually makes it more likely and um that they're going to uh show aggression now and in the future um I want to sort of transition and and and Mr secretary how aware are you of sort of of the repo act REO that's sort of moving through uh this chamber are you sort of aware broadly with it outline yes I am okay so one of the things that that does and correct me if I'm I'm wrong here CU I'm trying to sort of think through uh my own view on it but one of the really worrying Provisions uh is that as I understand it it would actually freeze the current sanctions regime that we have on Russia in place legally as an act of Congress and so if a future president or a second Biden term wanted to change that sanctions regime they would need an act of Congress to do so is that correct correct I'm not certain of that provision my understanding is that it gives the president certain authorities I don't know that it freezes the current regime okay uh that's that's my understanding at least but I think worth having a follow-up conversation and certainly my staff will follow up as well on that particular topic uh here here's the thing that I worry about I imagine that we have different preferences for who wins the next presidential election uh Mr secretary but whether it's a President Biden or president Trump I think it's really important for the next Administration to have diplomatic flexibility to negotiate what will certainly I think be an end to the Russia Ukraine war whatever end that ultimately takes I hope to God that it doesn't last another five years and what I worry about with the repo Act is that we actually if we are freezing the sanctions regime we prevent the president from having an important tool at his disposal and actually negotiating a peaceful settlement to that conflict uh let me let me ask just one final question on the repo act as I understand it it would give um it it would effectively Force asset seizure of all Russian assets and I I'm wondering you know h h h have we done that in a time of peace with a country that we're not directly at war with have we ever done something like what the repo act envisions so SRA the one thing I am clear of is that my understanding at least is the Senate version of the repo act gives the president the ability to doesn't require him to so and I think part of the reason for that is because we know that the vast majority of those assets are in Europe and we'd only want to act alongside our European allies if we did something like that in terms of um seizing the assets um against a country that were not um engaged in hostility against I don't know that we have done something like that at this um at this juncture in um at this juncture y I appreciate that Mr secretary uh and with that I I yield the remainder of my time thanks for being here and thanks for answering my questions thank you uh senator waro of George is recognized Senator Kennedy Corner uh Senator Vance of Ohio is recognized all right thank you Mr chairman um and uh Mr Sing I want to direct my questions to you I just want to ask about the the Russian sanctions in particular whether they've been effective or ineffective and I want to just as a backdrop here offer a few a few pieces of of information so last March a month into the war in Ukraine President Biden went to the royal castle in Warsaw and unveiled a sanction regime that he said represented a quote new kind of economic statecraft with the power to inflict damage that Rivals military might um I certainly hope he was wrong because if he wasn't then I'm a bit more worried about our military might than I was before I just read this quote because look the the the issue here is that the sanctions if you look at the numbers have clearly not matched up with what the Biden Administration predicted so a couple of pieces of information Biden swore that the Russian economy would be quote cut in half the White House predicted that last year the Russian economy would shrink by 15% or more in fact it shrank just 2.2% uh Biden I believe said that the Russian Ruble would be reduced to Rubble in fact the Russian Rubble is one of the best performing international currencies in the world today and is worth uh compared to our dollar is worth the same that it was when the invasion began a little over a year ago um you know you were the architect of these sanctions and so I'd like to better understand the approach that you advise President Biden to take but first I I would like your candid assessment do you think that these sanctions have been effective thank you Senator I think sanctions are doing their job they're not the only tool we're deploying the most important ones are helping Ukraine fight for its freedom enlarging and fortifying NATO's Eastern flank helping the world get off of Russian energy welcoming the millions of refugees flowing into Europe uh and and you know these are these are the tools that in tandem can make a difference but when it comes to sanctions yes I think they're doing their job you are correct sir that the decline in Russia's GDP 2.2% last year is lower than what many expected including me but as I as I mentioned uh previously I think what Putin has done is credit a patkin facade he has propped up this year's growth by sacrificing his long-term growth potential how Capital controls if you have a Ruble in Russia it's very difficult to convert that to a dollar if you can't access dollars you can't import anything without Imports Russia can't modernize or diversify its economy Russia weaponized energy that of course pushed up Energy prices that flattered net exports that flattered GDP growth but he's lost half of his energy customers and oil and gas revenues are down 50% year-over-year and then the last thing he did is he spiked government spending by 60% um you can do that to prop up GDP growth but you'll deplete National savings you'll drive up inflation you'll drive up interest rates we've degraded his military industrial complex we've cut off Russia from its its major energy consumer in in in Europe so Mr I want to just unpack a couple of points there so so certainly take the point that perhaps the Russian long-term economic damage has been there uh but it's a little concerning for us as policy makers when the administration says that these sanctions are going to be effectively a a military grade deployment into the Russian economy and then you look at the Topline data and that just hasn't been borne out uh and I and I worry about that I also worry I I spoke to an international relations scholar yesterday who who really expressed some concern about whether America's deployment of sanctions in this particular context and the failure to see obvious short-term benefit to the Americans uh obvious short-term damage or at least nearly as significant as short-term damage to the Russians uh actually causes some credibility issues with our with our own government um one just a couple of of other questions here so I I wonder when you guys were thinking about designing these sanctions if you maybe underweighted and under um understated the importance of manufacturing mining the sort of real sectors of the economy that are much more important when you're developing a war economy than let's say uh Finance or technology um or at least digital technology I'm I'm sort of curious there sort of how you think about that because you mentioned the Russian industrial base being degraded uh but when I look at Russians you know having a six to1 artillery advantage against the ukrainians and being able to as apparently as far as the eye can see de develop artillery munition in a way where already America's stocks are being depleted uh it looks in in in on the ground as if the Russians continue to have not just an artillery advantage today but will plausibly have an artillery Advantage six months in the future um did you guys underweight the importance of manufacturing mining um the the sort of the the the the the older economy according to a lot of people but the economy that actually matters when you're fighting a war uh thank you Senator it's a good question uh you know look so we designed the sanctions to apply pressure where we have uh a strength that intersects with Russia's vulnerability so foreign Capital was one of those areas cuttingedge technology was a second and yes we have gotten into Supply chains where we feel like we had Collective leverage over Russia but you know look I think as it relates to the battlefield impact uh we'll never know because the Intelligence on the ground in Russia is so sparse but every indication that I've that I've seen is that he's running out of prec precision guided Munitions running out of avionics night vision goggles satellites tank production car production uh and he's having to rely on industrial goods like dishwashers and breast pumps to actually uh function his his equipment in his military he's relying on North Korea and Iran to substitute for uh the kind of Technology you need to prosecute a war of this scale Meanwhile we're supplying the most sophisticated Weaponry that we can uh to Ukraine so I think we're giving leverage to Ukraine on the battlefield that's really where it matters most sanctions will never be a substitute for that kind of support thank you thanks all right thank you and I've been left with I want to direct some questions about about housing first to miss CER and miss miss yentel um and I I want to sort of introduce this by you know I when I was a kid we had a neighbor move in uh next door to us actually and I I live with my grandmother and um you know she was a a particularly trouble person suffered with some serious substance abuse problems and I remember one case in particular where she called the landlord who's actually a family friend of ours because before she moved in uh this person lived there and uh said you know I've got a leaky a leaky ceiling problem and the guy showed up and investigated and the woman had passed out she was on drugs on the bottom floor and on the top floor she had set a bath to run and what had caused the Leaky ceiling and in fact destroy the entire upper level of the house uh was that she had set a bath and then gotten high and passed out and I think it illustrates a particular problem with some of the approaches that we've taken to homelessness and housing where uh we we tend to want to address so-called housing first without addressing the root causes of homelessness and I worry about this in in this particular context because whether it's in our urban communities or in our rural communities if we don't treat the root cause of homelessness we end up creating cycles of Despair where even when you get women like this into a good home ultimately uh it can be very destructive and not ultimately solve the the very problem that we're trying to solve so I guess the very first question I asked first to miss Calder is do you think that we should allow people who have serious substance abuse problems should we be giving them housing without any preconditions on substance abuse counseling therapy and so forth um look I think that the homeless population is a diverse population and so um from my perspective it doesn't make sense to have a one-sized fits-all policy I think housing first is um it's a idea that has been adopted pretty rigidly in places like California um there are complaintant in California from shelters that are you know women and children shelters only and they say look we can't get any state funding for our homeless efforts here but we're doing a really important job here we need to um you know have rules around substance use and the reason for that is that these women that come into this shelter a lot of times they're fighting for custody they want to secure custody of their kids and it's hard to do that in an environment where people are using substances so I think that there should be um you know I think we should let all different types of homeless approaches um you know Bloom and um have a lot of diversity in that regard and I think that unfortunately housing first has been adopted in some places and and that diversity has been sort of squatched yeah it's s of build on that before turning to you missel so as I understand the problem with housing first is is precisely the one fits-all approach in other words you can take housing programs that are attempting to treat the root cause of homelessness but then you're denying them federal funds if they're not following the so-called housing first approach I guess Mr NE I just asked directly do you agree with that approach and I'd love to hear why or why not yeah thank you for the question Senator Vance uh first the root cause of homelessness the one thing that all people experiencing homelessness have in common is lack of access to a decent stable affordable home home and the research and the evidence are very clear that if people have substance abuse challenges or mental illness they are best able to address those challenges from a stable home so low barrier housing first approaches that get people into affordable stable homes and then provide them with voluntary um Supportive Services as necessary is shown again and again in the research and the evidence to be the most effective way to address homelessness and there are a number of examples in your state of Ohio um very successful housing first programs that work with people experiencing homelessness who don't have substance abuse or mental health challenges and those who do and in both cases it's the housing first approach that low barrier uh approach to getting somebody stably housed first that works we tried sobriety requirements back in the 80s and the 90s as a country that was our approach to addressing homelessness we had a stairstep model where people had to prove that they were so-called housing ready it didn't work and it was overly expensive so let me just a couple a couple points on that Miss hinel so so first of all it's interesting to contrast the 80s and 90s with where we are today because while we've been trying a housing first based approach for the past few years in this country as I understand it spending about 200% more on how on on home or providing homes to the to the homeless 200% more on homeless support than we were when when we weren't trying housing first and yet simultaneously the homeless population in the country has gone up 20% so startes me is a very bad deal for the American taxpayer but more importantly for the homeless if we're spending twice as much or more and yet we've seen the Homeless Problem get worse in this country I think related point I know I'm short on time here so I'll yield after after just making this point is I really worry about the social contagion effect on this because it's not of course just the homeless people themselves who are affected but it's the people they share a neighborhood or people they share a building complex with and I I really worry that what housing first has done is taken a lot of of people who are very much struggling and very much deserving of our compassion though I think how we how we provide that compassion is Up For Debate uh but it also introduces you know people with serious drug problems serious with mental serious mental illness problems into communities with kids who are already in a very unstable situation and now they're having things like drug use normalized around them and that's certainly what you see in some of the some of the neighborhoods where you have uh people moving in who are struggling in very significant ways sometimes those behaviors can become normalized to the kids around them and I worry about that and I worry that the housing first approach is focusing just on the homeless population and failing by the way but also it's ignoring a lot of the kids who are affected by this housing approach again if housing first is working why isn't it working the homeless problem is getting worse sure time to answer that go on Miss yeah that's fine go on Miss so um again with respect and the evidence and the data are so clear that housing first does work we know and it works in your state of Ohio we know how to end homelessness and in fact individuals have their homelessness ended every day in Ohio and throughout the country what we can't do is stem the tide of people newly falling into homelessness as rents increase much faster than incomes do and to the point of mental illness and substance abuse and contagion I would just say that there are many people who are safely housed who suffer from mental illness and substance abuse and I think we don't hear the same concerns about contagion raised there it's because their substance abuse isn't as public because they have the ability to close their door at night and get the re the uh services and resources that they need while they're housed I would love to also just note that there are many different types of people experiencing homelessness and actually the majority of people who do experience homelessness are working households or households who have struggled with being able to make ends meet as rent Skyrocket and the cost of um their incomes does not meet the increased rent as well so there's a lot I would love to have a follow-up conversation with you and to introduce you to some of the housing first providers in Ohio who could share with you their success with the program thanks thank Miss youel Senator Warren of Massachusetts is recognized thank you Mr chairman so uh member to ask questions I just want to clarify that the video that we saw earlier was a simulation done by Senator Cruz I think in his team that was not a real exact video of the incident there seems to be some confusion about that so no no ma'am I I knew it was a simulation yes okay yeah yeah thank you I I you clearly stated that but not everybody got it may have captured that so we just want to reiterate that um we next I have Senator Vance thank you madam chair uh Mr Nolan thank you for being here um I did not realize that g ask just a little bit about some of the uh the unusual increases in obsession with the vocabulary and language that we're seeing in some of the FAA guidance and uh you know related documents related to our aviation industry um I want to ask did the FAA issue 176 page guidance document changing uh notice to Airmen to notices of air mission in December of 2021 we did this was in part to advo using the gender term Airman correct yes sir I believe so okay on November 10th 2021 the FAA held an inclusive language Summit are you familiar with this effort I am familiar with it during the summit which had a solicitation published in the Federal Register Deputy Administrator uh Mims stated that when we use terms like Airmen or unmanned aircraft sorry I'm laughing because I this this has to be a joke we're sending a message that only men belong in the Aerospace Community do you agree with that statement well Senator what I could say is that having been a pilot for 42 years and seeing the evolution of our Aerospace industry I started out in helicopters and have flown as a captain and big jetliners sure not everyone is a pilot today we have drones we have spaceships uh spacecraft I'm sorry and so I I do believe going to notices to air missions is absolutely the right thing to do it is a accurate reflection of where our Aerospace system is today fully supportive of that and none of that by the way detracts from our mission which is the safety of our airospace and that will always be our North Star yeah I think the point of if it makes sense for some Aviation reason that's fine if it makes sense purely to avoid gendered language it seems like an un preoccupation with the words that you're using and that we're using rather than the work that we're doing uh I want to just ask a couple of additional questions about this this Summit the public notice uh for the meeting stated if any individual employer contractor or industry partner feels excluded or marginalized because of language or words the work of the agency suffers do you agree that the feelings of FAA employees about language are this important what I agree is that as we seek to attract the Next Generation ation of people into Aerospace mostly they won't look like the people sitting in this room and so it's our ability to say how do we bring tomorrow into today into an industry that is evolving right right before our eyes so our ability to find inclusive ways of reaching underrepresented groups is a right path to be on okay I'd ask you unanimous consent to enter into the record the Drone advisory committee public ebook I have it right here this document uses the term wife is an example of the type of language that we need to eliminate is that something you support I'm I'm sorry could you restate the question I'm sorry sir yeah I just said so I'm asking unanimous consent first of all to enter this into the record but but it it explains that wife the word wife uh is an example of the type of language that we need to eliminate and I'm just asking if that's something you think is necessary or something you support I'd have to give that one some more thought I well I would hope that the word wife is not something that we or or is something that we can all agree is a reasonable vocabulary word that most Americans use in their daily life it's not something that we need to eliminate um I don't have much time here so it would just ask here um at the same Summit the the during a panel called how the FAA is pushing gender language boundaries the panelist stated that FAA leadership brought us to where we are here today we see the recommendations from the committee as a foundation but it's also just the beginning of the conversation it strikes me that preoccupying ourselves so much with the words that we use rather than the work that we do especially as our infrastructure appears to be crumbling and we've had major flight outages the last couple of years is at best a distraction and at worst um a a thing that takes attention away from focusing on on the real problems uh I I I worry what I especially I represent the people of Ohio and I'm very confident that the majority of Ohioans if there is a pilot who is offended by the word wife or the word cockpit maybe that person shouldn't be a pilot so rather than coot toing to people who are fragile maybe we should actually say if you're so worried about the words that we are using you shouldn't be flying um you know multi-ton metal engines through the sky uh and I just ask all of us to maybe try to focus as much on real problems like the fact that our Aviation system seems to not be working as well as it used to uh than the fact that we may use un inclusive or under inclusive language uh thank you Mr I appreciate it all right Senator Luhan thank you um Mr chairman and U Miss Son thank you for uh for for coming before us today so I want to take my line of questioning in a slightly different direction from some of the other folks and I I think just to be direct with you miss Zone there are actually the areas of substantive agreement between the two of us on some of these issues um but I also notice that you are a participant in what I would call this weird racialization of American political record rhetoric in the last few years and in particular I think coming out of a desire to give equal opportunity and fairness to every American regardless of skin color that's of course a very good thing uh there's been this weird Trend in certain corners of American politics to be very very racialized and even to criticize explicit racial groups almost is a prora and you unfortunately have participated in that and I want to ask just a couple of questions on that before I do I want to illustrate this um by pointing out something that's going on in my state we have a a very very bad train crash in East Palestine Ohio it's caused a terrible chemical spill likely environmental consequences uh as far as the eye can see and of course we're doing as much as we can to help constituents on the ground uh but I note that Secretary of Transportation Pete budes yesterday uh when he made some public remarks instead of commenting on this or talking about the issue or giving any reason to think that he's focused on one of the major transportation mishaps in this country over the last couple of years he decided to instead focus on the terrible scourge of too many white men in the construction industry and I find that Preposterous both on its own face but also as a focus from the Secretary of Transportation so I I want to read you a tweet with with that uh that backdrop in mind and I quote President Obama is a raggedy black supremacist president and his cowardly enablers would rather kill everybody than stop killing white people do you think a person who said that should be appointed or confirmed to the FCC could you could you re re I didn't quite get that could you just reread that would you mind President Obama is a raggedy black supremacist president and his cowardly enablers would rather kill everybody than stop killing white people do you think a person yes or no who says that should be appointed to the FCC I I would need to know more of the context honestly okay well I think clearly a person who said that should not be appointed to the FCC and in fact you retweeted the exact same thing only with President Trump in said of President Obama and the races reversed let me read another tweet and let me ask you if this is an acceptable thing for an FCC commissioner angry black woman not a good look judge Brown Jackson would a person who tweeted that prativa right I think that's preposterous come on uh you tweeted at judge Kavanaugh angry white man not a goodlook judge Kavanaugh now here's why I think that it's relevant we live in a country that's very diverse people come from very different backgrounds and one of the the things that preserves what little racial comedy and Harmony we have in this country is that our leaders don't use that racial comedy and Harmony like a toddler who discovered their daddy's gun you talk about racial issues in a way that will inflame the very worst things in our country and I fear that if you're given this position of authority you will use that authority to continue to inflame and to continue potentially even to censor based on some of these ideas now I've just Illustrated a couple of ways that we talk about these issues or some of our leaders talk about these issues I hope that I never do and if I do I hope my constituents will hold me to account for it uh but one of the things uh that that I fear here is that you're being appointed to a position with an incredible amount of control over the way that we communicate with each other the way that we debate with each other the way that our politics actually manifests itself in the public debate and I guess I'd ask you do you think those com ments are a good thing for the American people to hear given how much power you will have if you get confirmed Senator I made those comments in my role as either a private citizen or a public Advocate and they will have absolutely no bearing on how I would act as an FCC commissioner m i I appreciate that but but they reveal something about how you see the world how you think about the world and how you feel about the world so I I understand and respect that you made them in your capacity as a private citizen but they are reflective of a person who will have a lot of power if the Senate confirms your nomination and this is why I'm going to oppose your nomination despite some areas of subst substantive agreement thank you Miss son Senator if I if I could just say uh I can't just walk into the FCC and say okay GG wants all these things to happen and they will happen okay first of all I will I'm not going to be the chair and let's put that one on the table and put that to bed because that's the latest K Street rumor right that that the White House wants to make me the chair that's false okay you have to as FCC commissioner you have to follow the law you have to follow the administrative procedure act there's a procedure before you you have to follow the record you have to meet with stakeholders you can't just willy-nilly make a decision based on what your predictions are and if I were to do that well first of all I'd have to get two other votes unlikely but if that were to happen a court could reverse it because you have to follow process and I think it's really important for people who think that I'm some sort of sengali who could just walk into the FCC and make it Bend to my will that I can't do that under the law U Miss look I I I appreciate that and I appreciate that we have a constitution and we have certain procedures we have to follow of course I'm one of a 100 senators and I can't walk into this body uh and and make things exactly as I want them the point is not that you'll have complete power over the FCC the point is that we live in a country that is undergoing a series of very toxic movements in the way that we talk about one another and I think in particular the racial dialogue the racial rhetoric that you've used is disqualifying whether you have a lot of power or a little power I don't think it's what we need in our public administrators I yield the rest of my time thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator next thank you uh Senator Vance great thank you madam chair and Mr Washington thanks for uh thanks for being here um I want to ask just a just a a threshold question here so this is from the LA Metro Equity platform this is a graphic that appears I believe on the first page and I understand this is something the equity platform you supported over and over again in some of your public comments I'm actually just I'd love for you to explain what this means well thank you uh for the question uh Senator um yes we uh advocated and supported uh Equity uh in a big way uh LA Metro and every uh organization that I have been a part of I think it's crucial uh for us uh to understand uh diversity equity and inclusion uh and so what you're looking at is is equity uh with everyone on a Level Playing Field if you will uh and uh that is what we exposed um at every organization that I've been in especially uh LA Metro and what are What are the these boxes represent I guess I mean there you know equality here they have differ Siz boxes and then here there are different boxes here I'm just curious what this is supposed to mean yeah well that is uh you know opportunity if you will opportunity uh and how you uh position uh people that may be less fortunate uh for the same opportunities that other people might receive okay uh I I got to say Mr Washington I I appreciate the the attempt at an explanation there but I don't fully understand why equality and Equity are different I would assume that equality of opportunity is something that we all uh believe in and agree with uh I I worry just in some of your public comments and some of the things that you said uh you tend to take this this focus of of of explicitly saying that color blindness of looking at people without regards to skin color is somehow in and of itself discriminatory and I was hoping to uh to elucidate that a little bit by by appeal to this chart and try to understand it a little bit better but I have to be honest and I'm not trying to be rude Mr Washington I I just don't fully understand what this is meant to convey and how it might influence some of your policies uh in an effort to to kind of drill down to that I just want to ask just a few questions here uh because you know the aviation industry is is maybe uh the the single industry where aptitude and where safety matter more than almost anything else I mean I can't imagine even going under the knife I'd probably choose having a safe pilot as more important than than even going under the knife for a surgery so I I just want to ask sort of how this this criticism of colorblindness that you've had in some some remarks in your career intersect with how you think about the standards for Pilots uh that exist in the aviation industry so a few just very direct questions do you believe that white black and Latino airline pilots should be able to read speak and understand English before becoming commercial airline pilots yes I do great thank you uh do you believe white black and Latino airline pilots should have to hold the commercial pilot certificate uh and an instrument rating as they currently have to do oh yes I do great uh do you believe that white black and Latino airline pilots should have to have at least 1500 hours of Total flight time in order to receive an airline transport license uh yes I do okay thank you Mr Washington I I I appreciate that and here's the reason why I ask those those questions because there is an inconsistency between some of the diversity equity and inclusion rhetoric on the one hand and the fact that we should hold everybody to equal standards no matter what uh I have I have three young children a 5-year-old a three-year-old and a one-year-old um you know they're a couple of their grandparents live in San Diego California so they're on a they're on a flight a couple times a year at least uh I'm actually totally supportive of of what you might call A Rooney Rule here I absolutely believe that if we take you know black citizens or White Citizens or anybody who hasn't had the same opportunities as everybody else it's great to to make that extra effort to ensure that they have the opportunity to become commercial airline pilots or federal administrators or whatever the case may be what what I worry about is that that some of our aviation industry uh some of the experts and some of the ideas centered around diversity equity and inclusion seem to take the idea that we should relax standards in an effort to promote certain groups of certain racial or gender categories and I I just think that's a terrible terrible way to run an airline industry uh I don't really care whether the pilot that I have uh what their gender is what their skin color is I just care about whether they can do the job and I hope uh I hope that you're committed to the same exact attitude because if we don't have safe airline pilots and if we relax the standards in an effort to get Pilots of a certain skin color or a certain gender it's going to be disastrous quite literally thank you

uh thank you Mr chair um and and thanks to the three of you for being here I would have talked just a little bit about the inherent unfairness and what I think transpired with Silicon Valley Bank and you I come from the Venture Capital industry and this is a statement against interests and certainly a statement against the interests of of some of my friends but uh the the business model of Silicon Valley Bank was to provide banking services to venture capital firms and to venture-backed companies and if you think about the fundamental trade that was implied and I would even say explicit in their business business model what they did is they offered highly beneficial Financial products to venture back companies and Venture capitalists in exchange for having a large number of deposits in your Silicon Valley bank account sometimes often exclusively so a common practice for example uh was to say that you would provide a line of credit to a venture capital firm but only if that firm put all of its money 100% of its deposits in Silicon Valley Bank or they would offer private jet financing goodies that are basically beneficial only to the very wealthy in exchange for having all of your deposits at Silicon Valley bank now given that that was implied in the business model of the bank I think it&#39;s important that we use the term bailout and I know that some of you don&#39;t like that term but I think it&#39;s the only term that applies fairly here because we using excess fees on Community Banks all across the country effectively chose to bail out the uninsured deposit of Silicon Valley bank now there are some outrageous examples there I think you know one firm had had had deposits over $3 billion another I think Roku had deposits of 500 million um but there were a lot of people a lot of firms at Silicon Valley Bank that had deposits well over a million well over $5 million and what we did in practice do was was bail them out I I guess my first question i&#39; I&#39;d put this to all three of you mean because time is limited I I i&#39; I&#39;d like to um I I&#39;d like you to answer quickly is what is the threshold what whether whether you guys meant to or not I I think the the the implication of what happened with Silicon Valley Bank is that there are a lot of people who expect that their uninsured deposits are effectively insured at an unlimited level or if you&#39;re a banker uh there&#39;s an assumption from a lot of people that at a certain level if you&#39;re systemically important enough your uninsured depositors are going to get bailed out uh maybe just go from left to right starting with Mr Greenberg but at at what level do you think uninsured deposits in theory are effectively Unlimited unsur in our banking system today well if I may say senator you&#39;re asking important questions I think we have a lot of lessons to learn from this episode uh the decision to cover uninsured depositors at these two institutions was a highly consequential one yes that has implications for the system I I think we need and I indicated in my statement earlier uh we need to do a comprehensive review of our Deposit Insurance Insurance system and consider the questions that you rais the FDIC is going to undertake that and by May 1 will deliver a report including uh policy considerations uh to take into account so we we want to try to be responsive on that thank you Mr B I also think you uh you you rais important questions uh when we were looking at the systemic risk determination uh with respect to uh these institutions uh we were thinking of about the risk to the broader Financial system not the particular uh depositors uh at at one or or two institutions you&#39;re thinking about and concerned about the extent to which that could impact Regional Banks across the country Community Banks across the country we were hearing concerns um from Bankers and from depositors from businesses around the country it&#39;s a difficult judgment but one that at the end of the day unanimous FDIC board and a unanimous Federal Reserve Board of the treasury secretary agreed that that that risk to the system was not a risk that was worth taking uh and so you know today I think we can you know say that that the banking system is sound and resilient and the steps we took demonstrated that resilience and the safety of deposits around the country so so I I&#39;m less concerned um less concerned with the decision itself though obviously I have a lot of questions there I think there&#39;s an open question about whether we could have provided the confidence to the banking system and the liquidity that was needed in case of a bank run without bailing out the uninsured Silicon Valley Bank depositors I think that&#39;s maybe a topic for for a follow on hearing but what I worry about is is the the the fundamental unfairness here that we&#39;ve drawn a line and I don&#39;t know whether the line stops at Silicon Valley Bank maybe it goes much further maybe it stops there where if you&#39;re systemically important which is a term that impossible for anybody here to Define with confidence if you&#39;re systemically important your uninsured deposits are effectively unlimited um in their insurance whereas if you&#39;re not systemically important if you&#39;re a Regional Bank in Ohio there&#39;s a very good chance that your uninsured depositors will not receive that bailet and I think that uncertainty is a really really big problem with what you guys have done uh I&#39;m not saying that an accusatory way I understand that there were reasons to do what you did even though I don&#39;t think it was the right decision I&#39;m just saying I think it has some real moral hazard here uh I I know I&#39;m over time here so so the one thing I&#39;d ask here uh is just uh unanimous consent to introduce a letter to the record from American Share Insurance uh this company provides private disposit insurance to most State chartered Credit Unions uh including the 43 in Ohio and just on this point of moral hazard and on this point of unfairness what I what I&#39;d like to I&#39;d like you guys to consider doing is extending the same implied offer that you gave to the Silicon Valley Bank uninsured depositors to do it a little bit further down uh the banking ladder so that everybody benefits from the rule that you guys have created for Silicon Valley Bank without without objection Senator thank you uh thank you Mr chairman thank all of you uh for your service and and uh thank you Mr chair and thanks to um deputy secretary for being here um I would to ask just a couple of questions about our sanctions regime and potentially you know efforts within this body to really ramp up that that sanctions regime so um you and I I believe discussed last year excuse me um you know how the sanctions on Russia after Putin&#39;s invasion of Ukraine what effect they were having on the Russian economy what effects actually matched our expectations and what effects didn&#39;t match our expectations uh you know we&#39;re we&#39;re a little further down the road here uh it&#39;s April of 20124 do do we have a good sense of how the Russian economy did in 201 23 and how effective the sanctions were or were not at inhibiting Russian growth we have a better sense now than we did um earlier this year and to answer your question sender I think what we have found is that the Russian economy has largely transitioned to a war economy where all the tools of production have went from building out a diversified economy that was styled for long-term growth to one that is driven by a short-term need to build as many weapons as possible to further their War AIMS in Ukraine and what did their GDP grow last year do you know their GDP I believe grew somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 to 2% okay uh which is you know frankly at or above some of our European allies and uh I I I really do worry here and and I agree with you that they&#39;ve transitioned their economy to a war footing that has its own internal momentum and one of the things I worry I know this isn&#39;t your area um of focus one of the things I worry some of my my colleagues underappreciate is that that war footing has a certain momentum to it and we should be trying to arrest that war footing as much as possible not leaning into it and prolonging this thing because I worry that once Russia becomes an economy that only works in a time of war that actually makes it more likely and um that they&#39;re going to uh show aggression now and in the future um I want to sort of transition and and and Mr secretary how aware are you of sort of of the repo act REO that&#39;s sort of moving through uh this chamber are you sort of aware broadly with it outline yes I am okay so one of the things that that does and correct me if I&#39;m I&#39;m wrong here CU I&#39;m trying to sort of think through uh my own view on it but one of the really worrying Provisions uh is that as I understand it it would actually freeze the current sanctions regime that we have on Russia in place legally as an act of Congress and so if a future president or a second Biden term wanted to change that sanctions regime they would need an act of Congress to do so is that correct correct I&#39;m not certain of that provision my understanding is that it gives the president certain authorities I don&#39;t know that it freezes the current regime okay uh that&#39;s that&#39;s my understanding at least but I think worth having a follow-up conversation and certainly my staff will follow up as well on that particular topic uh here here&#39;s the thing that I worry about I imagine that we have different preferences for who wins the next presidential election uh Mr secretary but whether it&#39;s a President Biden or president Trump I think it&#39;s really important for the next Administration to have diplomatic flexibility to negotiate what will certainly I think be an end to the Russia Ukraine war whatever end that ultimately takes I hope to God that it doesn&#39;t last another five years and what I worry about with the repo Act is that we actually if we are freezing the sanctions regime we prevent the president from having an important tool at his disposal and actually negotiating a peaceful settlement to that conflict uh let me let me ask just one final question on the repo act as I understand it it would give um it it would effectively Force asset seizure of all Russian assets and I I&#39;m wondering you know h h h have we done that in a time of peace with a country that we&#39;re not directly at war with have we ever done something like what the repo act envisions so SRA the one thing I am clear of is that my understanding at least is the Senate version of the repo act gives the president the ability to doesn&#39;t require him to so and I think part of the reason for that is because we know that the vast majority of those assets are in Europe and we&#39;d only want to act alongside our European allies if we did something like that in terms of um seizing the assets um against a country that were not um engaged in hostility against I don&#39;t know that we have done something like that at this um at this juncture in um at this juncture y I appreciate that Mr secretary uh and with that I I yield the remainder of my time thanks for being here and thanks for answering my questions thank you uh senator waro of George is recognized Senator Kennedy Corner uh Senator Vance of Ohio is recognized all right thank you Mr chairman um and uh Mr Sing I want to direct my questions to you I just want to ask about the the Russian sanctions in particular whether they&#39;ve been effective or ineffective and I want to just as a backdrop here offer a few a few pieces of of information so last March a month into the war in Ukraine President Biden went to the royal castle in Warsaw and unveiled a sanction regime that he said represented a quote new kind of economic statecraft with the power to inflict damage that Rivals military might um I certainly hope he was wrong because if he wasn&#39;t then I&#39;m a bit more worried about our military might than I was before I just read this quote because look the the the issue here is that the sanctions if you look at the numbers have clearly not matched up with what the Biden Administration predicted so a couple of pieces of information Biden swore that the Russian economy would be quote cut in half the White House predicted that last year the Russian economy would shrink by 15% or more in fact it shrank just 2.2% uh Biden I believe said that the Russian Ruble would be reduced to Rubble in fact the Russian Rubble is one of the best performing international currencies in the world today and is worth uh compared to our dollar is worth the same that it was when the invasion began a little over a year ago um you know you were the architect of these sanctions and so I&#39;d like to better understand the approach that you advise President Biden to take but first I I would like your candid assessment do you think that these sanctions have been effective thank you Senator I think sanctions are doing their job they&#39;re not the only tool we&#39;re deploying the most important ones are helping Ukraine fight for its freedom enlarging and fortifying NATO&#39;s Eastern flank helping the world get off of Russian energy welcoming the millions of refugees flowing into Europe uh and and you know these are these are the tools that in tandem can make a difference but when it comes to sanctions yes I think they&#39;re doing their job you are correct sir that the decline in Russia&#39;s GDP 2.2% last year is lower than what many expected including me but as I as I mentioned uh previously I think what Putin has done is credit a patkin facade he has propped up this year&#39;s growth by sacrificing his long-term growth potential how Capital controls if you have a Ruble in Russia it&#39;s very difficult to convert that to a dollar if you can&#39;t access dollars you can&#39;t import anything without Imports Russia can&#39;t modernize or diversify its economy Russia weaponized energy that of course pushed up Energy prices that flattered net exports that flattered GDP growth but he&#39;s lost half of his energy customers and oil and gas revenues are down 50% year-over-year and then the last thing he did is he spiked government spending by 60% um you can do that to prop up GDP growth but you&#39;ll deplete National savings you&#39;ll drive up inflation you&#39;ll drive up interest rates we&#39;ve degraded his military industrial complex we&#39;ve cut off Russia from its its major energy consumer in in in Europe so Mr I want to just unpack a couple of points there so so certainly take the point that perhaps the Russian long-term economic damage has been there uh but it&#39;s a little concerning for us as policy makers when the administration says that these sanctions are going to be effectively a a military grade deployment into the Russian economy and then you look at the Topline data and that just hasn&#39;t been borne out uh and I and I worry about that I also worry I I spoke to an international relations scholar yesterday who who really expressed some concern about whether America&#39;s deployment of sanctions in this particular context and the failure to see obvious short-term benefit to the Americans uh obvious short-term damage or at least nearly as significant as short-term damage to the Russians uh actually causes some credibility issues with our with our own government um one just a couple of of other questions here so I I wonder when you guys were thinking about designing these sanctions if you maybe underweighted and under um understated the importance of manufacturing mining the sort of real sectors of the economy that are much more important when you&#39;re developing a war economy than let&#39;s say uh Finance or technology um or at least digital technology I&#39;m I&#39;m sort of curious there sort of how you think about that because you mentioned the Russian industrial base being degraded uh but when I look at Russians you know having a six to1 artillery advantage against the ukrainians and being able to as apparently as far as the eye can see de develop artillery munition in a way where already America&#39;s stocks are being depleted uh it looks in in in on the ground as if the Russians continue to have not just an artillery advantage today but will plausibly have an artillery Advantage six months in the future um did you guys underweight the importance of manufacturing mining um the the sort of the the the the the older economy according to a lot of people but the economy that actually matters when you&#39;re fighting a war uh thank you Senator it&#39;s a good question uh you know look so we designed the sanctions to apply pressure where we have uh a strength that intersects with Russia&#39;s vulnerability so foreign Capital was one of those areas cuttingedge technology was a second and yes we have gotten into Supply chains where we feel like we had Collective leverage over Russia but you know look I think as it relates to the battlefield impact uh we&#39;ll never know because the Intelligence on the ground in Russia is so sparse but every indication that I&#39;ve that I&#39;ve seen is that he&#39;s running out of prec precision guided Munitions running out of avionics night vision goggles satellites tank production car production uh and he&#39;s having to rely on industrial goods like dishwashers and breast pumps to actually uh function his his equipment in his military he&#39;s relying on North Korea and Iran to substitute for uh the kind of Technology you need to prosecute a war of this scale Meanwhile we&#39;re supplying the most sophisticated Weaponry that we can uh to Ukraine so I think we&#39;re giving leverage to Ukraine on the battlefield that&#39;s really where it matters most sanctions will never be a substitute for that kind of support thank you thanks all right thank you and I&#39;ve been left with I want to direct some questions about about housing first to miss CER and miss miss yentel um and I I want to sort of introduce this by you know I when I was a kid we had a neighbor move in uh next door to us actually and I I live with my grandmother and um you know she was a a particularly trouble person suffered with some serious substance abuse problems and I remember one case in particular where she called the landlord who&#39;s actually a family friend of ours because before she moved in uh this person lived there and uh said you know I&#39;ve got a leaky a leaky ceiling problem and the guy showed up and investigated and the woman had passed out she was on drugs on the bottom floor and on the top floor she had set a bath to run and what had caused the Leaky ceiling and in fact destroy the entire upper level of the house uh was that she had set a bath and then gotten high and passed out and I think it illustrates a particular problem with some of the approaches that we&#39;ve taken to homelessness and housing where uh we we tend to want to address so-called housing first without addressing the root causes of homelessness and I worry about this in in this particular context because whether it&#39;s in our urban communities or in our rural communities if we don&#39;t treat the root cause of homelessness we end up creating cycles of Despair where even when you get women like this into a good home ultimately uh it can be very destructive and not ultimately solve the the very problem that we&#39;re trying to solve so I guess the very first question I asked first to miss Calder is do you think that we should allow people who have serious substance abuse problems should we be giving them housing without any preconditions on substance abuse counseling therapy and so forth um look I think that the homeless population is a diverse population and so um from my perspective it doesn&#39;t make sense to have a one-sized fits-all policy I think housing first is um it&#39;s a idea that has been adopted pretty rigidly in places like California um there are complaintant in California from shelters that are you know women and children shelters only and they say look we can&#39;t get any state funding for our homeless efforts here but we&#39;re doing a really important job here we need to um you know have rules around substance use and the reason for that is that these women that come into this shelter a lot of times they&#39;re fighting for custody they want to secure custody of their kids and it&#39;s hard to do that in an environment where people are using substances so I think that there should be um you know I think we should let all different types of homeless approaches um you know Bloom and um have a lot of diversity in that regard and I think that unfortunately housing first has been adopted in some places and and that diversity has been sort of squatched yeah it&#39;s s of build on that before turning to you missel so as I understand the problem with housing first is is precisely the one fits-all approach in other words you can take housing programs that are attempting to treat the root cause of homelessness but then you&#39;re denying them federal funds if they&#39;re not following the so-called housing first approach I guess Mr NE I just asked directly do you agree with that approach and I&#39;d love to hear why or why not yeah thank you for the question Senator Vance uh first the root cause of homelessness the one thing that all people experiencing homelessness have in common is lack of access to a decent stable affordable home home and the research and the evidence are very clear that if people have substance abuse challenges or mental illness they are best able to address those challenges from a stable home so low barrier housing first approaches that get people into affordable stable homes and then provide them with voluntary um Supportive Services as necessary is shown again and again in the research and the evidence to be the most effective way to address homelessness and there are a number of examples in your state of Ohio um very successful housing first programs that work with people experiencing homelessness who don&#39;t have substance abuse or mental health challenges and those who do and in both cases it&#39;s the housing first approach that low barrier uh approach to getting somebody stably housed first that works we tried sobriety requirements back in the 80s and the 90s as a country that was our approach to addressing homelessness we had a stairstep model where people had to prove that they were so-called housing ready it didn&#39;t work and it was overly expensive so let me just a couple a couple points on that Miss hinel so so first of all it&#39;s interesting to contrast the 80s and 90s with where we are today because while we&#39;ve been trying a housing first based approach for the past few years in this country as I understand it spending about 200% more on how on on home or providing homes to the to the homeless 200% more on homeless support than we were when when we weren&#39;t trying housing first and yet simultaneously the homeless population in the country has gone up 20% so startes me is a very bad deal for the American taxpayer but more importantly for the homeless if we&#39;re spending twice as much or more and yet we&#39;ve seen the Homeless Problem get worse in this country I think related point I know I&#39;m short on time here so I&#39;ll yield after after just making this point is I really worry about the social contagion effect on this because it&#39;s not of course just the homeless people themselves who are affected but it&#39;s the people they share a neighborhood or people they share a building complex with and I I really worry that what housing first has done is taken a lot of of people who are very much struggling and very much deserving of our compassion though I think how we how we provide that compassion is Up For Debate uh but it also introduces you know people with serious drug problems serious with mental serious mental illness problems into communities with kids who are already in a very unstable situation and now they&#39;re having things like drug use normalized around them and that&#39;s certainly what you see in some of the some of the neighborhoods where you have uh people moving in who are struggling in very significant ways sometimes those behaviors can become normalized to the kids around them and I worry about that and I worry that the housing first approach is focusing just on the homeless population and failing by the way but also it&#39;s ignoring a lot of the kids who are affected by this housing approach again if housing first is working why isn&#39;t it working the homeless problem is getting worse sure time to answer that go on Miss yeah that&#39;s fine go on Miss so um again with respect and the evidence and the data are so clear that housing first does work we know and it works in your state of Ohio we know how to end homelessness and in fact individuals have their homelessness ended every day in Ohio and throughout the country what we can&#39;t do is stem the tide of people newly falling into homelessness as rents increase much faster than incomes do and to the point of mental illness and substance abuse and contagion I would just say that there are many people who are safely housed who suffer from mental illness and substance abuse and I think we don&#39;t hear the same concerns about contagion raised there it&#39;s because their substance abuse isn&#39;t as public because they have the ability to close their door at night and get the re the uh services and resources that they need while they&#39;re housed I would love to also just note that there are many different types of people experiencing homelessness and actually the majority of people who do experience homelessness are working households or households who have struggled with being able to make ends meet as rent Skyrocket and the cost of um their incomes does not meet the increased rent as well so there&#39;s a lot I would love to have a follow-up conversation with you and to introduce you to some of the housing first providers in Ohio who could share with you their success with the program thanks thank Miss youel Senator Warren of Massachusetts is recognized thank you Mr chairman so uh member to ask questions I just want to clarify that the video that we saw earlier was a simulation done by Senator Cruz I think in his team that was not a real exact video of the incident there seems to be some confusion about that so no no ma&#39;am I I knew it was a simulation yes okay yeah yeah thank you I I you clearly stated that but not everybody got it may have captured that so we just want to reiterate that um we next I have Senator Vance thank you madam chair uh Mr Nolan thank you for being here um I did not realize that g ask just a little bit about some of the uh the unusual increases in obsession with the vocabulary and language that we&#39;re seeing in some of the FAA guidance and uh you know related documents related to our aviation industry um I want to ask did the FAA issue 176 page guidance document changing uh notice to Airmen to notices of air mission in December of 2021 we did this was in part to advo using the gender term Airman correct yes sir I believe so okay on November 10th 2021 the FAA held an inclusive language Summit are you familiar with this effort I am familiar with it during the summit which had a solicitation published in the Federal Register Deputy Administrator uh Mims stated that when we use terms like Airmen or unmanned aircraft sorry I&#39;m laughing because I this this has to be a joke we&#39;re sending a message that only men belong in the Aerospace Community do you agree with that statement well Senator what I could say is that having been a pilot for 42 years and seeing the evolution of our Aerospace industry I started out in helicopters and have flown as a captain and big jetliners sure not everyone is a pilot today we have drones we have spaceships uh spacecraft I&#39;m sorry and so I I do believe going to notices to air missions is absolutely the right thing to do it is a accurate reflection of where our Aerospace system is today fully supportive of that and none of that by the way detracts from our mission which is the safety of our airospace and that will always be our North Star yeah I think the point of if it makes sense for some Aviation reason that&#39;s fine if it makes sense purely to avoid gendered language it seems like an un preoccupation with the words that you&#39;re using and that we&#39;re using rather than the work that we&#39;re doing uh I want to just ask a couple of additional questions about this this Summit the public notice uh for the meeting stated if any individual employer contractor or industry partner feels excluded or marginalized because of language or words the work of the agency suffers do you agree that the feelings of FAA employees about language are this important what I agree is that as we seek to attract the Next Generation ation of people into Aerospace mostly they won&#39;t look like the people sitting in this room and so it&#39;s our ability to say how do we bring tomorrow into today into an industry that is evolving right right before our eyes so our ability to find inclusive ways of reaching underrepresented groups is a right path to be on okay I&#39;d ask you unanimous consent to enter into the record the Drone advisory committee public ebook I have it right here this document uses the term wife is an example of the type of language that we need to eliminate is that something you support I&#39;m I&#39;m sorry could you restate the question I&#39;m sorry sir yeah I just said so I&#39;m asking unanimous consent first of all to enter this into the record but but it it explains that wife the word wife uh is an example of the type of language that we need to eliminate and I&#39;m just asking if that&#39;s something you think is necessary or something you support I&#39;d have to give that one some more thought I well I would hope that the word wife is not something that we or or is something that we can all agree is a reasonable vocabulary word that most Americans use in their daily life it&#39;s not something that we need to eliminate um I don&#39;t have much time here so it would just ask here um at the same Summit the the during a panel called how the FAA is pushing gender language boundaries the panelist stated that FAA leadership brought us to where we are here today we see the recommendations from the committee as a foundation but it&#39;s also just the beginning of the conversation it strikes me that preoccupying ourselves so much with the words that we use rather than the work that we do especially as our infrastructure appears to be crumbling and we&#39;ve had major flight outages the last couple of years is at best a distraction and at worst um a a thing that takes attention away from focusing on on the real problems uh I I I worry what I especially I represent the people of Ohio and I&#39;m very confident that the majority of Ohioans if there is a pilot who is offended by the word wife or the word cockpit maybe that person shouldn&#39;t be a pilot so rather than coot toing to people who are fragile maybe we should actually say if you&#39;re so worried about the words that we are using you shouldn&#39;t be flying um you know multi-ton metal engines through the sky uh and I just ask all of us to maybe try to focus as much on real problems like the fact that our Aviation system seems to not be working as well as it used to uh than the fact that we may use un inclusive or under inclusive language uh thank you Mr I appreciate it all right Senator Luhan thank you um Mr chairman and U Miss Son thank you for uh for for coming before us today so I want to take my line of questioning in a slightly different direction from some of the other folks and I I think just to be direct with you miss Zone there are actually the areas of substantive agreement between the two of us on some of these issues um but I also notice that you are a participant in what I would call this weird racialization of American political record rhetoric in the last few years and in particular I think coming out of a desire to give equal opportunity and fairness to every American regardless of skin color that&#39;s of course a very good thing uh there&#39;s been this weird Trend in certain corners of American politics to be very very racialized and even to criticize explicit racial groups almost is a prora and you unfortunately have participated in that and I want to ask just a couple of questions on that before I do I want to illustrate this um by pointing out something that&#39;s going on in my state we have a a very very bad train crash in East Palestine Ohio it&#39;s caused a terrible chemical spill likely environmental consequences uh as far as the eye can see and of course we&#39;re doing as much as we can to help constituents on the ground uh but I note that Secretary of Transportation Pete budes yesterday uh when he made some public remarks instead of commenting on this or talking about the issue or giving any reason to think that he&#39;s focused on one of the major transportation mishaps in this country over the last couple of years he decided to instead focus on the terrible scourge of too many white men in the construction industry and I find that Preposterous both on its own face but also as a focus from the Secretary of Transportation so I I want to read you a tweet with with that uh that backdrop in mind and I quote President Obama is a raggedy black supremacist president and his cowardly enablers would rather kill everybody than stop killing white people do you think a person who said that should be appointed or confirmed to the FCC could you could you re re I didn&#39;t quite get that could you just reread that would you mind President Obama is a raggedy black supremacist president and his cowardly enablers would rather kill everybody than stop killing white people do you think a person yes or no who says that should be appointed to the FCC I I would need to know more of the context honestly okay well I think clearly a person who said that should not be appointed to the FCC and in fact you retweeted the exact same thing only with President Trump in said of President Obama and the races reversed let me read another tweet and let me ask you if this is an acceptable thing for an FCC commissioner angry black woman not a good look judge Brown Jackson would a person who tweeted that prativa right I think that&#39;s preposterous come on uh you tweeted at judge Kavanaugh angry white man not a goodlook judge Kavanaugh now here&#39;s why I think that it&#39;s relevant we live in a country that&#39;s very diverse people come from very different backgrounds and one of the the things that preserves what little racial comedy and Harmony we have in this country is that our leaders don&#39;t use that racial comedy and Harmony like a toddler who discovered their daddy&#39;s gun you talk about racial issues in a way that will inflame the very worst things in our country and I fear that if you&#39;re given this position of authority you will use that authority to continue to inflame and to continue potentially even to censor based on some of these ideas now I&#39;ve just Illustrated a couple of ways that we talk about these issues or some of our leaders talk about these issues I hope that I never do and if I do I hope my constituents will hold me to account for it uh but one of the things uh that that I fear here is that you&#39;re being appointed to a position with an incredible amount of control over the way that we communicate with each other the way that we debate with each other the way that our politics actually manifests itself in the public debate and I guess I&#39;d ask you do you think those com ments are a good thing for the American people to hear given how much power you will have if you get confirmed Senator I made those comments in my role as either a private citizen or a public Advocate and they will have absolutely no bearing on how I would act as an FCC commissioner m i I appreciate that but but they reveal something about how you see the world how you think about the world and how you feel about the world so I I understand and respect that you made them in your capacity as a private citizen but they are reflective of a person who will have a lot of power if the Senate confirms your nomination and this is why I&#39;m going to oppose your nomination despite some areas of subst substantive agreement thank you Miss son Senator if I if I could just say uh I can&#39;t just walk into the FCC and say okay GG wants all these things to happen and they will happen okay first of all I will I&#39;m not going to be the chair and let&#39;s put that one on the table and put that to bed because that&#39;s the latest K Street rumor right that that the White House wants to make me the chair that&#39;s false okay you have to as FCC commissioner you have to follow the law you have to follow the administrative procedure act there&#39;s a procedure before you you have to follow the record you have to meet with stakeholders you can&#39;t just willy-nilly make a decision based on what your predictions are and if I were to do that well first of all I&#39;d have to get two other votes unlikely but if that were to happen a court could reverse it because you have to follow process and I think it&#39;s really important for people who think that I&#39;m some sort of sengali who could just walk into the FCC and make it Bend to my will that I can&#39;t do that under the law U Miss look I I I appreciate that and I appreciate that we have a constitution and we have certain procedures we have to follow of course I&#39;m one of a 100 senators and I can&#39;t walk into this body uh and and make things exactly as I want them the point is not that you&#39;ll have complete power over the FCC the point is that we live in a country that is undergoing a series of very toxic movements in the way that we talk about one another and I think in particular the racial dialogue the racial rhetoric that you&#39;ve used is disqualifying whether you have a lot of power or a little power I don&#39;t think it&#39;s what we need in our public administrators I yield the rest of my time thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator next thank you uh Senator Vance great thank you madam chair and Mr Washington thanks for uh thanks for being here um I want to ask just a just a a threshold question here so this is from the LA Metro Equity platform this is a graphic that appears I believe on the first page and I understand this is something the equity platform you supported over and over again in some of your public comments I&#39;m actually just I&#39;d love for you to explain what this means well thank you uh for the question uh Senator um yes we uh advocated and supported uh Equity uh in a big way uh LA Metro and every uh organization that I have been a part of I think it&#39;s crucial uh for us uh to understand uh diversity equity and inclusion uh and so what you&#39;re looking at is is equity uh with everyone on a Level Playing Field if you will uh and uh that is what we exposed um at every organization that I&#39;ve been in especially uh LA Metro and what are What are the these boxes represent I guess I mean there you know equality here they have differ Siz boxes and then here there are different boxes here I&#39;m just curious what this is supposed to mean yeah well that is uh you know opportunity if you will opportunity uh and how you uh position uh people that may be less fortunate uh for the same opportunities that other people might receive okay uh I I got to say Mr Washington I I appreciate the the attempt at an explanation there but I don&#39;t fully understand why equality and Equity are different I would assume that equality of opportunity is something that we all uh believe in and agree with uh I I worry just in some of your public comments and some of the things that you said uh you tend to take this this focus of of of explicitly saying that color blindness of looking at people without regards to skin color is somehow in and of itself discriminatory and I was hoping to uh to elucidate that a little bit by by appeal to this chart and try to understand it a little bit better but I have to be honest and I&#39;m not trying to be rude Mr Washington I I just don&#39;t fully understand what this is meant to convey and how it might influence some of your policies uh in an effort to to kind of drill down to that I just want to ask just a few questions here uh because you know the aviation industry is is maybe uh the the single industry where aptitude and where safety matter more than almost anything else I mean I can&#39;t imagine even going under the knife I&#39;d probably choose having a safe pilot as more important than than even going under the knife for a surgery so I I just want to ask sort of how this this criticism of colorblindness that you&#39;ve had in some some remarks in your career intersect with how you think about the standards for Pilots uh that exist in the aviation industry so a few just very direct questions do you believe that white black and Latino airline pilots should be able to read speak and understand English before becoming commercial airline pilots yes I do great thank you uh do you believe white black and Latino airline pilots should have to hold the commercial pilot certificate uh and an instrument rating as they currently have to do oh yes I do great uh do you believe that white black and Latino airline pilots should have to have at least 1500 hours of Total flight time in order to receive an airline transport license uh yes I do okay thank you Mr Washington I I I appreciate that and here&#39;s the reason why I ask those those questions because there is an inconsistency between some of the diversity equity and inclusion rhetoric on the one hand and the fact that we should hold everybody to equal standards no matter what uh I have I have three young children a 5-year-old a three-year-old and a one-year-old um you know they&#39;re a couple of their grandparents live in San Diego California so they&#39;re on a they&#39;re on a flight a couple times a year at least uh I&#39;m actually totally supportive of of what you might call A Rooney Rule here I absolutely believe that if we take you know black citizens or White Citizens or anybody who hasn&#39;t had the same opportunities as everybody else it&#39;s great to to make that extra effort to ensure that they have the opportunity to become commercial airline pilots or federal administrators or whatever the case may be what what I worry about is that that some of our aviation industry uh some of the experts and some of the ideas centered around diversity equity and inclusion seem to take the idea that we should relax standards in an effort to promote certain groups of certain racial or gender categories and I I just think that&#39;s a terrible terrible way to run an airline industry uh I don&#39;t really care whether the pilot that I have uh what their gender is what their skin color is I just care about whether they can do the job and I hope uh I hope that you&#39;re committed to the same exact attitude because if we don&#39;t have safe airline pilots and if we relax the standards in an effort to get Pilots of a certain skin color or a certain gender it&#39;s going to be disastrous quite literally thank you

Transcript for:Lecture Summary on Silicon Valley Bank Bailout and Related Topics

Transcript for:
Lecture Summary on Silicon Valley Bank Bailout and Related Topics