DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND HEARINGS NOTE: Unter Cammies bues. Mr Tong a harmat of de Ful Committee at Mer Cher as Banking Minority Memiter of the Ful Commies as authored a st. as Members of al Suncommittrees. COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida, Chairman RALPH REGULA, Ohio JIM KOLBE, Arizona SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama CHARLES H. TAYLOR, North Carolina ERNEST J. ISTOOK, JR., Oklahoma JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan JACK KINGSTON, Georgia RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington RANDY "DUKE" CUNNINGHAM, California TODD TIAHRT, Kansas ZACH WAMP, Tennessee TOM LATHAM, Iowa ANNE M. NORTHUP, Kentucky JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania VIRGIL H. GOODE, JR., Virginia DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia NANCY PELOSI, California PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana NITA M. LOWEY, New York CARRIE P. MEEK, Florida DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina ROBERT E. "BUD" CRAMER, JR., Alabama JESSE L. JACKSON, JR., Illinois CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania JAMES W. DYER, Clerk and Staff Director (II) DONALD L. EVANS, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE Mr. WOLF. The hearing will begin. Mr. Secretary, we welcome you to the hearing. We look forward to working with you over the next four, or hopefully eight, years, whatever it is, but your full statement will be in the record and you can summarize. But before you do, I will recognize Mr. Serrano. Mr. SERRANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is, indeed, a pleasure to welcome you, Secretary Evans. As I look over your budget, I am always amazed at the scope of programs and activities within the Commerce Department. From the depths of the oceans to outer space and all over the world, your people are doing valuable work to benefit all of us. I represent the poorest District in the country, so I am particularly interested in efforts to close the Digital Divide and make new technology accessible to all. Similarly, I represent a District that had the worst undercount in the 1990 decennial census, so I am keenly interested in getting the most fair and accurate numbers possible out of the 2000 count. I look forward to hearing from you. And, as I do about this time, I remind everyone that I have no sisters, one brother, and he has been working for the Census Bureau longer than I have been in Congress. Just that for the record, Mr. Chairman, and he is still looking for a window in his office, so maybe we can talk about that. [Laughter.] Mr. WOLF. You are welcome to begin. There is a vote on, but we are going to try to rotate so you can continue to go. Go ahead. OPENING REMARKS Secretary EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I am delighted to be here. Congressman, nice to meet you. I think a window is on the way. It is probably a few years off, but I think we have a building on the drawing board and it will soon be under construction and hopefully, your lone brother will have a window. This experience of the last 100 days has been similar to my experience over the last 26 years of my life, which has been in the private sector I have spent a fair amount of my time in the private sector going through a budget that will determine how we would spend our money in the ensuing year. It is a good process. It is an important process to go through. It is always a process that the people that you are working with kind of wonder, at times, why you are going through it, but it does give you a unique opportunity and time in the year to remind everybody what your missions are and what your goals are, and what your objectives are. In the private sector, I used to remind the team that it was not their money. But it was money that belonged to the shareholders of the company, and here the same principles apply. You are simply reminding the team that it is not their money, but they should treat it like it is their money. And so it has been a healthy process for me to have the opportunity to go through it to have a broader, deeper understanding of this vast Department that I now feel the responsibility for. As Congressman Serrano mentioned, there are a lot of agencies and bureaus and a lot of issues that the Commerce Department takes responsibility for. So this has been a good chance for me to get a deeper understanding of the budget. DOC BUDGET GROWTH As you said, Mr. Chairman, my full remarks will be included in the record. I appreciate that. The budget that we are requesting for 2002 is a decrease from the 2001 budget. But I would like to put that in context quickly and say to you that over the last 11 years, the budget for the Commerce Department has grown about 8 percent per year. If you look at the last five years, it has grown about 7 percent per year. If you look at the last three years, the budget for the Commerce Department has grown about 10 percent per year, so I commend this Committee. I commend Congress for funding the Commerce Department in a fiscally sound and responsible way. I think the budget that we have presented and requested is a very effective and responsible budget. It funds the priorities. I ask, through our budget process, that the teams and the departments and bureaus focus heavily on their core mission, their core responsibilities, and the core purpose of their agencies. I don't think there is anything more important when you go through this process than for everybody to clearly understand and be reminded each year what your core mission is. Certainly in Commerce it is to foster and continue the economic growth of this country. So I think we present to you a very responsible and effective and reasonable budget. What I would like to do is just touch on a few of the highlights and then I would of course be happy to answer any questions that you might have. |