00:04Secretary Kennedy, you run a department that touches the lives of almost every American.
00:09Yet, for this budget hearing, these are the six pages that we have gotten in terms of your budget request.
00:20We are also seven and a half months into this fiscal year,
00:26and yet you are not telling the American public anything about how you are spending the billions in taxpayer dollars right now.
00:36You had to submit an operating plan to the Congress, and this is just a sample page, but 530 programs simply have asterisks.
00:50Secretary Kennedy, this isn't about your hiding information from me.
00:55This is about your hiding information from the American public.
01:00And if you're going to cut cancer research or gut mental health support,
01:05at least stand by your work and explain it to the American people.
01:10Now, Secretary Kennedy, I want to start with what I hope is an easy question for you.
01:16Do you think lead poisoning in children is a significant concern?
01:21Is lead poisoning in children a significant concern?
01:26It's an extremely significant concern.
01:29Then I would like to know why your department has effectively shut down the very program to address lead poisoning in children.
01:39The city of Milwaukee requested assistance from the CDC to help the city respond to lead poisoning cases tied to public schools.
01:51Six schools have been closed, displacing more than 1,800 school children.
01:58The request for federal assistance was denied because of lack of staff.
02:03The entire childhood lead poisoning branch has been fired.
02:08In the words of a Milwaukee mom, it really sends a message of, you don't matter.
02:14I don't know what you would say to parents who must now test their children for lead and deal with school closures.
02:21But do you intend to eliminate this branch at CDC, yes or no?
02:27No, we do not.
02:28Okay.
02:29Because you cannot tell us that you want to make America healthy again when you are willfully destroying programs that keep children safe and healthy from lead poisoning.
02:43Congress dedicated $51 million in funding for this particular program.
02:49But when a community asks for help to prevent lifelong complications for children and there is no one there to pick up the phone,
02:58and it's not because this program is ineffective, it's because you fired the entire team whose job it is to support communities like Milwaukee.
03:11If that money has been appropriated, we will spend that money.
03:15If it's been appropriated to Milwaukee, we will spend it in Milwaukee.
03:18I've spent a lot of time in Milwaukee working on that.
03:20It's to provide expert, and the entire staff has been fired.
03:26Secretary Kennedy, I did note in your opening testimony, although we wouldn't know it from the skinny budget that we have, that you plan on funding the Head Start program.
03:39But I want to tell you about the ramifications of what has happened to date with regard to Head Start.
03:48I've heard from families across the state, people who are terrified about the uncertainty and instability surrounding Head Start.
03:56Just one week into President Trump's administration, Head Start programs in Wisconsin suddenly couldn't access their grant funding.
04:05It forced one Head Start in Waukesha, Wisconsin to temporarily close, leaving 250 families without care.
04:15Over the last four months, HHS has provided roughly a billion dollars less to Head Start programs across the country than during the same period last year.
04:28The delays in funding have exacerbated uncertainty for programs needing to make payroll.
04:34And in some instances, like the one I cited in Waukesha, programs have had to shut their doors until the payments came through.
04:42Now, I don't know what you would say to a parent who is unable to drop their child off at preschool because you failed to get already appropriated money out the door.
04:51Or maybe I should ask you, what would you say to a parent who shows up for Head Start and the doors are closed?
04:59I would be very sad if somebody shut up. I fought very, very hard to make sure that there would be no cuts.
05:06What is causing the delays in Head Start funding?
05:09I fought very hard to make sure that Head Start gets all of its funding next year.
05:17Well, we need it this year, and why are there delays now?
05:22I don't know that there are, Senator, and I will look into it.
05:26But I don't know. There should not be any delays.
05:29The funding is there. We are spending it. It's allocated.
05:32I don't know why there would be those kind of problems.
05:35I can tell you that within the agency, there were people who wanted to make the Trump administration look bad,
05:47and that there were checks held up that shouldn't have been.
