'The Law Actually Does Require That You Submit These': Chris Van Hollen Grills Howard Lutnick Over Reorganization

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At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) questioned Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Transcript

00:00but I will call them and I will have it to you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:05Chairman Collins, thank you very much. Senator Van Halen. Thank you. So, Mr. Secretary, I mentioned

00:13in my opening comments the RIF plans. On February 11th, President Trump signed an executive order

00:20requiring agency heads to plan, quote, large-scale reductions in force, known as RIFs, and agency

00:26reorganization plans. On March 27th, Senator Moran and I sent you a letter requesting that you send

00:33us the plans the department submitted to the White House. It's now June 4th. We've not received a

00:40response. We're in the middle of a budget hearing. First of all, you would agree, would you not, that

00:46your reorganization plans are relevant to the committee's consideration of the budget?

00:52Um, I, I think our proposal for the budget is, is clear. So, I think it takes those things into

01:00account. Mr. Secretary, let me ask you this. Um, are you going to provide us with the reorganization

01:05plan and, and, and when? I will, uh, certainly get together with, uh, with the department and we will

01:13consider what information we can give you that makes sense. But I'm happy to work with you, uh,

01:19offline if you'd like. Okay, Mr. Secretary, I, you're, you're aware of the fact that a, a district,

01:24federal district court, um, ruled that the RIF plans proposed by, uh, the Trump administration,

01:32um, could not go forward, uh, because the judge stated that, quote, agencies may not conduct large-scale

01:39reorganizations or reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress's mandates, and a president

01:45may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress.

01:51Um, that decision was upheld by an appellate court just a few, uh, days ago. Um, I'm not asking

01:57you to opine on that legal decision. I'm simply asking you to provide the committee with the

02:03reorganization plan, and your response is maybe yes, maybe no. Uh, is, is, am I getting that right?

02:12I mean, are you going to provide the plan to the Congress, this, this committee as we review the

02:18budget for the upcoming year? Well, we, we at the department are going to follow the law.

02:24That, of course, is what we're going to do. Okay. Well, the law actually does require that you submit

02:28these major changes to the, the, the Senate. Let me, let me ask you this. Um, I mentioned in my

02:34opening statement the fact that, uh, I'd sent a number of letters, um, to you. Our staff has actually

02:39sent inquiries to your, your team. Um, I have a lot of questions today, but there'll be a lot longer,

02:47um, unless I can get a commitment that you and your team will, um, respond to the inquiries we've

02:54made. These are simple questions. They don't, uh, and I'll, I'll, I'll set aside for now the RIF,

02:59uh, plan. Um, and Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to submit to the record the letters that I've

03:05sent to the secretary and the staff inquiries that my team has made. Without objection. Okay. Mr.

03:10Secretary, will you agree, say within a week to get responses to these inquiries? I can easily agree

03:18that I will go through your letters and to the extent I can answer them, I will happily answer

03:22you within a week. Well, what is, what do you, when you say, I don't know what the letter says. This is an

03:26oversight right now. Well, okay. Mr. Secretary, their, their, their question, I can, I can, well,

03:32we'll just, I'll, I'll read through some of them later in the hearing. Um, we can go through them

03:36one by one. They're pretty straightforward, simple questions about the implications of, um,

03:42the department's actions on certain, certain, uh, programs. Uh, let me turn to the national weather,

03:47uh, service, uh, for a moment because, um, as you know, originally 600 staff were eliminated from the

03:55national weather service. Um, then all of a sudden it seems the department realized that

04:02this was not really a good idea as many weather stations around the country and the chairman

04:07referenced, some of them, uh, said they couldn't be staffed, uh, full time. We have a headline from

04:13just May 15th, Washington Post, Noah scrambles to fill forecasting jobs as hurricane season looms.

04:21Um, uh, I know that we're scrambling to try and rehire about a hundred or higher, 126 people,

04:28but Mr. Secretary, it's my understanding that as of today, offices in Kansas, Alaska and Oregon are

04:34no longer operating 24 hours a day. Is that, is that accurate? The department employs 2100 meteorologists

04:43and hundreds of, uh, of other forecasters. Okay. This is less than 5%. We are fully, fully staffed.

04:54There is no, there are no, uh, openings on the national hurricane center. Zero. It is fully

05:03staffed. We are fully ready for hurricane season and our meteorologists. Mr. Secretary, you did not

05:09answer, you did not answer the direct question about whether, whether those weather offices are open

05:14full time. And, and it's obvious that you all made a huge mistake. I mean, you've acknowledged it by,

05:21you know, having to rehire 126 people, but can you just comment on whether or not those offices

05:27I mentioned are operating 24 hours a day? We have not made a huge mistake. I did not say such a thing.

05:32I didn't say you did. It's pretty obvious from the actions. I, I will, I will, uh, as I, as I said,

05:38you fired 600, you're re-hired. Whose report was inaccurate, obviously?

05:42Obviously. Obviously. Obviously. We're happy to follow up and you can provide the facts.

05:45Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:46Uh, Mr. Secretary, uh, in Kansas, we have lots of, lots of many

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