Transcripts For CSPAN Ginnie 20240704

Court, campaigns and more from the world of politics. Let your fingertips. You can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information and it cspan radio, plus a variety of podcasts. Cspan now is available in the apple store and google play. Download it for free today. Cspan now, your front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. Ginnie mae president Alanna Mccargo talks about Housing Demand and expanding access to housing. Bill good morning everyone and welcome to the bipartisan policy center. Ginnie mae provides a Critical Role in the housing system. If providers securities insured by the federal housing administration, the veterans administration, u. S. Cas Rural Housing service and the home Loan Guarantee program. Ginnie mae helps connect investors from across the globe to the u. S. Housing market. This promotes the availability of mortgage credits to millions of households served by federal housing programs. Our guest today is certainly no stranger to those in the housing field, where she has enjoyed a long and distinguished career. Alanna Alanna Mccargo was sworn in as ginnie maes 18th president in 20 to anyone. 2021. Prior to joining the biden harris administration, she was Vice President of the Housing Finance policy center at the urban institute, where she helped advance the National Policy conversation around reducing racial homeownership and wealth gaps, and removing barriers to credit and capital. She also has held Important Roles in the private sector, with core logic and jpmorgan chase. From 2000 22012, she worked at fannie mae, focusing on Mortgage Market programs and policy. She executed on the housing and economic recovery act of 2008, including implementation of new programs to promote Mortgage Servicing reforms, foreclosure prevention and loss mitigation solutions. Thank you for joining us. Before we start our conversation, let me remind our virtual audience that if you have questions for our guest, who can post them to upper twitter x account epc bipartisan. We are welcome to submit questions in the youtube chat. He will save some time at the end to take questions from both our in person audience and our virtual audience. Let me begin, ginnie mae is one of the most important financial agencies in washington, i think it is also one of the least understood, for those in the Virtual World and in the room, who might not be as familiar with the Critical Role of ginnie mae, can you start off by going through the Organizations Mission . Alanna thank you for having me, it is great to be at the bipartisan policy center. It has been a long time since i have been here. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about ginnie mae. It is true, very important to the Housing Finance system, not only in the u. S. About globally if our Investor Base given our Investor Base and i were well known. I learned this when i was going through my confirmation process, i would tell people, President Biden has nominated need to be the president of the Government National mortgage association. Nobody knew what it was. Except for you guys in the room. It was interesting, i have been spending my time explaining what we do and the great work and great Public Service Public Servants that are working with us. We are a government owned corporation, that is unique. We are housed within that apartment of housing and urban development. We provide explicit Credit Guarantee of the u. S. Government on our mortgage back securities program. We basically guarantee timely payments to investors. The federal housing administration, fha, v. A. , Rural Housing, and pih, are all government mortgage Lending Programs that provide access to credit to communities and people underserved, low to moderate income, specialized populations. We do singlefamily and multifamily, we back the Health Care Program at fha. And to the loans that are made for hospitals and senior care facilities. We back 100 of the multi Affordable Housing program, there is a lot of good things to talk about as it relates to the role we play in making housing affordable and creating liquidity and access. We are also we have two critical stakeholders in the secondary market, issuers being one of them, thanks, Financial Institutions that are doing mortgage lending, and also investors around the globe who are investing in mortgagebackeo put more money back in the system. A Critical Role, that is the place where we play. Our issuers are a volunteer army. Because doing issuance is a different model. We have a heavy reliance on issuers, they are primarily nonbanks, that was different where we were 10 years ago. The dynamics, the risk profile, everything in our business has changed since the great financial crisis. Bill the lenders are insured by federal Government Agencies, are the lenders also the issuers of the securities . Alanna yes, lenders are the issuers of securities for ginnie mae. It is a very different model than the gses. Bill can you explain that, people are more familiar with fannie mae and freddie mac. Alanna one of the biggest differences, fannie and freddie, they are involved in underwriting, creating of the policies underlying the lowdens loans made. They also issue and have different a different business model. Ginnie mae, because of our model, with our explicit guarantee, we are in a fourth loss position. We stand behind a number of counterparties before we take any losses. We essentially do not create underwriting guidelines. We securitize loans that are made under the guidelines of the federal agencies that make mortgages. We do not influence that process, we work with those agencies closely to make sure we understand the guidelines and what is in the securities underlying those. And then we manage the risks of counterparties, which are the issuers. A very different model that puts us in a better loss position then you might think. On august 1, ginnie mae celebrated its 55th birthday. 55 years of grace work without interruption great work without interruption from the federal government. Going from 500 million enterprise to a 2. 5 trillion organization, the growth has been incredible. And the story of the 55 years has been transformative to see a Government Agency keep pace with the changes that have happened technologically or otherwise. It has played a crucial role in making sure access to credit and Affordable Housing has been made available to low to moderate income famines, veterans, seniors. Income families, veterans and seniors. I worked on the epc Housing Mission report. A key part of our report was envisioning a new house and finance system for the u. S. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. We are attracted by the fourth loss model of ginnie mae. You have been president for almost two years. Give us your top priorities. Alanna it has been an interesting time, as you can all imagine and as you are all experiencing in the housing market. Coming out of the pandemic, we started there. We did a lot of work focused on how we in the secondary market could support the programs that the agencies were putting in place around loss mitigation. We did Creative Things in the secondary market, creating fortyyear security program. We did a repooling program which enabled billions of dollars of modified loans to be able to be resecuritized. We have done a lot of development, that is where we started. When we got here, the pandemic was very much real a real driver of what was happening. We were seeing the largest number of defaults of mortgages underlying. There was a lot of support and liquidity our issuers needed. We focused there. We have been our Risk Management program has been the number one thing that we think about, who our issuers are, are they financially in good health . We have seen a transformation of the underlying issuer base that supports us. The independent mortgage bankers, nonbanks has really stepped up since the crisis and has done the majority of government lending and disproportionately serving those we are here to serve. That has been a huge shift from pre2008 and postpandemic, we have a whole new landscape we are supporting that is supporting this housing market. We started doing everything we can to stay on top of, understand what is happening, watching the factors, prepayments, defaults. That has been a top priority, including the recent announcements about eligibility requirement changes. We partner to make sure we could bes could be consistent. That is on portman important. We have work going on to try to expand access to the platform. This is not a way we would have talked about ginnie mae, but ginnie mae has the power to enable scale. There are small institutions that do not have access to us because our eligibility requirements require huge volumes to participate and be an issuer. We are doing work with federal home loan banks to figure out ways to aggregate, to get communitybased lenders and others access to the platform. As you know, one of the first things President Biden did when he came into office was put out an executive order about equity. It focused on equity in housing. It challenged every single agency, we were charged to look at how ginnie mae can be a bigger player in making access to financing more equitable. We think there is an Important Role that we could play there. In order to do that, not only do we need to be helping and serving who we serve today through the system, but we need to make our platform or accessible more accessible. So that has been a huge focus for us. Bill you mentioned nonbanks becoming much larger segment of lenders in the fha program. Nonbanks do not have access to the fedswindow, they do not have a Customer Base a deposit base to tap into. What are the unique concerns that . Alanna what you are talking about israel, that dynamic at the beginning of the pandemic that everybody was fearful about. Which was what is the liquidity that will help there was a real concern that things would stop at the beginning. You remember this, everybody was like, wait a minute, we will have a serious issue here. We were saved thankfully, the nonbank issuers and others were able to maintain and grow because of the refinancing and flow we were in a low Interest Rate environment. That kept folks going. They did not need it. But at the time we did put the Assistance Program in place, a liquidity support. But it is not perfect. It does not help in always all ways. There are a lot of people asking for the government to figure out ways the for these nonbanks to tap into the liquidity that are available to the inking sector. That did not get where it needed to get. Nonbank liquidity is the biggest challenge of our time, especially now. Because we are not in a 3 Interest Rate environment. The cost for them to borrow, the cost of credit, the lack of being in a purchase market with refinances is a huge stress on the system. We are thinking about this every day, working with our partners at treasury and elsewhere to figure out how we could support what ways the government could support in the future a more robust facility for the nonbanking sector. We have not figured it all out yet. But a huge i believe, speaking for myself, one of the biggest needs, we do not need to enter another crisis of any kind , and not know how we are going to support these institutions. They are incredibly important to the system and the constituents we serve. And so their failure is a major, major problem for all of us. We have to figure out what that will look like and that has been the work we have been focused on. Bill thank you for that. You alluded to President Bidens executive order on equity. I know the National Housing conference, with numerous organizations are trying to increase the number of whack homeowners black homeowners by 2030. What world do you see ginnie mae playing and closing the racial homeownership cap . It homeownership gap . Closing the racial homeownership gap is crucial. Could you elaborate or on how you are playing into that . Alanna this work on closing ritual homeownership gap has been my careers work. I think thank President Biden for being thoughtful. It was a day one thing, that is not typical. Support for underserved communities throughout the federal government. I feel like, it empowered all of us to think deeply about how the mechanisms come a the agencies we support, and are accountable for can be a part of that. It made us think outside of the box. In the conversations we would have with partners, lending institutions, banks, nonbanks, it is they are now as a thing for us to continue to think about. It is important, it should always be, we do not have the Playing Field has not been leveled, we have a lot of work to do to try to close the gaps that persist in our country. The racial homeownership gap has grown, the pandemic there was a boost, a lot of homeownership created throughout the pandemic, which is a great thing. And now, we are in a position or situation where home prices are very high, Interest Rates are high, and to the ability to afford anything in terms of Monthly Payment is hard. Especially for firsttime homebuyers, which ginnie mae supports the majority of firsttime homebuyers. It is important to me that we continue, and the work we are doing to try to expand access to the ginnie mae platform. I am a believer, i have said this, in order to really expand homeownership opportunity for black and brown communities, we have got to have we have to talk about government lending. That is where many first time homebuyers, getting their first opportunity in homeownership, that is where they are getting their loans. Having more, more participants, doing fha lending, v. A. Lending, rural lending, creating the scale, that is where we can make a difference. We have been focused on where we can create scale in the system to help close the gaps. That has been priority and a focus for us at ginnie mae every single day. Bill i know you think of ginnie mae as a demandside organization, promoting liquidity and access. I was surprised when i was reading the federal housing supply action plan, of reference to ginnie mae where it includes a proposal to make the recently relaunched federal Financing Banks Risk Sharing Program, which provides low interest loans to state and local Housing Finance agencies permanent and creating a Financing Mechanism through ginnie mae. Could you explain that and, how would it work . Alanna there is a multi family Risk Sharing Program that creates financing for multifamily developments. It is in connection with fha on the multifamily side. It is a terrific program, it is supported by treasury and the federal Financing Bank. I forgot what year, 2014, it was a temporary program. To help spur more development and support of financing in communities and states. And it was shut down in the last administration. It was allowed to expire. That was a lot of financing to communities and states that was out of the picture for a while. As soon as biden came in, one of the first priorities was to get it back up. So we worked to reinstitute the program, it is currently in place again, it is temporary. We have been pushing at ginnie mae, and got into the president s budget for 2020 four, creating a Permanent Program. We believe this is an important source of financing and we can play a role in that. Together we could work to create a program and market for togethk to create a program for these risksharing loans. The risksharing happens between the state Housing Finance agencies and fha. Its supported by the Financing Bank inside of treasury. We think there is a model that can be created and thats what we are pushing to get the funding and authorization to do from congress so we can play a Critical Role in a Permanent Program in the future. It doesnt mean the program goes away but it means we can scale because fsb is limited to i think 19 states and maybe a few more. Its hard as a state if you think about it to make a commitment to a program like that and invest in operationalizing that when its temporary and it may go away again as measures change. I think thats unfair to ask states to do that and i think if we had a permanent solution and they can build their systems and infrastructure to support that, that would be a win win and its a great way to spur and support these great Affordable Housing developments that are happening on the multifamily sound side we need to see in our supply picture. So. We definitely need more affordable multifamily housing, also known as rental housing. Yes. When the ppc 10 years ago proposed this new Housing Finance system would be based on the ginnie mae model, we got pushback from people and using the ginnie mae platform, using ginnie mae and expanding ginnie mae, people said, oh, ginnie mae has Outdated Technology and outdated processes. They have workforce issues. I know you are making increase investment in technology and modernization including a full migration to the cloud. Dont ask me what that means but i understand thats what you are doing. Yeah. Dont ask me. Yes. Tell us about that. I would say as federal agencies go, i think ginnie mae is the top of the house in terms of the platform that has been built to support the securitization engine, the partners we have in network is crucial. We run billions of dollars every single month in payments to investors without fail. And so, we have been, and weve done that successfully forever. We have never missed a payment, we have never missed a beat. So the technology has been there to really support this. Again, we are, i think, leadingedge, and we certainly are in our migration to the cloud. That was a huge huge milestone for the agency. It enables us to be a lot more nimble. We were working with and i know everyone is familiar with this old systems and and antiquated systems. This transition of our applications enables us to work more efficiently with their issuers. It just speeds of time and helps us with visibility. And i will say of the most one important things we have done is really improve the data that we have that is helping to enable our business. So, um, we have done a lot of work, not only moving to the cloud which is an enabling baseline, but we had worked to secure now all of the underlying data. And i will say that i was shocked to learn, especially me i a data person i come from a am data background i was shocked to learn that ginnie mae did not have access to all of the federal agencies underlying data at the loan level. Interesting. Hmm. So, i was like, would not it be great for fha loans, but we dont have all the underlying data at our fingertips. All of that. We have mous and agreements in place with all the insuring agencies that we package. We now have that data and access and that enables a lot of analytics and tools and so many things we can do. It is a big part of our esg program and enables us to get investors and transparency in what is in the box, and that has been important. I dont know weekly will talk about esg but if you want to talk about what were doing in that space, but this data enablement and this Cloud Foundation is really advancing our ability to support our issuer base and be very transparent with our investors on whats happening. And so that is why the Technology Journey has been so crucial for us. Lets talk about esg. That is environmental, social and governance factors which is a hot button issue in washington. I dont think it should be. But tell me what you are doing. Sure. It is, it is this is work thats interesting. As i travel the world and talk to investors, they are demanding more information and they have mandates from their government s or from their boards or whatever they may be, to do more work that is socially conscious, sustainable, supporting climate and all the different environmental factors. And so they are looking at us and saying we do big investing in you, can you tell us what it is in these securities . Our ability to do that was required that we had this data access and we could make disclosures with confidence about what was in our underlying loan set. And so, that, that has been a game changer, so it means we are on the map. Ginnie mae from its start 55 years ago has been a social we are probably one of the biggest social Impact Enterprises but we dont talk about ourselves that way, but because if you think about who we are serving to this platform, when you start to look at that and break it down, it is pretty incredible and you can tell a good story, and we are also thinking about this in terms of cra. When cra was going through its renovation, we gave the regulators, we have the data now. Investing in ginnie mae, maybe folks should get credit for that, and when it comes out, there is a really big convection between esg and cra and there is a lot of good that can be done in the secondary markets participation around both of those initiatives. We are doing environmental. Environmental. We are doing green bonds, so investors can see when a security is made up of a lot of loans that have underlying efficiency and factors. All that data is there. We won an award for most issuance and green. We are behind that. I have been talking about this for a long time. We are catching up another we have the data we can catch up pretty fast. The social bond aspect of the we are a social bond. And so now it is just a matter of disclosing low to moderate income variables, firsttime homebuyer, down payment assistance, senior citizens, basically identifying the communities and individuals that we are serving underneath that underlie our bond of being able to tell investors that. They are hungry for that, so where in the process of trying to figure out how to label our bond as a social impact bond and give that data on a monthly basis to investors that they know exactly what they are investing in so that they can then turn around and say hey, we are doing this investment in doing more of this that we can meet you know xyz mandate that the government or that their board may require that them, so it feels like a winwin esg does for us and were not doing anything different. We are just telling people what they have, in what you have it ginnie mae is naturally social, so again, its not a new construct but not a new program, it is supporting investors to do more to put money in the u. S. Housing finance system so we can vent to more people. You mentioned hot button, to me, its a hot button and im excited about it, but it is not a hot button, we are not doing anything differently, we are just talking about it differently, and i think that Transparency Matters and it also helps to bring more and it is why we are seeing so much growth in demand for our securities, so. Thank you. We can take questions now from the audience, if anyone has a question here in person. Just please raise your hand and i think we have a microphone that can be brought to you. Anybody have a question here . Dont be bashful. Yes, sir. I am interested to hear state your name and where you are from. Hugo dante, washington analysis, thank you for speaking to us today. How do you anticipate ginnie mae interacting with future esg programs . We put our thoughts into the regulators heads around how ginnie mae, or how banks could get credit for investing in ginnie mae, so i believe that a lot of banks do have esg reports coming out in programs that they are trying, so there is an opportunity within cra to figure out a way to give banks credit for that, and we are hopeful we will see the rulemaking. Nobody has seen it yet. Its supposed to come out any day now. We are hopeful that credit for investment on the investment side for ginnie mae will be part of that because we think that is a great great driver of more production, cra credit, and esg credit could be a really positive thing, and also keep banks involved, which banks have been involved. I mentioned we transition from a 9010 banknonbank to now completely flipped where nonbanks are dominant. But if we keep the incentives there on the investment side of banks participating in that program, it feels like a winwin and a great way to continue to keep the banks involved and engaged in a meaningful way. In making Housing Finance flow in this country, so that, it is, it is another idea. Many ideas were put on the table during the cra rulemaking and we are anxious to see where everything lands with that once they come out with that. Anybody else have a question here . Any questions from the virtual audience . Yes. Sophia. Are there any updates on ginnie maes efforts to reform the title i program for personal property loans for manufactured homes . Good question. Yes. It is a good question. It is probably a jennie may purse and or fha person that planted that one. [laughter] so there are updates. Last year or maybe earlier this year, im losing track of the years, but fha and janine may Work Together in fha put out something that has been collecting and gathering input on the title i program for personal property loans. We are working sidebyside with them and plan to come we got a lot of the back from that rfi that was ginnie mae specific. Things that made it very difficult to securitize these loans, participate in issuing these, and we have taken better heart and have been working on making pretty pretty substantial upgrades and updates to how the manufactured housing title i program, title loans, personal loans, how those will work in the future and open up opportunities for more issuance of that type of collateral. That is again, when you talk about affordable, collateral type that really needs a boost and would benefit greatly from the ability to do more and scale, this is another sweet spot for us, so we are doing everything we can to try to work with fha and really make the program more attractive. As i mentioned earlier, most of the lending fha does, i think it is almost 90 of it, ends up in a ginnie mae security. That tells us that when new programs are put out, if we can make sure we can securitize them and put them back in the market, that is a good outcome and more of it will be done. So this is another place where you will see some policy action from fha and ginnie mae in the future, the near future. Probably before year end. Great. Any more questions from the virtual audience . We have another question, which is how can ginnie mae support Community Land trusts . Communities are adopting shared equity approaches to provide a step on the first rung of the housing ladder, but mortgage financing can be unavailable. Unavailable. Yeah. Thats a good question. Yeah, it is a great question. We have not worked directly with Land Community trusts, but i know there are a lot of shared equity models that have been tested. I dont want to say controversy, but i know there are a lot of people thinking about the shared equity approaches as, if the equity is sharing with the borrower and you are trying to advance black homeownership, for example, why do the black homeowners have to share equity . That is something i got feedback on when i was at the institute. People are trying to understand how these approaches benefit the borrower, and can we be equitable about how that works . I think, and i 100 agree, communities that are adopting shared equity approaches are seeing Good Progress in that. We almost need them, especially with these really unaffordable prices where it is almost impossible to buy. Shared equity approaches can make sense. I dont know they make sense everywhere, but i definitely think in highcost markets it makes a lot of sense. And i would say getting on the first rung of the housing ladder, the role ginnie mae can play in that is having banks and other Financial Institutions and nonbanks support fha lending and and that kind of lending. Those loans are for firsttime homebuyers. Absolutely. So that mortgage financing would be available as long as we have participants in those communities that are working with the Community Land trust making those loans. And this is where again, i think the work we are doing to expand through the task force, to expand access to the ginnie mae platform, doing more government lending, i feel like all of that could Work Together to really enable this Community Land trust approach to work better, special programs, special credit programs, ginnie mae could support those. That that could be ways that we could get those types of initiatives off the ground. At scale. Great, anymore questions . Yeah. Self appleton. Seth appleton. Someone who knows what hes talking about. Its good to see a former leader of pnr and the current leader of ginnie mae on the stage. I feel right at home. One thing you mentioned was kind of the differences between ginnie and the gse market. And, last fall, i believe it was, fha announced they were undertaking a pretty large transition in credit scoring, including new models and the use of alternative Credit Scores as well. So far that has been kind of confined to the conventional market. But you know, whenever these things come up, there is the question of what are the Government Agencies going to do because obviously bifurcation between the Government Programs and the gse backed conventional market always raises interest and concerns from the industry and Market Participants as well. And so my question i guess, have there been thoughts of migrating the kind of credit scoring, you know, current requirements on the government lending side, how does ginnie think about that . What do investors think about that . Would love your thoughts on that. Sure. Yeah, we have been really in a lot of dialogue with the insuring agencies. And with director thompson about what they are doing on the conventional side. To your point, seth, and it is a great one and important one, most people enter the government lending space throughout fannie mae or freddie mac platform. Most lenders put their information in on a borrower and it goes through engines and tells you what the products are that come out on the end of that. And if there are differences, like the gses are the first place people look, then it goes further down the government lending. If you cant easily flow down to the government Lending Program because you have a different construct than what the government is expecting, that is a problem. Um, that is a barrier to access potentially. That means you are flowing down. For example, if you have only two Credit Scores in a different system or whatever in the government is not affecting that, youve got an issue. Weve just spent a lot of time talking about how we can get to the place that makes sense, which is that we have one way in which we look at things and that is a lot of work on fha and other agencies to determine how they want to, how they are going to, or what modifications they would ask the conventional market to make so that we could have one system that flows. Because, as you know, the Government Agencies dont have underwriting engines. And so, that is a big deal. So that is the lens in which im looking at it from, making sure that weve got these insuring agencies at the table and that they are thinking about the implications and if they are going to make changes that we have as much abundant as possible because it is really important, especially in this space. It is a great question and im glad you raised that one. Theres other issues like that. You know, beyond credit scoring. But that has been a big one. And i feel like um, and i know because i have talked with sandra about this, we are going to Work Together and work through this. Weve been collaborating really well, i feel like, with fhsa and that is important to me and to director thompson and secretary fudge that we do that, and commissioner gordon at fha and others have been ready and willing to be at the table to talk through how we can do this so we dont disrupt or create barriers in the future. Thank you for that question and thank you for that answer. I am going to offer the last question you have had really a remarkable career in the private sector, in the think tank world, be nonprofit think tank world. Government service, now leading a major financial institution. It seems like the Common Thread is mission, Public Service. So, what pearls of wisdom would you convey to those who are looking, those young people out there who are looking for a career in Public Service the way you have . Yeah. Well, you know, i encourage young people to get interested in the Mortgage Market because i think we need talented young people to do this work. It is a massive industry and theres a lot of different opportunities at different points in the process, and we have a lot of needs. New appraisers, new folks getting into mortgage lending, folks getting into the federal government to support. Ginnie maes hiring, we do constantly look for new talent. We have been very successful. I should mention it is kind of one of those underpinning things that happens in the background. Weve been working really hard to expand the budget and resources and staff at ginnie mae. We have been woefully under resourced. If you look at the account to the size of the portfolio that is now under our control, not to mention along the way, sometimes institutions fail and i guarantee goes into effect, and what that means is we have a portfolio, too. So we have a Balance Sheet and assets we are managing whether it is reverse mortgages, which we have a big one of those right now, or even mortgages from prior defaults. If there are defaults that are issuers, that is when we step in and we have to take on that operation. We have to make the payment. You know, we become the issuer, servicer of record, so there is a lot of capacity we need to build so that we can do that very well. Because our doing that well matters to taxpayers and that is a big area that we are focusing on. And we have gotten a ton of support from secretary fudge and President Biden, and we have made some strides on increasing our budget. We have more to do there. All that to say we are hiring, looking for talent. It is a great great place. And i should say this, this is a great way to end, the Public Servants that are working there who work very closely with a lot of contractor supports that we have all of the industry, just topnotch. We have such a Phenomenal Team of career Public Servants. Again, a little overworked at the moment, but are always there, so dedicated, looking to find ways to drive forward, ways to innovate. Even with our limited capacity at times. So, so, i just want to say a shout out to my team. The team at ginnie mae is incredible. Everyone who has worked with them would agree. And many of them have been there for a long, long time and have been just we would not be where we are without them. Shout out noted. Career staff. Yes. Unfortunately we are out of time, but i want to thank you very, very much for joining us here. Thank you. I think this was a very insightful and informationrich conversation. So i really appreciate that. I also want to thank everyone who joined us today both here in person at bpc but also in the Virtual World. Have a great rest of the day, everyone. 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Up next, officials from the state and labor departments and the agency for International Development discussed policy towards Central America during an event hosted by the interamerican dialogue. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. Good afternoon. Welcome. Thank you to everyone joining us in person and online for this important discussion about Central America. I want to thank our speakers for being here. I know you are in gravely busy. Thank you for being here. I want to start we have molly mccoy he here, and we were just discussing with you, we typically dont include the department of labor, and im so glad you are here with us today. Wally is the associate deputy under secretary for affairs. At the department of labor. We a