[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] we are back. We will pick up where we left off and start with senator cruz for his questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Ross, congratulations to you and your family on this nomination. I think you are going to do a terrific job and i look forward to this committee working closely with you. Ill tell you one of the things im most excited about, you and i had an opportunity to visit at length, and your commitment to regulatory reform, to working to reduce the burdens of washington on Small Business and job creators i think its critically important and i think it is shared by cabinet appointees throughout this administration. And that is what aspect that is going have among the most dramatic impacts on bringing back a jobs, expanding the number of highpaying jobs and raising wages across the country. So i commend you for that. I want to talk about a number of specific areas. I want to start with addressing spectrum, which as you know its been a long time interest of this committee. And the demand for spectrum continues growing at remarkable levels. Indeed, u. S. Mobile data doubled usage from 2012 to 2013 and is projected to increase by 650 by 2018. And spectrum is always scarce but thats exacerbated by the fact that the federal government owns or shares roughly half of the spectrum. And that presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It is a challenge in that Government Agencies that are notoriously reluctant to give up or share any of the spectrum that they have control of. It is an opportunity in that it provides the potential for billions of dollars of revenue to the federal government while at the same time opening up new spectrum that can create millions of highpaying jobs and increase wages across the country. I wanted to ask you, i think there is room for a lot of creative policymaking, working with your fellow cabinet members who have control of spectrum to find a way to incentivize those agencies to work to make more spectrum available for the public and have it be a winwin all around. I wanted to ask you to comment on that and in particular for a commitment to work with me and work with this committee to explore significantly increasing the bandwidth and spectrum that is available to the public, and the revenue that would be available to the federal government. You need to turn your microphone on, sir. I think it is absolutely essential that we do that. I think the tricky part is the one that you and i discussed at some length, which is how do you incentivize other agencies to give up the spectrum that perhaps they dont really need . I think theres a natural tendency for everyone to want to keep on two things in case they need it pics i think the tricky thing which probably would involve Public Policy questions for the congress would be how do you provide some sort of an incentive . Is there something that commerce itself can do, if confirmed, i will do my best to put that into effect, but i dont see anything immediately obvious as a solution that congress itself to do. I look forward to our working together and to solve it together creatively. Let me shift to a different topic. Which is there is been growing concern about china making acquisitions in the United States, and among other things gaining significant influence in the u. S. Movie industry. Making major acquisitions, potentially creating an environment where Entertainment Companies in the United States engage in selfcensorship because of foreign ownership. That concerns all of us who care about free speech and do not want to see speech censored by other nations. Do you share those concerns, and what steps do you see potentially that we could take to mitigate those concerns . I think its one of the most important questions facing us right now, and its not just food. Food is certainly an element of National Security by any measure. But its also little hightech companies, they are making a lot of Venture Capital investments and maybe the dollars are not so significant but the technology potentially is. And in areas like semiconductor, im very, very concerned about that because they are the Worlds Largest, they, the chinese are the Worlds Largest consumer of semi conductors, so far importing it a lot from here. Semiconductors are a building block. Second, when president elect trump convened the hightech ceos a few weeks ago, i was struck to learn from them that the closer they get to content, the more constrictive the chinese are on their activities. So it seems not very reciprocal that they want to control entertainment and other media i. T. And are yet denying our companies anything getting remotely close to that. So there isnt even a balance and thats a separate problem thats characteristic of a lot of the relationships within. I look forward to working with you on that issue. My time has expired. Let me briefly ask a final question which this committee has expressed considerable concern over the decision of the Prior Administration to transfer control of icann, the basic infrastructure of the internet to a consortium of Foreign Countries including countries like russia and china and iran. Do you share those concerns and we commit to working with this committee to ensure that we protect free speech on the internet and that we do not allow enemies of free speech to exercise authority that restricts our freedoms here in america . As such a big market and really as the inventors of the internet, im a little surprised that we seem to be essentially voiceless in the governance of that activity. That strikes me as an intellectually incorrect solution, but im not aware of what it is that we actually can do right now. To deal with that. If some realistic alternative comes up i would be very interested in help to explore. Senator baldwin is up next. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Ross, its good to see it again. I appreciate your coming by my office last week to discuss various trade issues, thats what i want to start. You authored the trump trade doctrine, and its something i think i shared with you at first glance i agree with substantial part of it. Like you and president elect trump i believe that we need a new approach to trade. And i hope that we can, in fact, Work Together on creating a new trade agenda that increases wages, create jobs and cracks down on cheating from countries like china. And strengthens the Manufacturing Sector in our country and in states like wisconsin. I hope that we can Work Together to achieve these goals in the years ahead. While trade has gained a lot of National Attention recently, its really been on the top of my mind for many years, and certainly my constituents, too. Given that we share some of the trade priorities id like to take an opportunity to drill down a bit further into some of your plans to ensure that they will improve Economic Opportunities of wisconsinites who have really borne the brunt of some bad trade deals, very directly. Mr. Ross, you and the president elect has spoken often about your desire to renegotiate one of our nations trade agreements, nafta. I, too, have concerns without agreement. Most notably, its prohibition of by america program. The procurement chapter of that agreement allows mexicans and Canadian Companies to bid for american taxpayer financed projects as domestic companies. Can you commit to eliminating the procurement chapter in nafta . I think all aspects of nafta would be put on the table, and that certainly is going to be a topic that would come up, but you dont have two do on anything until you have to deal and everything. So exactly what would come in a final treaty or not is a little bit premature to say. But i am certainly aware of the issue, and certainly aware of the president elects you about buy america. Let me ask you in a slightly different way of understanding the complexities of renegotiating multilateral trade agreements. Going forward do you believe that our trade agreements should allow Foreign Companies to bid as American Companies through taxpayerfunded projects . I think its a highly questionable practice, and i think that it is one that has to be done with extreme care. They are probably a few segments where there may be technology that someone has that we can avail ourselves of, maybe some circumstances where its totally appropriate. But many countries have the equivalence of buy america. Its not an unusual factor. And the chinese most of all i very good, good in the sense of strong policies, and i think that there should be a reciprocity. And at least of American Companies cant bid on projects there, doesnt strike me as very logical that the company should be able to bid on projects here. Reciprocity, it seems to me, is a fundamental principle, even at the devotee oh and its one that is most honored by some of our nature trading partners. In the trump economic plan, you discussed the phenomenon as caused by both a push of burdensome american regulations and the poll from Foreign Countries who do not have our labor or environmental standards. Youve also been critical of the Obama Administration and their actions to prevent Climate Change and to protect labor rights domestically. In order to level the Playing Field, as you have proposed, can you commit to holding our trading partners to Higher Standards or only to lowering hours . The existing trade agreements have very, very weak enforcement in general, and particularly weakened enforcement in environmental and labor. Take mexico, for example. The minimum wage in mexico has barely changed in pesos for quite a few years. And the peso has depreciated quite a lot against the dollar. So on a purchasing power basis, the average mexican worker is far worse off than he or she was five or 10 years ago. That was not the original intent of nafta. One of the original intense was to bring up the standards of living there, bring up the Labor Conditions of their, make them a little bit more stable and more prosperous economy. And, frankly, reduce the gap for the productivity adjusted wages between the two countries. It hasnt worked that way, and that has to be, or if i am confirmed, will be a very serious topic for consideration. Thank you, senator baldwin. Senator moran. Mr. Ross, thank you very much for your interest in Public Service and your care for americans and their jobs. Let me first just associate myself with what the senator from mississippi, senator wicker, indicated to you and the conversation that we had in my office. I would add to his voice and tht Infrastructure Program needs to include broadband expansion, particularly in rural and underserved areas. And so mr. Wicker race that topic with you. I wont spend any more time on it. I want to talk a bit about spectrum, wireless. First of all, senator udall and i have worked on legislation that was included in the budget act of 2015. It provided more funding and flexibly for federal agencies to use the Spectrum Reallocation Fund for research and develop related to our spectrum activities. It was our intention this additional funding and flexibility would result in a more efficient use of spectrum by federal users and free up more government spectrum for commercial use. Omb overseas that fund but it does so in consultation with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration as part of the department of commerce. I would like to have you assured me that the srf will be utilized to achieve those goals in your Administration Department of commerce, and as a followon i would indicate to you in following the center from nebraskas commentary about the use of spectrum, theres 82011 gao report that basically said that ntia you to improve its Spectrum Management policies to promote more efficient use of federal spectrum and the way i read that i think it bluntly indicated that ntia overseas, while it oversees the spectrum it is often pushed around by bigger federal agencies and departments. And, therefore, its difficult to get them, those agencies and departments who have little incentive to cooperate to give up their valuable spectrum. And i would ask you what can be done with ntia to get this to work better than it does today . I dont intend to be pushed around by anyone. I like the answer it also allows me to ask an additional question. We [laughter] we have taken a special interest in the efficiency of i. T. Procurement and you indicated in your testimony that its an area of, such of interest in. Senator udall again and i introduced an act we call move it. It later involved into a legislation that designed to better accommodate agencies who seek a particular i. T. System, but theyre unable to do so in their current budget framework. I again would ask you to commit towards, attention towards modernizing the department of commerce and its i. T. Infrastructure, particularly its legacy i. T. , and you believe the federal government can better leverage commercial cloudbased solutions to save money and increase security . Im a very big proponent of cloud. We have used it a lot in private sector, and as far as we can tell it is not only more efficient, its probably also more secure for lots of very complicated technical reasons. I think its a very important thing for government to do. And also have systems that talk to each other. Theres an awful lot of silo in both within commerce and outside of commerce. And i think that is not a very satisfactory end result. We need to all be similar quality and efficiency of communication. I think the tricky part of it is where to get the funding to make the change over . Because there are some onetime costs to doing these. Commerce already has several initiatives underway, and certainly encouraged by what ive learned about those. And i think much more could be done. I would indicate too many times the headline issue that we can deal with our left, they overcome the Good Government issues that are so desperately needed. Let me finally say that as i indicated in my office that trade is an important, exports is an important matter to gantt center manufacture airplanes sold around the globe, agricultural commodities. I would highlight that for you but i would also point out that you that china recently increased its antidumping duties at his antisubsidy tariffs on u. S. The decision came just days after the chinese can decide to increase tariffs on u. S. Ethanol from 5 to 30 . Kansas farms also continued to be held back by chinas refusal to approve new varieties of biotech corn which happen in 2014 i support a debbie tl case suspect that we deal. My point is too often we negotiate trade agreements and theyre designed to level the Playing Field in regard to tariffs but in all the other issues that a country can bring to play, we highfive ourselves with the satisfaction of reaching a trade agreement but then we miss the point of defending and fighting the other things that prevent our products from getting into other countries. It seems compatible with what you been testifying. It is. Ive been a victim over the years of some of these nontrade, nontariff trade barriers. And there are quite insidious. But also, unfortunately, they can be quite effective. We need to deal with those. Its not enough to have an agreement that just hits tariffs. Its one of the reasons i think there should be systematic re openers of trade agreements after a few year period. Because its hard to anticipate the ingenuity that some of these folks have to get around the intent of the agreement. So i think an automatic reopener, whether its a sunset provision are just a real butter would be a very useful thing. So look back at what was originally contemplated, look back at what was originally projected to occur and to say we didnt achieve those objectives, why not and what do we need to do to fix them . I think an agreement like nafta, 40 years old and has never been a systematic transparent review of it. Mr. Ross, if you are confirmed i intend to become on your shoe. I got that impression the other day. Thank you, sir. He is, on our shoe on lot, too. Just to that point, women victims, my state has come of agricultural producers, particularly beef producers. We call it honey laundering which is something the chinese event particularly effective at and we do need to enforce our laws and make sure people are playing by the rules. Some very important issue to a lot of people on this committee. Senator capito. Thank you. Good afternoon now, mr. Ross, and thank you as well for joining me in my office last week. I enjoyed our conversation and they just wanted to kind of reiterate a few the issues that you and i talked about. No surprise for you here in terms of whats important to the state of West Virginia. We talked about the transition of our state from a cold econoy hopefully to a more high tech, keeping our cold economy going also trying to diversify. One of the administrations under the department of commerce is the eda. Recently the epa has taken a renewed interest, thank goodness, my other peoples urging to really look at the severe travelogues in regions and to use those dollars to maximize the effect of entrepreneurship, catastrophe building and other ways for us to diversify our economy whether its agriculture, hightech, Energy Sector jobs. Even though its not a large agency in terms. Given its budgetary constraints, that is probably the most it can do, but i think that can be a very valuable function if properly applied. It absolutely can. In some of the rule areas where we have trouble attracting capital and investment, it can be first in, or last in and have some complete projects at the